The Rural Payments Agency (RPA) has decided that common land should have been allocated differently under SPS. This means that some commons now have more eligible area which farmers can claim SPS entitlements and payments for.

The Rural Payments Agency (RPA) has decided that common land should have been allocated differently under SPS, so that the full eligible area was allocated every year.

Farmers can now apply for SPS entitlements they should have been given in 2005.

Who can claim

Farmers (including common owners who claimed ‘owner’s surplus’) can apply if they did any of the following on one (or more) of the commons which have more eligible area to allocate:

• established SPS entitlements in 2005 and then claimed SPS continuously until at least 2009 (these farmers can apply for SPS entitlements and associated payments)
• submitted a valid SPS application in any of the year(s) from 2009 to 2014 and held ‘spare’ SPS entitlements which they couldn’t get paid for that year because they didn’t have enough land to activate them (these farmers can use any new allocation of common land they receive to apply for payments for those spare entitlements)
• claimed HFA 2010 or UTP payments

For RPA to consider claims in any other circumstances, farmers must show that they suffered a financial loss as a direct result of the incorrect method RPA used to allocate common land under SPS. They may want to take professional advice before they apply in these circumstances.

How to claim

To apply, farmers should fill in the form which is attached to this page. They only need to fill in one claim form, even if they’re claiming for more than one common or for more than one scheme.

At Part B, farmers need to tick the boxes that apply to the commons they want to claim for (they can tick more than one box). They should tick:

• B1 to apply for SPS entitlements that they should have received in 2005 and any payments associated with them

• B2 to apply to receive payment(s) for ‘spare’ SPS entitlements they weren’t able to activate in any of the years from 2009 to 2014

• B3 to apply to receive HFA 2010 and/or UTP payments which they should have received

• B4 if they want to claim on a common under any other circumstances. They must give more information at Part C of the form explaining how they suffered a financial loss as a direct result of the incorrect allocation

Farmers don’t need to list the commons that they have an allocation for (RPA has this information already).
When to claim.

There is no deadline, but if farmers can return their form by 31 December 2015 it will give RPA the best possible chance to consider it before the opening of the BPS 2016 application period.

RPA will make payments only for the last 6 scheme years (this is the normal time limit for claims in the civil court). To claim for the SPS 2009 scheme year, they should return their form no later than 30 June 2016. If they want to claim for HFA 2010, they should return their form no later than 6 years after the date of their HFA 2010 payment. If they want to claim for both SPS 2009 and HFA 2010, they should return their form by the earlier of these two deadlines.

Click here for list of Common Land with more eligible area to allocate