Agreement holder's guide: Protection and Infrastructure (from 8 February 2022)

Question 1

6 Scheme  requirements and procedures

Accepted Answer

You must read and meet the requirements detailed in this section as these are mandatory for all CS Protection and Infrastructure grant agreement holders.

‘Agreement Holder’ means the person (whether an individual, a company or other entity) who has entered into the Countryside Stewardship Agreement as identified in the Agreement Document (in line with clause 1 of the Terms and Conditions – read Annex 1).

‘Agreement Land’ is defined in clause 1 of the Terms and Conditions.

If your application is successful, we will send you an agreement offer letter.

6.1 Entering into an Agreement

If you want to accept the CS Protection and Infrastructure agreement, you must return the signed acceptance declaration to us within 20 working days of the date of the letter. If you do not accept your offer in time, we will withdraw it.

Your agreement cannot start until the SSSI consent is granted by Natural England.

The agreement start date will be set out in the agreement document that comes with the agreement offer letter.

Once you have accepted the offer and entered into an agreement, you cannot modify, extend, or amend the agreement without our written permission.

6.2 Record keeping

You must keep all records relevant to the expenditure of the grant for at least 7 years from the end of the agreement. The 7-year period starts when each agreement has ended.

All records kept must be dated on or after the agreement start date. We will reject claims and will not pay them if, during a site visit, we find that you ordered or bought items before the start of the agreement or you carried out part or all of the work before, or after, the agreement period.

6.3 Evidence: Record keeping and site visit requirements

You must obtain and keep evidence to show that you have carried out all the requirements of your agreement to support your claim or to support a site visit. You must also keep evidence that you are eligible for the scheme.

Your evidence must show that:

you are eligible for the scheme
the activities funded under your agreement are appropriate
the funded activity is taking or has taken place.

We need you to do this so that we can demonstrate that public money is being spent effectively and is delivering the intended results.

Record keeping is an important part of an effective farm, or woodland management system. You can use some existing farm records to meet scheme requirements, but you may also need to keep other records specifically about the management being funded.

The record keeping requirements for each capital item are published in the Countryside Stewardship online grants finder tool.

6.3.1 When is evidence required?

You must keep any required evidence and supporting documents and have them available on request.

Evidence to support your application

You must keep evidence to show that you, the business, your land, and capital items are eligible as you may have to show this if you are chosen for a site visit.

During the agreement period

You may need to provide evidence to show that you have carried out the required actions. Evidence may be needed:

to support a claim. More information is set out in the following sections, and where relevant further information will be sent with the claim form covering letter
during or after an administrative check, an inspection, or other checks as described in section 7.

After the agreement period

The Terms and Conditions (see Annex 1) explain you must keep all invoices, receipts, accounts, and any other relevant documentation relating to the expenditure of the grant for at least 7 years from the end of the agreement.

6.3.2 General evidence requirements for applicants and agreement holders

It is your responsibility to get all consents, approvals, or permissions that you may need due to your specific circumstances and to carry out the particular capital item. These consents, approvals and permissions must remain effective for the duration of the agreement and you must keep records for 7 years from the end of the agreement.

6.4 Photographic evidence

You need to keep dated photographic evidence for capital items to support an application and any claims. You must make this available when we ask for it, for example as part of administrative record checks or during a site visit.

6.4.1 Summary

You must follow the requirements below.

Application stage

You need to take and retain dated photographs showing where works will take place. Your photographs must meet the required standards, explained below.

Claim stage

For a partial or full claim, you must take a dated photograph after the works have been completed and send it with your payment claim. This must show the ‘works completed condition’. The ‘application’ and ‘works completed’ photographs must be taken from the same position.

6.4.2 Photographic evidence quality

All photographs must meet the following standards. Requirements apply equally to digital photographs or those supplied as paper photographs:

quality – photographs must be in focus and clearly show the relevant capital item or environmental feature. If you send your images by email, please send as JPEG files. Digital images should not be smaller than 600 x 400 pixels and ideally the image file size no larger than 400 KB. Printed photographs must be no smaller than 15 cm x 10cm. Photographs can be in either portrait or landscape
photograph to identify the environmental feature or capital item(s) concerned – it is your responsibility to have sufficient evidence that the investment or required management has taken place. For example, more than one photograph may be needed where the feature or capital item exceeds the frame or is not clearly evident from a single photograph
where possible, include a significant feature to provide authenticity, for example, ditch, fence, farm building, road, telegraph poles
where possible, mark the photographed feature location, and direction from which the photograph has been taken, with an ‘X’ and an arrow on a copy of a map (or map extract) of the agreement area
where scale or continuity is important, include a feature, or introduce one, for example a quad bike, vehicle or use a sighting pole (2m high with 50cm intervals marked in red and white). Take pictures consistently from the same spot for before and after photographs of the capital item.

