Guidance

Facilitation Fund privacy notice

Published 18 July 2024

Applies to England

How the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) collects and processes personal data for the Facilitation Fund.

1. Purpose for Processing

Multi-year agreements to fund facilitators (individuals or organisations) to bring groups of land managers (farmers, foresters, or others) together, enabling collaboration to:

• improve the natural environment at a landscape rather than single-farm scale
• achieve greater improvements than individual holdings could on their own

The facilitator works with a group of land managers to:

• develop co-operation and knowledge-sharing between the group members
• agree the Countryside Stewardship (CS) priorities they plan to take forward across their holdings, from the CS statements of priorities on GOV.UK
• source and deliver training required to enable the group members to make improvements and achieve the CS priorities

2. Why we are able to process your personal data

The law allows us to process your personal data under article 6(1)(e) of the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR). We are allowed to process personal data when we need to carry out a public task.

We have a legal obligation to provide beneficiary data to Defra, who publish it to meet EU retained legislation, aimed at promoting transparency.

Subject to budget constraints, if your application is successful, you will be offered a Facilitation Fund agreement. The agreement sets out details of what you are undertaking to do and what you will be paid in return.

The Facilitation Fund terms and conditions form part of your agreement, full details are provided in the Facilitation Fund guidance

We seek your consent for:

• research activities that sit outside Defra’s programme of pilot learning activities, for example, joining a ‘user panel’ looking at co-design of future measures
• where we approach you about use of information for promotional measures

3. What personal data we process

The information we collect and process is as follows.

1. For application and entry into an agreement we will:

• assess your application, for example, checking it against eligibility criteria
• contact you, as necessary, about your Facilitation Fund agreement offer. For example, to discuss any changes with you

2. To help us implement and monitor your Facilitation Fund agreement

3. To take part in Facilitation Fund learning activities, we may contact you:

• to inform you of future schemes to help us develop and improve scheme policy
• about Facilitation Fund learning activities and send you feedback
• with other co-design opportunities relating to the future schemes or on general policy updates connected with UK farming

4. For Facilitation Fund scheme evaluation:

• to help evaluate value for money and overall effectiveness of the Facilitation Fund scheme
• to monitor delivery towards Defra’s 25 Year Environment Plan goals and carbon net zero targets

5. We may use your email address so that people in your local area can contact you about the facilitation group you operate

We may process your personal data including your email address in any questions or feedback you send to us. We may also use your information to contact you about future grants and updates to farming policy that would be relevant to you.

4. Your responsibility with other people’s personal data

If you’ve included personal data about other people in your registration, you must tell them. You must provide them with a copy of this privacy notice so that they know how their personal data will be used.

5. Where your personal data is stored

We store, transfer and process your personal data on our servers in the United Kingdom (UK) and the European Union (EU).

6. How long we keep your personal data

We keep your information for 7 years from the end of the agreement for those accepted onto the scheme.

Please refer to our Personal Information Charter and the section ‘How long we will keep data’ for information on any potential exceptions.

7. Who we share your personal data with

We share your personal data with:

• Defra
• RPA
• Natural England
• Forestry Commission
• Environment Agency
• local authorities (involved in assessing applications and scheme monitoring)
• other public bodies and their accredited agents both nationally and locally with a vested responsibility for the public good and the environment

8. Your rights

Read our Personal Information Charter to find out your rights under the General Data Protection Regulation, the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA 2018).

9. How to make a complaint

If you have concerns about how RPA uses your personal data, please read how to get in touch or make a complaint.