Guidance

Agreement holder's guide: Woodland Creation grant from 1 January 2021

Published 9 February 2021

Applies to England

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

7 Scheme requirements and procedures

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

7.1 Entering into an Agreement

If you want to accept, 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. You may also need to apply to Natural England for Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) consent, if applicable (read para. 4.5.1). Your agreement cannot start until that 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.

7.2 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.

7.3 Evidence: Record keeping and inspection 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 an inspection (if one occurs). 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.

7.3.1 When is evidence required?

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

a. 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 an inspection.

b. 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.

c. After the agreement period

The Terms and Conditions 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.

7.3.2 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 records kept for 7 years from the end of the agreement.

7.4 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 an inspection.

7.4.1 Summary

You must follow the requirements below.

a. 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.

b. 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.

7.4.2 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 10 cm. 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.

7.4.3 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 item tree planting (TE4) the images should be labelled as OS Ref Capital item code_Date_Name_SBI_Image number.

Save digital images under the label outlined above.

7.5 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.

7.6 Force majeure

You may be unable to meet your requirements under the agreement because of force majeure or 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 they were unable to meet the scheme rules.

For more information on force majeure read section 7.11 of the Mid Tier and Wildlife Offers manual.

8 Agreement management

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

8.1 Agreement period

You can start work on or after the agreement start date. You must keep invoices for materials or works, so we can check them, for 7 years from the end date of the agreement. These must be dated on or after the agreement start date. We will reject claims and will not pay them if, during an inspection, 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.

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

• You must not submit your payment claim until you have paid for the capital items on the claim and the payment for them has left your bank account

• 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.

8.2 Amendments

Once we have offered you a grant, you cannot change or amend your agreement without our written permission.

8.3 Agreement Holders using own labour for capital works

8.3.1 Using own labour to undertake capital works

You can use your own 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 carried out.

You must keep these records either on paper or electronically for the period of the agreement and for the 7 years following the end of the agreement. You must also produce them if we ask you to.

8.3.2 Using contractors to carry out capital works

You can employ contractors to carry out agricultural work on agreement land, or to carry out work needed under the Countryside Stewardship 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 on the land, you will be responsible for any payment reductions.

8.4 Making a claim for payment

You can submit a claim for reimbursement on capital items at any time of the year.

8.4.1 Summary

The work must have been completed as per the terms of your agreement and have been paid for in full before you can submit your claim. This means the payment must have left your bank account before you submit your claim. Please note:

• the minimum value of any payment claim is £500 (an exception may be made for the final payment)

• if you have used a contractor to deliver the works, you must have paid them (and the funds left your account) before you can claim from us

• we must receive your claim and supporting information (including photos) within 3 months of the agreement end date. Late claims will not be paid

• valid claims will be paid within 2 months of receipt.

8.4.2 Submitting claims for capital items

Once the capital works are finished and you have paid for them in full and the payment has left your bank account, sign into Rural Payments service to submit a payment claim online.

You can find guidance on how to submit a payment claim online at How to make a capital or revenue claim for Countryside Stewardship.

You must keep evidence that the work is finished. Section 7.4 explains the photographic evidence you need to keep and you can find details of the individual option requirements at Countryside Stewardship grants.

We will make payments directly into your bank account.

You must maintain any capital items funded through the scheme in the same condition and specification set out in your agreement for 5 years from the date of final payment (read section 2.2).

8.5 Scheme checks and inspections

We will check all stages of your application and claims, including your application form, claim forms and the nature and quality of supporting evidence we ask you to send us, such as receipts, photographs 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.

8.5.1 Administrative record checks

As part of the administrative checks on annual claims, we will select a percentage where we carry out follow-up checks of agreement holder records. Therefore, we may ask you to send us copies of your on-farm records for us to check. We may also ask you to send dated photographs for some land management options. We will give reasonable advance notice of when you should take the photographs and the final date for return of records.

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

8.5.2 Rapid field visits

As part of our administrative checks, we may make rapid and focused visual checks, targeted at specific options or capital items. These visits may include record checks.

8.5.3 Agreement monitoring visits

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

8.5.4 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 compliance with agreement obligations (and cross compliance on the whole holding), as well as the success of Countryside Stewardship overall.

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

You must co-operate with any person carrying out a site visit. Any refusal to do so or obstruction will be treated as a breach of the agreement, and you may face recovery, suspension or termination of your agreement.

8.5.5 Refusal or withdrawal of support claimed

In certain cases we may refuse or withdrawn in full the support claimed. We will do this if we think that 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 reason why you have not provided it). If we have to withdraw support, it will be for the current calendar year and the following calendar year. We may also refuse support for other agri-environment or forestry schemes. If this is the case, we will tell you and you will have the right to appeal against this decision.

8.5.6 Cross compliance

If you receive BPS payments, you must follow the cross compliance rules.

If you do not receive BPS payments, and your only agri-environment or woodland agreement is the Woodland Creation grant, then you do not need to follow the cross compliance rules.

8.6 Reductions

8.6.1 Breaches of Agreement

If you breach the terms of your agreement or you do not meet the eligibility criteria on all or part of your agreement land, we may reduce or withhold future grant payments and may recover payments already made to you. We will write to you to explain why we are considering if there is a breach of agreement. We will give you an opportunity to make written representations before we make our final decision.

In cases of fraud or severe non-compliance we can withhold all support and stop a new Countryside Stewardship application being made, for up to 2 years.

If you are concerned that you may not be able to deliver all of the capital works in the agreement you should contact your local Forestry Commission Woodland Officer to discuss any implications on the agreement.

8.6.2 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.

8.7 Change of ownership

You cannot transfer your agreement.

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

8.8 Disputes, appeals and complaints

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

8.8.1 Appeals process – disagreeing with a decision by RPA

If you’re unhappy with a decision or service you’ve had from the Rural Payments Agency (RPA), you can email, write or call us.

Full guidance about how to complain is available online at: Complaints procedure.