6.4.3 Clearly labelled photographs

Use the Ordnance Survey (OS) map sheet reference and National Grid reference for the field parcel where the works are taking place, the implemented capital item code, date, agreement holder name and SBI. If you are sending more than one image, also include the image number.

For example, if we ask you to send ‘before and after’ photographs to support capital items the images should be labelled as OS Ref Capital item code_Date_Name_SBI_Image number.

Save digital images under the label outlined above.

6.5 Publicity requirements

The Terms and Conditions require you to comply with all instructions and guidance relating to acknowledging and publicising the support provided. This includes using any materials or templates which are provided for this purpose.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is the data controller for personal data you give to the Rural Payments Agency (RPA). For information on how we handle personal data search for Rural Payments Agency Personal Information Charter on GOV.UK.

6.7 Good reasons for a breach

You may be unable to meet your requirements under the agreement because of exceptional circumstances. If this happens, you must write to tell us, within 8 weeks from the date on which you (or any person authorised to act for you) are able to do so.

You will need to provide written evidence to show:

what has happened
how the event meant you were unable to meet the scheme rules.

Good reasons for a breach may include, but are not limited to:

the death of the Agreement Holder
serious illness
a severe weather event
the accidental destruction of capital items connected to your agreement
damage caused by criminality
supply chain issues
an epizootic or a plant disease affecting part or all of your crops, trees, or livestock.

We will consider the facts to decide whether or not the Agreement Holder is relieved of all or part of their obligations under the agreement, and whether all or part of the grant should be withheld or repaid.

If you are aware of the issue when entering into your agreement then it is unlikely to be considered a good reason for a breach.

Question 2

7 Agreement  management

Accepted Answer

You must read and meet the requirements detailed in this section as these are mandatory for all CS Protection and Infrastructure Agreement Holders.

You must only start work (this includes ordering and paying for materials) on or after the agreement start date because we will not pay for materials and work before this date. You must keep invoices, receipts, accounts and all other relevant financial documentation, so we can check them, for at least 7 years from the end date of the agreement. These must be dated on or after the agreement start date.

Important Information

Do not start work until on or after your start date and once you have accepted the offer.

You must complete all capital works within 2 years of the agreement start date.

We must receive all claims for payment no later than 3 months after the agreement end date. We will not accept claims after this date.

When you have finished the works and you have been charged or invoiced by the contractor or supplier for the items or activities, you can submit your claim.

Part claims are allowed in some cases. See section 7.3.

7.1 Change in circumstances

You must notify us as soon as you can if there is a change in your circumstances that might:

affect the amount of funding you have been or will be paid
prevent you from complying with the conditions of your agreement
prevent you from carrying out the work set out in your agreement, including preventing you from carrying out the work to the agreed standard or in the agreed timeframe
affect your continued entitlement to agreement funding, for example if you no longer have management control of the land parcels included in your agreement.

7.2 Amendments

You should be able to carry out the capital items under your agreement without difficulty. However, should an exceptional situation arise where you need to change the items or their time schedule, you can ask us to amend your agreement. We will only agree to changes that are necessary to achieve the objectives of the scheme.

You need written permission from us before you can amend or reschedule approved capital items. You should contact us if you would like to discuss an amendment to your agreement before the end of the original agreement period to complete the capital items.

We must agree to the request before you make any changes to the item, its location, or timing, and you may need to repay all or part of previous payments that you have received.

We will write to confirm if your request is successful. The amendment will not be valid until you have received written confirmation from us agreeing to the amendment and advising you of the date from which it will take effect.

7.3 Requirements when using own labour or contractors for capital works

7.3.1 Using own labour for capital works

You can use your own labour or a farm employee’s labour to carry out capital works. If you do so, you will need to prepare time sheets signed by the employee and employer showing all of the following:

the hourly rate for your labour or a farm employee’s labour
what work was carried out
the date the work was done.

You must keep these records in either paper or electronic form, for the full period of the agreement and for at least 7 years after your agreement has ended. You must also produce these records if we ask you to.

You must tell the employee(s) about the agreement and its requirements. It is your responsibility to make sure that work carried out using your own labour or a farm employee’s labour, does not breach the terms of your agreement. If the employee commits any breaches, you will be responsible for any payment reductions.

Under this item we will pay 40% of actual costs (including VAT and agent’s fees, where applicable). If you are using your own labour to complete this item, we will pay 80% of the 40% value.

