The Rural Payments Agency (RPA) has announced the values of entitlements for the three English regions under the 2014 Single Payment Scheme (SPS).

€ 251.39 for non-SDA (Severely Disadvantaged Areas)

€ 201.32 for upland SDA, other than moorland

€ 35.26 for upland SDA moorland

The exchange rate which will be applied is €1= £0.77730 (based on the value of the Euro as of 30 September 2014).

The RPA uses the revalued figures to calculate each SPS 2014 payment. It will start to make full payments to farmers whose claims have been validated as soon as possible after the payment window opens in December 2014.

RPA Change Director Ian Hewett said:

There are a number of changes in 2014 which will affect the amount customers will receive against their SPS claim.

 

For instance this year, claims over €2,000 will be eligible for a reimbursement from the unused amounts from last year’s financial discipline deduction, resulting in most customers receiving an additional payment with their 2014 claim of 3.1 per cent.

 

This year we will still be taking an amount for Financial Discipline, but this will be at a lower rate of 1.3 per cent. Modulation will also no longer be deducted from payments in 2014, due to changes in the way Rural Development is funded.

 

Against this however we have to factor in other variables, such as the reduced budget we have for 2014, announced by the European Commission in December last year.

 

This, coupled with the fact the exchange rate for 2014 is lower than in previous years, will mean that payments won’t be worth as much in 2014.

Payment values are established before claims are finalised and after the Financial Discipline Mechanism (FDM) and any penalties have been applied. The SPS payment made will, therefore, be lower than the values shown on the Entitlements Statement.

2014 Entitlements Statements

RPA will start to make SPS 2014 Entitlements Statements available to view on SPS Online from January 2015. These statements will confirm the number and value of each farmer’s SPS 2014 entitlements. Farmers and agents will be able to print any of their statements from SPS Online.

Paper copies of Entitlements Statements will be sent out in January 2015, but only to those farmers or agents who applied on paper forms for 2014. The RPA will send guidance notes with the statements and further guidance will be available online.

Farmers should check their 2014 Entitlements Statement and if they believe the information shown on the statement is incorrect, they should notify the RPA in writing as soon as possible.