You can now submit your 2024 revenue claim for Countryside Stewardship (CS) or Environmental Stewardship (ES).
You have until 11.59pm on Wednesday 15 May 2024 to submit your claim without reduction.
Last year we simplified the process for submitting your CS revenue claim online and once again this year you will be able to use this streamlined process.
Before you submit your CS claim, please make sure you have updated your land use codes by signing into the Rural Payments service. If you are unable to access the Rural Payments service, email us at ruralpayments@defra.gov.uk.
If you’re a CS agreement holder who submits an annual revenue claim, an annual declaration will be available to you in the Rural Payments service. As long as there is no change to your claim from last year, you will be able to generate and submit an automated revenue claim for this year with a single click and without needing to complete each section of the claim form.
Watch: How to submit a revenue claim using the Rural Payments portal
If there are any changes to your claim from last year or your agreement includes rotational options, you will need to tell us.
If you are an ES agreement holder, you will receive your claim form by either email or post. You need to complete it and return it to us to submit your claim.
The deadline for submitting your 2024 CS or ES claim without reduction is 11.59pm on Wednesday 15 May.
If you miss this deadline, you still have until 11.59pm on Wednesday 2 September 2024 to submit a claim, but a reduction will be applied to the value of your claim – the later you submit it, the greater the reduction.
The reductions will be applied in the following way:
Date we receive your claim | Reduction applied to claim value |
On or before 15 May | no reduction – full value paid |
Between 16 and 31 May | 5% reduction |
Between 1 June and 1 July | 10% reduction |
Between 2 July and 2 September | 25% reduction |
After 2 September or not received at all | 100% reduction – no claim paid |
Read our guidance on GOV.UK for more information on how to make a Countryside Stewardship or Environmental Stewardship revenue claim.
]]>RPA’s Grants Service team will be attending shows across the country this year and are encouraging farmers and businesses to meet them on the stand to get advice on the Farming Equipment and Technology Fund (FETF) and Farming Technology Fund (FTF) grants available.
The team will be able to give advice on the applications process and the application window dates. Further advice will be available on the appraisal and claims processes.
Sue Strachan from the Grants Service team said: “We’ll be on the RPA stand at many of the larger shows this year to answer face-to-face queries relating to what grants are available, how the grants work and the time frames. We want as many people as possible to come and talk to us to get advice or ask questions, which hopefully we’ll be able to answer on the day, but if we can’t, we’ll take your details and get back to you with the correct information after the event.
“We’ll be sharing a stand at some of the shows with RPA’s shows and events team as well as the Farming and Countryside Team, offering a one stop shop for Defra.”
Paul Shek from the Grants Service team recently attended Farm Expo representing RPA on the stand. He added: “It was great to have that face-to-face contact with farmers which adds another layer of body language that’s missing in phone calls. There was a wide range of farmers attending, from small holdings to large farming businesses. Mostly farmers and external stakeholders came with questions on funding and also queries about their current applications in RPA payment schemes. We also had leaflets and cards to hand out which were of great use to signpost farmers to various gov.uk sites.”
Borderway Dairy | 15 and 16 March 2024 |
North Somerset Show | 6 May 2024 |
The British Pig & Poultry Fair | 15 and 16 May 2024 |
Suffolk Show | 29 and 30 May 2024 |
Royal Cornwall Show 2024 - | 6, 7 and 8 June 2024 |
South of England Show - SEAS | 7, 8 and 9 June 2024 |
Cumberland Show | 8 Jun 24 |
Cereals | 11 and 12 June 2024 |
Royal Three Counties | 14, 15 and 16 June 2024 |
Lincolnshire Show | 19 and 20 June 2024 |
Groundswell | 26 and 27 June 2024 |
Kent County Show | 5, 6 and 7 July 2024 |
Great Yorkshire Show | 9, 10, 11 and 12 July 2024 |
NSA Sheep Event | 30 July 2024 |
Agroforestry show | TBC - September 2024 |
UK Dairy Day | 11 September 2024 |
Westmorland Show | 13 and 14 September 2024 |
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On International Women’s Day, RPA Field Officer Donna Sweetmore, who is one of a 127 strong team of RPA Field Officers making more than 6,500 site visits a year, talks about her role, her background in agriculture and the visibility of women in farming.