7.3.2 Using contractors to carry out capital works

You can employ contractors to carry out the work needed for the capital items.

You must tell the contractor about the agreement and its requirements. It is your responsibility to make sure that work carried out by contractors does not breach the terms of your agreement. If the contractor commits any breaches, you will be responsible for any payment reductions.

You must keep records of the work carried out by contractors in either paper or electronic form, for the full period of the agreement and for at least 7 years after your agreement has ended. You must also produce these records if we ask you to.

7.4 Making a claim for payment

CS Protection and Infrastructure grants agreements include a 2-year programme of capital works. You must complete all capital works within 2 years of the agreement start date. We must receive all claims for payment no later than 3 months after the agreement end date. We will not accept claims after this date.

We will not accept late claims under any circumstances.

When you have finished the works and you have been charged or invoiced by the contractor or supplier for the items or activities, you can submit your claim for payment. The minimum claim value is £500. You can submit a claim for payment at any time of the year. We will pay valid claims within 2 months of receiving them.

If you are making interim (multiple) claims, the minimum claim value of £500 does not apply to your final claim.

7.4.1. Submitting claims

Once the capital works are finished and you have been charged or invoiced by the contractor or supplier, you can sign into the Rural Payments service and submit a claim online.

You can read more about how to submit a capital claim online.

If you cannot make a claim online contact us to ask for a claim form – go to Annex 2 for our contact details.

You must keep evidence to show that the work is finished. Section 6.4 explains the photographic evidence you need and what evidence is needed for individual capital items.

You, as the agreement holder, must keep the completed items to the condition and specification for which the aid was granted for 5 years from the start date of the agreement (read Section 2.1). This is a requirement of the agreement.

This also applies to landlords where management of the agreement land reverts from the tenant agreement holder to the countersigning landlord during the durability period (read Section 3.2).

7.5 Scheme checks and site visits

We are required to make sure that Countryside Stewardship is properly controlled, to protect public money. Site visits are carried out to monitor Agreement Holder compliance with the rules governing their agreements (and cross compliance on the whole holding) and the success of Countryside Stewardship overall. They focus on assessing how the environmental aims are being delivered.

We will check that advice and guidance have been followed and if we think there is an issue that can be resolved, we will offer further advice and guidance, or we may deal with any agreement breaches or non-compliances we find in line with Section 7.5 of this manual and the terms and conditions.

We carry out a number of checks on claims:

administrative record checks
in situ visits
agreement monitoring visits
physical or virtual site visits.

You must allow any UK public authority (or their authorised representatives or auditors) to access your land or premises to carry out site visits.

We will seek to agree a date and time for a site visit where possible. If not, you will be notified at least 48 hours in advance of the site visit unless we have reasons to suspect that you are in breach of your agreement.

You must help and co-operate with any person carrying out a site visit (including controls and spot-checks) and shall provide access to any land, premises, plant, equipment, or documents which may be required. Any refusal to do so or obstruction will be treated as a breach of the Countryside Stewardship Terms and Conditions, and you may face recovery, suspension or termination of your agreement. We may also refuse support for other Defra grant schemes for up to 2 years.

7.5.1 Administrative record checks

We will check all stages of your application and claims, including your application form, claim forms and the nature and quality of any supporting evidence we ask you to send us, such as receipts and farm records. This is to make sure that you meet eligibility requirements at the application stage, and that various forms and records match up during the whole agreement period.

If you do not provide records when asked, or there are discrepancies, we will treat this as a breach of your agreement.

7.5.2 In situ visits

As part of our administrative checks, we may make focused visual checks of your holding, targeted at specific capital items. These visits may include record checks.

7.5.3 Agreement monitoring visits

Advisers may visit sites to monitor environmental progress, discuss site reports, or if you ask us to visit.

7.5.4 Site visits

Each year we will carry out site visits on a sample of agreements to make sure scheme requirements have been met. If we find a breach of the rules, we may apply reductions (read Section 7.5).

7.5.5 Refusal or withdrawal of support

In certain cases, we may refuse, or withdraw in full, the support claimed and terminate your existing agreement. We will do this if we think any of the following has happened:

you have committed a serious non-compliance
you have provided false evidence
you have negligently failed to provide the necessary information (for instance, where we have asked for it repeatedly and there is no good reason why you have not provided it).

If we have to withdraw support for these reasons, we will terminate the existing agreement and you will not be permitted to re-apply for the scheme or to other Defra grant schemes for 2 years.

