Guidance

Agreement holder's guide: Woodland Management Plan from 8 February 2022

Published 11 February 2022

Applies to England

5 Scheme requirements, procedures and agreement management

You must read and meet the requirements detailed in this section as these are mandatory for all Countryside Stewardship WMP 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 Annex 1 Terms and Conditions).

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

5.1    Entering into an Agreement

If your application is successful, we will send you an agreement offer. If you want to accept, you must return the signed acceptance declaration to us within 20 working days of the date on the offer. If you do not accept your offer in time, we will withdraw it. Once an agreement offer has been made, you can reject it.

The agreement start date will be set out in the agreement offer.

Once you have accepted the offer and entered into an agreement, you can only modify, extend or amend the agreement with RPA’s consent

5.2 Agreement Management

A Countryside Stewardship Agreement is made up of the Countryside Stewardship Annex 1 Terms and Conditions, the Agreement Document (which sets out Agreement Holder- specific details) and any supplementary documents referred to in the Agreement Document.

5.3 Record keeping

Agreement holders will need to keep the following records and supply them on request:

• any consents or permissions connected with the work

• receipted invoices, or bank statements where a receipted invoice is unavailable

• Forestry Commission Woodland Management Plan approval letter

5.4 Claiming for the Woodland Management  Plan

You can submit a payment claim for your approved WMP at any time of the year, providing you meet the following terms:

• the completed WMP was completed to the standards set out in Create a Woodland Management Plan within 2 years from the agreement start date (see section 2.7)

• the WMP and associated felling permissions have been approved by a FCWO

• we receive your payment claim no later than 3 months following the agreement end date.

You can only make one payment claim for the WMP grant, for the full amount. We will pay valid claims within 2 months of receiving them. We will reject any payment claims which are late.

You can read the How to submit a payment claim online guidance for information on how to submit your claim online.

If you cannot claim online, contact us to get a claim form.

We will make payments directly into your bank account. It is your responsibility to keep your bank details up to date on the Rural Payments service. You do not need to send any evidence that we have approved the WMP with the payment claim.

5.5 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.

5.6 Amendments

If, after you’ve been offered a grant, you want to change or amend your agreement you need to write to us to ask for permission. We will tell you if we can accept your request and confirm the date the change or amendment will take place. You cannot change or amend your agreement after you’ve been offered a grant without our written permission. We will write to confirm if your request is successful.

The amendment will not be valid until you have received a letter from us, agreeing to the amendment, and advising you of the date from which it will take effect. You should be able to carry out the management plan under your agreement without difficulty. However, should an exceptional situation arise where you need to change it or the 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 management plan. We must agree to the request before you make any changes to the plan, 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 a letter from us agreeing to the amendment and advising you of the date from which it will take effect.

5.7 Recoveries and reductions

We may reduce or withhold payments, or recover previous payments if you:

• breach the terms of your agreement

• do not meet the relevant eligibility criteria on all or part of your land.

5.7.1 Late payment claims

You must claim for payment no later than 3 months following the agreement end date. If you do not, we will not pay you.

5.7.2 Cross compliance

If you receive payments for the Basic Payment Scheme (BPS), or a CS Mid Tier or Higher Tier 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 Woodland Management Plan are not however impacted by breaches in cross compliance rules.

If you are required to follow cross compliance rules and we find a breach of these rules anywhere on your holding (including associated common land) by any of the following, we will inform the relevant body responsible:

• you

• others acting under your control

• anyone with access to the holding under the terms of an agreement including contractors, employees or family members.

The cross compliance guide changes annually, so you need to read the latest version of the Guide to Cross Compliance in England to find out about cross compliance rules.

5.7.3 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 or 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 visit, we will write to tell you and you will have the opportunity to make written representations if you feel that our findings are incorrect. These representations will be taken into consideration before a decision is made on whether it is appropriate to apply reductions or withhold payments.

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 current year’s claim and to previous years’ claims (under your agreement), unless you can demonstrate you were compliant in previous years.

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

Severity

We will assess what has happened due to the breach or non-compliance and consider the objectives of the agreement or options that were not met as a result. For example, if we find an item has been constructed in a way that means it does not deliver what it was designed for, we would class this 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 several factors, for example whether a similar event of non-compliance has been found in previous years of your agreement 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 cancel the agreement. In serious circumstances, you may not be allowed to enter into other agriculture or forestry schemes for up to 2 years.

5.7.4 Refusal or withdrawal of support claimed

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.

5.7.5 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 evidence in writing 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.

5.7.6 Over-declaration of claim

If you submit a claim for more than is eligible to be claimed, we will reduce the payment to the correct amount.

5.8 Disputes, appeals and complaints

If you are unhappy with a decision we have taken about your application or  agreement, you can appeal.

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 Contact details page for more information.

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.

5.9  How we will use and share Agreement Holder’s information

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.