Hi, I’m Donna, a Field Officer working in the North West, Lancashire and North Yorkshire. I’m fairly new to the role as I’m just a year in, but I’ve worked in agriculture from a young age - I milked cows; with no parlour, just individual kits and units, so maybe many won’t remember these, and I also helped on my Dad’s milk round. Before joining RPA, I worked in the Veterinary Laboratories Agency on routine diagnostics for zoonotic diseases and parasitology for 18 years, and I’ve also worked at a farm animal veterinary practice.
As a Field officer and part of the Regulatory & Advice Service, I speak to land-owners and farmers on a daily basis. That initial contact with them is so important, so I always approach any one I’m visiting as I’d like to be approached myself. The time of year drives the type of visits, and I work over a wide geographical area so it’s important to plan. We’re currently in cattle season, which I love, and we’ll move on to sheep and then land- based visits.
I always plan my day; working on 24/48hrs notice for most of our visits. Most of the time I’ll speak to the farmer and land-owner to coordinate the visit and try to accommodate timings with them, so if it’s easier to go at milking time to do a cattle inspection, I go early morning. If you’re lucky enough to see the sun rising, you’ve a good day ahead and If you’re even luckier, you get a cup of tea and a slice of cake.
One of the aspects of my role that’s very satisfying is being able to work with farmers to deliver a positive outcome or to make suggestions / adjustments that will help them. Most farmers will ask for guidance, but you can offer information just by talking if you feel it’s needed and chatting to farmers is the aspect of my role that I enjoy most.
There are still misconceptions about women in farming, but it is getting better. Women have always been in farming, and it continues to improve as more women take on roles within farming and in agriculture. There’s no doubt that women are influencing the future of farming in rural areas. Women have a voice in agriculture. Minette Batters, the former president of the NFU, received a standing ovation at the recent NFU conference for the work she has done within the NFU and for farming. I think seeing her as a role model empowers women in farming to speak up.
I play my part in this as I think the aspect of my role that has the greatest impact on farmers is that I, and my fellow Field Officers, are here to work with, and help them. I feel we officiate in keeping British agriculture at the pinnacle of world food production.
Outside work I live in Samlesbury in Lancashire. My partner is a farmer and I enjoy helping him (depending on the job or how grumpy he is). I have three wonderful (sometimes) children, two sons and a daughter, that I love to spend time with. I love walking my dog and I do like to climb a hill or two (slowly). I did the Yorkshire Three Peaks last year. I was just happy to catch the barn at the bottom of Ingleborough serving cups of tea and cake - I think that was my quickest descent down Whernside like a slightly slower Usain Bolt, to make sure It hadn’t closed.
I seem to spend a lot of time cutting up wood at the weekends. It’s normally a family thing - my Dad still uses the chainsaw. At 53 I thought I may have progressed to a better job than picking up logs and stacking them, and alas my children become very scarce at these times.
An old Farmer once said to me, “If you do a job you love, you will never work a day in your life.”
I do believe this; I’m incredibly lucky in my role. I work within a brilliant team and have a fabulous Team Leader. What more could you ask for? (maybe just cake!)
]]>Last summer we launched our RPA Ambassador programme, aimed at getting our people out and about engaging with external audiences. As we explain in our 5 year strategy, we’re keen to grow our presence in rural communities to ensure the interests of farmers are understood. This is so that we can help them through agricultural transition, demonstrating that we will listen, learn and do better.
The Ambassadors represent RPA by engaging with a wide variety of external audiences including farmers, and stakeholders, and the Ambassadors get the chance to gain an increased appreciation of the farming industry. The Ambassadors help support RPA by developing links to the communities we serve, and demonstrating our commitment to our customers through the authentic interactions we have with them.
In this blog Dee Tsouvallaris, a Regional Engagement Manager within the Stakeholder Engagement team, talks about her experience as an RPA Ambassador.
