Additional Information for Case Officers involved in Assessing Proposals containing Woodland Creation Options

Applicant's applying for Woodland Creation enter all the FID details that are applicable for each planting Model regardless of whether they are applying for Farmland Premium and/or Sitka Spruce Seed Orchard or Family Mixture Material, or not, e.g. if a Proposal has no Farmland premium then the applicant will list the FID numbers and detail whether the land is in agriculture or abandoned and will leave the rest of the columns blank. Unfortunately this process is unclear and information has not been consistently gathered.

In a future phase of development an additional column will be added to the Online Proposal that will link the areas of each Planting model to specific FID areas. In the meantime we require this information in advance of the claims and payments process and so have added section 1.6.1 to the Environment Outcome Plan for completion by the applicant.

For New Proposals, Case Officer's should check that

  • New applications contain completed section 1.6.1 on the Environment Outcome Plan
  • FID areas total the Planting model area, per claim year, shown on the Online Proposal
  • The farmland premium areas shown online against each FID should not be greater than the FID areas shown on the Outcome Plan
  • For the Woodland Creation Conifer Low Cost Option, Sitka Spruce Seed Orchard or Family Mixture Material areas shown online against each FID, should not be greater than the FID areas shown on the Outcome Plan.
Case Officer's must copy the information supplied on Section 1.6.1 of the Outcome Plan onto the Case Notepad.

For cases already Submitted, Case Officer's should

  • Send section 1.6.1 of the Environment Outcome Plan to the applicant, asking them to complete it and send it back to the Case officer
  • Ensure that checks 1 to 4 of the New Proposal instructions shown above are completed
  • Record the information supplied on Section 1.6.1 of the Outcome Plan onto the Case Notepad
  • Follow existing processing of the case

For cases already Committed, or beyond, Case Officer's should

  • Contact the applicant to ask them to complete and return to you, Section 1.6.1 of the Environment Outcome Plan. If the case has already had RPAC approval, explain to the applicant that this information is required before the contract can be issued
  • Ensure that checks 1 to 4 of the New Proposal instructions shown above are completed
  • Record the information supplied on Section 1.6.1 of the Outcome Plan onto the Case Notepad .
  • Follow existing processing of the case

Page updated: Monday, July 06, 2009