We may also refuse support for other Defra grant schemes for up to 2 years. If this is the case, we will tell you and you will have the right to appeal against this decision.

7.5.6 Cross compliance

If you receive payments for the Basic Payment Scheme (BPS), or a CS Mid

Tier or Higher Tier scheme agreement, or an Environmental Stewardship scheme agreement, you must follow the cross compliance rules. If you do not, your payments may be reduced. Payments for a CS Protection and Infrastructure grant are not impacted by breaches in cross compliance rules.

If you do not receive BPS payments or annual revenue payments through any other agreement for Countryside Stewardship, Environmental Stewardship, or Farm Woodland Payments under the English Woodland Grant scheme, then you do not need to follow the cross compliance rules.

These requirements are updated annually and apply to that calendar year, regardless of when a Countryside Stewardship agreement started.

You can find full details about cross compliance requirements in the current version of the ‘The Guide to Cross Compliance in England’.

7.6 Payment Reductions

7.6.1 Breaches of Agreement

If you do not meet the terms of your agreement, we may reduce or withhold your payment or ask you to repay any monies we have already paid to you.

If we find a breach, we will write to you and tell you. You’ll have the opportunity to appeal if you do not agree with our findings. If a breach is confirmed, we’ll work out the most appropriate action we need to take and let you know. We may apply more than one course of action depending on the breach found. We’ll assess the level of breach in a fair and consistent manner, on a case-by-case basis, using the following set of criteria:

to what extent the breach can be rectified
the circumstances, nature and consequences surrounding the breach
any failure to cooperate with site visits, or further investigations
any steps taken to report a change in circumstances
whether it is an isolated or a repeat occurrence
whether it was intentional
whether it was because of reckless of negligent action.

If there’s a breach of your agreement or the regulations, we may:

ask you to correct the breach
issue a letter explaining that we’ve assessed the breach and what you have to do to amend your agreement.

For more serious breaches, we may:

reduce the payments you get, or withhold part of them
reduce or withhold money from other schemes
recover money we’ve already paid.

In the most extreme cases, we may:

end your agreement
stop you receiving financial assistance (other than BPS) under any other scheme for up to 2 years.

In exceptional circumstances where there is reasonable suspicion of a serious breach or fraud, then we may access land and your premises without notice, using powers of entry. In these circumstances, for example as part of a fraud investigation, we may access any computer that’s been used in connection with the evidence or these records.

If we find breaches during administrative checks or any site visits, we will write to tell you and you will have the opportunity to make written representations if you feel that our findings are incorrect.

In these cases, we will work out the level of reduction we need to apply, by looking at the severity of the breach and whether it is an isolated or a repeat occurrence. We may apply a reduction to your claims, unless you can demonstrate you were compliant.

A brief explanation of how breaches are assessed is set out below.

Severity

We will assess what has happened due to the breach/non-compliance and consider the objectives of the agreement or specifications that were not met. For example, constructing an item in a way that does not deliver what the item was designed for would be classed as a severe breach. As part of this assessment, we will also take into account whether the breach will have short or long-term impacts.

Re-occurrence

The assessment will depend on a number of factors, for example whether a similar event of non- compliance has been found on previous claims and whether the re-occurrence concerns the same or a similar type of work.

If we consider that a breach is so serious that it cannot be rectified, we may have to cancel the agreement. In serious circumstances, you may be forbidden from entering another agri-environment scheme for up to 2 years.

7.6.2 Over-declaration of expenditure

If you submit a claim for more than the value of the costs which are eligible to be claimed, we will reduce the payment to the correct amount.

7.7 Change of ownership

You cannot transfer your agreement during the 2-year agreement period. This rule applies only during the 2-year period from the start of your agreement (not the 5-year requirement to keep capital items funded through the scheme).

If you sell or let, all or part of the land under your CS Protection and Infrastructure agreement to another party, we will end your agreement on those parcels. You may need to repay all or some of the grant payments you have already received.

If, after completing your CS Protection and Infrastructure agreement, you sell or let all or part of the land previously under your agreement to another party during the subsequent durability period, you may need to repay part of the grant payments you have already received.

7.8 Disputes, appeals and complaints

If you’re unhappy with a decision we have taken about your application or agreement, you can submit a complaint.

If you’re unhappy with a decision we’ve taken or service you’ve had from us, you can ask us to reconsider. If you’re still unhappy with the result of our decision, you can appeal.

You can email or write to us, or call us. See Annex 2 for our contact details

The full guidance about how to complain is on GOV.UK. This also includes information on how to request a reconsideration or submit an appeal.

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Applies to England

6 Scheme requirements and procedures