As an RPA Ambassador, I volunteered to attend a DEFRA industry meeting in Nottingham on the replacement for the Fruit & Vegetables (F&V) Aid Scheme. With a smooth, but early (5.59am) train out of Worcester and a bit of an adventure catching a tram through Nottingham, I reached the venue on time.
The people attending were from varied backgrounds and clearly had travelled from all parts of the country. There was also an interesting group of producers from the fruit and vegetable sector who were all very passionate about the industry they worked in. They helped contribute to the discussion on a wide range of issues; on how a new scheme could be created and what support could really benefit to keep the sector flourishing. While taking notes of all that was discussed at the table, I had the opportunity to gain an understanding and insight into the horticultural world and how the UK industry can benefit from becoming more sustainable, provided they receive the extra support and ongoing funding.
After a very successful meeting, I caught up with family living in Nottingham, where I spent the night, and made my way down to Kenilworth early the next morning to attend the DairyTech event at Stoneleigh Park, near Coventry. After some train delays, I reached the venue which was really buzzing with activity - there were many more stands than when I was last there for the CropTech event. After working my way through the bustling crowds, I reached the RPA stand and my colleagues.
I was definitely more at ease and confident this time as I knew what was expected of me as an Ambassador. It was clear that RPA’s presence was continuing to be very well received as we encountered numerous customers approaching the stand and raising queries on the Sustainable Farming Incentive and other grant schemes. As I listened closely to conversations conducted by colleagues, I absorbed invaluable knowledge and updates on other parts of RPA.
I had the chance to engage with lots of customers on farming matters, climate change and its environmental impact. I got to witness first-hand lots of innovative machinery involved with dairy farming and wherever possible, I grasped the opportunity to further promote the amazing work of the RPA Ambassador network.
On the train journey home, I caught up with work emails and summarised notes from the previous day’s event, feeling satisfied from spending two full days as an Ambassador and relishing the opportunities to get out and about to represent RPA.
]]>In this blog we hear from RPA’s Net Zero lead, Michael Sinclair who talks about how RPA is embedding sustainability in everything it does.
I’m going to start this blog with a confession. I don’t consider myself to be particularly ‘green’. Indeed, as an Exeter City fan, going green is often the last thing on my mind (apologies for the reference that the vast majority of people reading this probably won’t get if they don’t have a knowledge of lower league football rivalries!) However, I am passionate about doing the right thing and just wanted to share some of the work we're doing in RPA to embed sustainability in everything we do and show how everyone can play their part.
Net Zero and our 5 Year Strategy
RPA’s 5 Year Strategy contains both internal and external Net Zero commitments which feed into both Defra’s and Greening Government Commitments. From the schemes we administer to the offices we work in, from our travel to our procurement, from our governance to our behaviours, all of these have sustainability ambitions at the heart of them.
How are we embedding sustainability in RPA?
As an accredited paying agency, we administer more than 40 schemes, paying out over £2b annually to support the rural economy. More and more, this money is being paid to support farming in a way that benefits the environment and mitigates the impacts of climate change. Whether it’s our IT or the procurement of services and items, all these corporate services functions have sustainability focused policies and processes in place.
In RPA we recently successfully trialled the Greener Stationery Items catalogue on behalf of the whole of Defra and have now implemented use of this. We’re decarbonising our travel by providing electric vehicles for our travelling field officers and encouraging the use of rail travel wherever possible for travel on official business. Sustainability plays a key part in our governance and all changes to existing processes or new strategies that go to our Directors for agreement require the sustainability impacts to be documented.
Acting sustainably is also referenced in our performance standards for our staff and we’re building on this by actively encouraging everyone who works at RPA to think about their behaviours and make changes to their actions. All of our Directors sponsor a sustainability-related theme and work with staff networks to help us make progress and increase awareness in these areas.
We have training for our staff and team discussions to help them discuss and identify some simple behavioural changes we can make in both our work and private lives. And it’s that sense of collective responsibility and how we can all play our part that will really help us to start making a difference.
]]>RPA offers a wide range of grants and rural payments to farmers, businesses and local authorities. In this series of blogs, we look at the grants available in more detail, using case studies to showcase those who have taken advantage of these opportunities, as well as highlighting the work of the RPA Grants Service Team in administering them. In this blog we meet Emma Topping who works on the Adding Value grant and Small Abattoir Fund.
