This is the process for approving forestry cases eligible for ongoing approval and recording that approval.
1. Proposals will proceed through the system as normal until 'committed'. Once 'committed', Case Officers assess and review the eligibility of the proposals against the criteria for "Ongoing Approval of Forestry Proposals".
The application must meet the following criteria if it is to be considered eligible for the ongoing approval process:
The entire proposal must contain only one or more of the Regional Priorities 14, 21 and 23 and the entire proposal must include only one or more of the 3 forestry options:
· 45 Woodland Creation
· 46 Sustainable Management of Forests
· 47 Woodland Improvement Grant
2. If eligible for Ongoing Approval, the Case Officer gets FCS Operations Manager approval for the proposal to be processed by the ongoing approval route.
3. Those proposals that are eligible must be registered on the spreadsheet as awaiting ongoing approval. Complete columns A -F only at this stage. A copy of the spreadsheet should be sent to FCS National Office for collation on the master spreadsheet
4. If the proposal is not eligible for ongoing approval, it must proceed to scoring and RPAC as normal.
5. The Ongoing Approval Proposal will then proceed through Stage 2 Assessment and will be data cleansed using Data Cleansing Checklist 2. The Eligibility Checklist should also be completed. Scoring is then completed and, on the Stage 3 Scoring screen, the Case should be marked as "Ongoing Approval Case = Yes".
6. Proposals that are marked as Ongoing Approval cases will be passed to the Forestry Commission Scotland Conservator for approval/rejection. The Conservator will subsequently notify the RPAC chair. Details of the approval/rejection decision should be recorded on the RPAC Decision screen as normal.
7. If the case contains Woodland Creation options and the case's total payment value across all payment years exceeds £750k, then the case should be prepared as if going to RPAC but, instead, is sent to FCS Head of G&R in Silvan House. He will forward the case directly to the Cabinet Secretary on an ongoing basis to receive approval.
and/or
If the case contains only SMF and/or WIG options (ie: no woodland creation options), and the case total payment value across all payment years exceeds £250k. then the case should be prepared as if going to RPAC but, instead, sent to Head of FCS G&R in Silvan House.
8. Head of FCS G&R in Silvan House will forward the case directly to the Cabinet secretary on an ongoing basis to receive approval.
9. Once approved/rejected the case officer will ensure that the following have been recorded on the system:
- The name of the FCS Conservator carrying out the Ongoing Approval in the Case Notepad
- The score
- RPAC decision and date Conservator gave approval (Delegated Authority Process Complete)
- Ministerial approval
10. The system will generate an RPAC Decision letter for the applicant and initiate the contract. The case will then register on the NPAC reports as previously approved.
11 The Contract "Schedule of Works" will display the monetary values for each Option. The Case Officer/Case Admin should use these values to complete the Ongoing Approval spreadsheet (Conservancy version) and send to National Office. (This should be completed immediately after points 7 and 8 above.)
12. FCS National Office will collate the information on the Ongoing Approval spreadsheets and log on the FCS shared area as 'read-only' files.