‘Complexity leads to rules breaches’ (From The Northern Echo)

‘Complexity leads to rules breaches’

3:05pm Tuesday 20th September 2011 in Farming News By Mike Bridgen

FARMERS and landowners are unwittingly finding themselves in breach of cross compliance regulations due to the growing complexity of the system.

Edward Boon, of Youngs Chartered Surveyors, says that as a result they risk fines and a loss of payment should they be chosen for an inspection.

He said: “Common errors have tended to be failure to report animal movements or the death of an animal within the correct timescale, lost tags and passports and, of late, non or incorrect completion of the Soil Protection Survey.”

But, he said there are many other ways of unintentional transgression. They include: Environmental Stewardship – be aware of the options that you have undertaken to deliver under environmental stewardship; your declaration is a legal document. Make sure you know which restrictions apply at which different times of year.

Also make sure you are managing the land as declared in your management agreement or make sure you have the correct written derogations in place.

Single Payment Scheme – make sure your single payment claims land use matches what is declared in your management agreement. We have recent cases where stiff penalties have been imposed on clients completing their own forms for not delivering on this.

Cattle Grazing Records – in respect of environmental stewardship; both Mixed Stocking EK5 and Cattle Grazing UL18 require records of grazing to be kept for each land parcel used under the option to enable proof of the minimum cattle or sheep stocking densities.

Record Keeping – It is important that all records are kept up to date including those of people who may be occupying your land at the time of an inspection; they will also be required to make their records available for inspection.

This includes properly linking the CPH of the subject holding to a graziers holding.

Good Housekeeping – Remember that under SMR2 the inspector may also seek to inspect spray records, drainage plans, storage facilities, manure heaps, effluent stores and fuel/oil stores.

Dual Use – this is allowable under existing rules but currently the RPA is following up some 1,100 cases where “dual use” exists to check if both parties can demonstrate their ability to deliver the requirements of the scheme.

“Dual use” occurs where a different farmer/land manager applies for different schemes on the same land for example Single Payment Scheme (SPS) and Environmental Stewardship (ELS/HLS) and/or Uplands Transitional Payment (UTP).

It is advised that hard copies of all agreements supporting a” dual use” are available if the RPA requests this clarification; if this cannot be satisfied the RPA may apply reductions or penalties.

Mr Boon said: “The claims system has become so complicated it is very easy to make a mistake without meaning to and there are a whole host of issues which can result in incorrect recording errors.

“If in doubt get some professional help as a cross compliance check can make all the difference. Make sure you have everything in order, a loss of payment is definitely something to take seriously.”