Hi, I’m Emma and I’m a theme lead manager in the Appraisals team, leading on the Adding Value grant and Small Abattoir Fund. I joined the team three months ago, based in Newcastle, although I’ve been with RPA for three years.
I oversee the applications after they’ve been appraised and then sign them off. I’m also an escalation point for the appraisers if they’re not sure an item applied for is eligible.
Although I’m fairly new to the role, I bring my experience from RPA’s External Affairs team. In that job I escalated MP complaints and correspondence, so I understand how our decisions affect farmers and their business and what impact that can have on their mental health. I see my role as being the last port of call looking at grants – what’s the impact if we don’t pay this grant, and how can we help the customer.
I’m a city girl through and through and although I don’t know the farming side so well, I know customer service, so the aspect of my role I currently enjoy the most is when I understand the project and what will be the benefit to a farmer’s business. I’m getting a crash course on what we do and how it impacts a farm business in real time.
One of the things I’m interested in is how we can support farmers and land managers further. I’m currently looking at our pre-complaints process, such as when there’s an expression of dissatisfaction that’s not actually escalated to a complaint. This piece of work will look to help RPA teams identify this and then see what we can do, such as help a customer understand why a decision has been made, or take the opportunity to have a second look at what we’ve done, and see if we can do it differently.
I’ve been in the Civil Service now for 20 years. Before joining RPA, I was in the Department of Work and Pensions, working in serious and organised crime, providing quality assurance for DWP under counter fraud and compliance.
I joined the Civil Service after my A Levels. I didn’t know what I wanted to do and kind of fell into the Civil Service by accident. I’d been homeless from the age of 15, and did my A Levels in a homeless unit. The Civil Service gave me the stability that I’d missed by having to support myself in that unit from 15 to 18 years of age. Everything I’ve been able to achieve and the support that I’ve had during my career has been wonderful, so I never felt I needed to do anything else.
I also really enjoy mentoring and providing encouragement and support to help people develop their skills and then move on within RPA and get promoted.
As I mentioned, I’m a city girl and I live in Newcastle and outside of work I go to a lot of music gigs and enjoy Roller Derby (wheeled skates.) I’ve got two daughters aged 16 and eight and a Sprocker called Daisy, so we do a lot of dog walking. I’m also a gamer – particularly Assassins Creed Odyssey. The girls typically reject everything I like, except recently the oldest has decided to like all the music I like - heavy metal and rock - and has started to come to gigs with me.
Please visit https://www.gov.uk/guidance/funding-for-farmers regularly for more information as this page sets out every payment on offer, with links to learn more.
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RPA is replacing the Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) in England with delinked payments in 2024. The 2023 scheme year was the last year of BPS.
Delinked payments will be paid each year from 2024 to 2027. We plan to make advance payments of around 50% from 1 August and the balance payments from 1 December. The amount you receive will decrease each year as progressive reductions are applied.
In November and December 2023, to help customers get ready, we sent out Delinked Payments Information Statements for customers to check. This showed their reference amount based on the reference data we held for them at that time. We will use the reference amount to calculate their delinked payments each year.
If you claimed BPS in England in any of the years 2020, 2021 or 2022 and you did not get an information statement, please call us on 03000 200 301.
The transfer window opens today. You can transfer some or all of your reference amount to another business in a 12-week transfer period, until 11.59pm on 10 May 2024. (The 10 May 2024 deadline will not apply in inheritance cases).
You will need full business permissions to either view or transfer reference data.
In most cases, transfer requests can be made in the Rural Payments service, and we have a ‘how to’ guide to help you do this. For transfers from closed businesses and for inherited land cases, you will need to complete a transfer request form and return it to us by the deadline.
We have updated the Delinked payments: replacing the Basic Payment Scheme guidance to include more information about transferring data, closed businesses, and inheritance.
]]>This week, 12-16 February 2024, is the Farm Safety Foundation’s (Yellow Wellies) seventh annual Mind Your Head campaign.
Yellow Wellies is an independent registered charity covering the whole of the UK, set up in 2014 to raise awareness of farm safety and mental health among young farmers aged 16-40 across the UK.
Last year we shared information on the Mind Your Head campaign as we recognise the many challenges facing farming communities, and the impact these can have on mental health. It saddens us to see and hear that financial pressures, including access to subsidies and grants, continue to be a contributing factor and one we’d like to help people overcome.
We’re in a period of agricultural transition and thinking about the future can be overwhelming so it’s tempting to put off making decisions. We’d urge anyone who hasn’t yet considered it, to take a look at the Funding for farmers and land managers page on GOV.UK, which sets out the schemes and grants that are available now.
Farmers and land managers who currently receive direct payments can also benefit from Defra’s Farming Resilience Fund. The fund provides free expert business advice, delivered by third party organisations who are trusted in the farming community, to farmers who may need help adapting to the changes during the agricultural transition. Supporting mental health and wellbeing is one of the key objectives of this fund.
Defra also funds the Farming Advice Service, which provides free, confidential advice both in person and over the phone to help farmers and land managers in England understand farming policy and their legal requirements.
We know that an increase in flooding, drought, and heatwaves in recent years has had huge consequences for those whose lives and livelihoods depend on the land. We understand that in these cases, letting us know of the impact of severe weather is yet another thing to think about when dealing with difficult situations. To make this easier we’ve now linked our extreme weather guidance to the RPA GOV.UK homepage, in the hope this will free up time for more pressing tasks.
We’re proud to support the Mind Your Head campaign and to work with many farming welfare organisations that advocate for mental health, to understand how we can better support the rural communities we serve.
We would like those who use our schemes and services to feel they can come to us if there is an issue, and that we will do our best to resolve it. We have people on the ground at events across the country who are always happy to talk, and the Defra Rural Services helpline is open 8:30am - 5pm, Monday to Friday.
Yellow Wellies has a range of resources on its website including The Little Book of Minding Your Head which has a list of support organisations and charities at the back, if you need someone to talk to about how you are feeling.
If you have social media, you can follow the Farm Safety Foundation on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter @yellowwelliesuk.
#MindYourHead
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It’s going to be a busy 2024 for RPA, ensuring its external engagement is as successful, if not more so, than last year’s. We’ll be engaging with even more farmers and rural communities across the country, with a presence at 30 agricultural shows and events.
If you’re attending any, come and have a conversation with us. We’ll primarily be there to talk to farmers and agents about all current and future schemes and will also be specifically promoting the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI), Farming Investment Fund grants and Countryside Stewardship.
At various engagements we’ll also be delivering presentations, for example - the Farm Update North, Dartmoor Hill Farming Network, Farm Cornwell, Northumberland National Park and FWAG Farmer Workshop.
We’ll also be joined by relevant experts, such as the Grants Service team at the ag machine shows.
Visiting our stand at an event is often the only face-to-face contact people have with RPA, and for us, being able to meet farmers and agents provides unique feedback which influences the way we write guidance and design processes. It’s also a chance for us to gain some early insight into how you feel about our existing and future schemes.
At a number of stands we’ll also be co-locating with the Defra Farming and Countryside Programme, offering a one stop shop for Defra. You can check out the FCP events page here: Talk to us in 2024 - Farming (blog.gov.uk)
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A new 60-day deadline for BPS queries and appeals is now in place. The deadline, approved by ministers, will help RPA manage the closure and administration of BPS efficiently.
We sent an email (or letter) to our customers in December to tell them about these changes.
This new deadline is statutory and applies to BPS for all years of the scheme and to the young farmer payment and greening payment. The deadline also applies to any other BPS related decisions, including any relating to cross compliance, and the BPS data shown on your Delinked Payment Information Statements.
The 60 days starts on the ‘date of notification’. This is the date we email or write to you giving notification of a payment decision. This can be:
For any BPS payment decisions we notified you of before 1 January 2024, but you did not query with us before that date, the 60-day period runs from 1 January 2024 to midnight on 29 February 2024.
We have updated our Complaints procedure page to include the current procedures relating to BPS payments.
On the same page you can also find information about the complaints procedures for delinked payments and the Lump Sum Exit Scheme.
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