How to complete a Countryside Stewardship capital claim by email or post

Question 1

If you’re submitting your claim by email

Accepted Answer

Save the form and annexes to your computer, fill them in on your screen or print them and write the information onto the paper copy. In both cases, you must print the declaration section, then sign and date it.

Scan any printed sections into your computer as well as supporting documents and any evidence that needs to be submitted. Then email your completed form, annexes and supporting documents and evidence to us. For more information read the ‘Submit your claim’ section.

Question 2

If you’re submitting your claim by post

Accepted Answer

Fill in the claim form and annexes and post them to us together with any supporting documents and any evidence that needs to be submitted. Remember to sign and date the declaration section in the form. For more information read the ‘Submit your claim’ section.

If you’re completing a paper claim use capital letters and black ink throughout and make sure that you initial any alterations – do not use correcting fluid.

You must sign and date your claim form if you are submitting it by either email or post.

Please give your Single Business Identifier (SBI) at the bottom of all pages of the claim in the boxes provided.

Question 3

Claim details

Accepted Answer

Read the first page of your CS Agreement Document, in particular Agreement Reference and End Date, for help when completing this section.

Fill in your SBI, business name and address (including postcode).

Scheme

Tell us which scheme the claim is for, for example Capital Grants, Higher Tier Capital Grants.

Agreement reference

Give the agreement reference this claim is for.

Agreement end date

Give the end date of the agreement this claim is for.

Question 4

Annex I – claim for standard cost items

Accepted Answer

Refer to your CS Agreement Document for help when completing this annex.

If this is your first claim, ignore ‘Quantity remaining to complete’ and ‘Eligible grant remaining’.

If your claim is pre-populated with information, you only need to give the following information for each item you’re claiming for.

Enter the quantity claimed and payment claimed for the actual work that has been completed. Also indicate if this is the final claim for that particular capital item.

If your claim does not contain any pre-populated information you need to fill in all the information in the row for each item you’re claiming for.

If your agreement includes capital items PA3 or RP8 you can only claim for these items once and only after each individual capital item has been completed. If you make a partial claim on either of the above items, you cannot keep the outstanding quantity for future claims. Read the agreement holder’s guide for the relevant CS scheme for more information about partial claims.

If your agreement includes multiple items of the same option type from the following capital options, RP4, RP7, RP11, RP13, RP15, RP17, RP18, RP22, RP24, RP25, RP27, RP28, RP29 and RP30, and they are on the same parcel, then a claim can be made on completion of each individual item under that option on that parcel.

For example, if you had option type RP15, and this option type was to be delivered as 3 separate items (multiple items) on the same parcel, once you have fully completed one of the 3 items on that parcel, you can submit a partial claim, supported by the relevant required evidence.

Question 5

Annex II – claim for actual cost items

Accepted Answer

Read Sections 7 and 8 of your CS Agreement Document for help when completing this annex.

If this is your first claim, please ignore ‘Grant already claimed’ and ‘Eligible grant remaining’.

If your claim is pre-populated with information you only need to give the following information for each item you’re claiming for.

Receipted Invoice Reference Number

Enter the reference number from the invoice.

Total Invoiced Amount Excluding VAT

Enter the total invoiced amount (excluding VAT) for the item you are claiming.

Agreed Rate (%)

Enter the agreed percentage of the invoiced value (excluding VAT). It should not be greater than eligible grant remaining. If the Total Invoiced Amount (excluding VAT) does not match the agreed quotation, contact your Natural England Area Team adviser to discuss.

Tick if Final Claim

Tick if this is the final claim for this particular item.

Amount Claimed Excluding VAT

Enter the total amount you want to claim (excluding VAT) for the actual work that has been completed.

If your claim does not contain any pre-populated information you need to fill in all the information in the row for each item you’re claiming for.

Question 6

Claim profile

Accepted Answer

Give details in this section of any capital items in your agreement that:

you have not claimed for by the ‘claim by’ deadline date
you have not already claimed for, and you do not intend to make a further claim for them

Question 7

Other public funding

Accepted Answer

You cannot use CS to pay for capital work that you’re receiving other public funding for. Therefore, you must tell us about any other funding you’re receiving or have received for capital work completed under this agreement so that we can assess the eligibility of your claim. If you are not sure about whether something is public funding, contact us before you claim for the work.

Question 8

Confirm your supporting documents

Accepted Answer

Read Section 9 of your Agreement for help to complete this section. When you send your capital claim to us you also need to send supporting documents and evidence. This section asks you to confirm which documents you’re sending. For more information about receipted invoices and receipts, and evidence such as photos, read the ‘Supporting documents and evidence’ section.

VAT declaration for actual cost items

If you’re not VAT registered and want to claim the VAT for the actual cost items in this claim, confirm that you’re sending us a letter from an accountant confirming that you are not VAT registered.

Receipted invoices and receipts

When you claim for capital items based on actual costs, you must submit receipted invoices (that show payment for materials and contracted work) with your claim. Tick the box if you are sending receipted invoices or receipts to us and enter the number of receipted invoices or receipts in the other box.

Capital item supporting evidence

For some capital items you need to submit evidence such as photographs, with your capital claim to show that you have completed the work. If evidence is required for the capital items in your claim, tick the box to confirm that you’re sending it to us.

Question 9

Declarations

Accepted Answer

Read the declaration section and complete your name and status (for example, agent, partner, agreement holder), and sign and date it. You must have the correct permission level (at least ‘CS Agreements – Submit) in the Rural Payments service before you submit your claim.

Question 10

Supporting documents and evidence requirements

Accepted Answer

RPA must receive your claim, any supporting documents and any evidence that needs to be submitted, by the ‘Claim by’ date in your agreement document. Late claims will be rejected.

Depending on the items you’re claiming for, the supporting documents and evidence you need to send to RPA may vary. Therefore, it’s important that you read the agreement holder’s guide for the relevant scheme and Countryside Stewardship grants.

Some evidence you must submit to RPA and some evidence you must keep until you’re asked for it. Read about the requirements for each individual item on the Countryside Stewardship Grant Finder.

You may need to send:

receipted invoices or receipts
photographs at different stages and on completing the work
contacts or other documents outlining the technical specification of the work

Receipted invoices or receipts

All invoices you send to us must be signed and dated by the contractor to prove they have received your payment. This is known as ‘receipted’. Proof of payment can be:

till receipts
internet purchased receipts
bank or credit card statements where necessary
schedule of works or timesheets, where you have used your own labour or machinery and none of the above are available

For Higher Tier and Mid Tier agreements starting on or after 1 January 2023, or CS Capital only agreements starting on or after 8 February 2022, capital claims can be submitted and paid based on incurred expenditure (work completed and invoiced) rather than after you’ve paid for the work.

For earlier agreements, full payment must have left your bank account (been paid) before you submit your capital claim, so the date of receipting (on invoices) or transaction date (on other eligible proof of payment) must be before the date your capital claim was submitted.

For more information read the ‘Evidence required to support your claim’ section of the agreement holder’s guide for the relevant scheme.

Labelling photographs

All photographs (digital and paper) must meet the standards set out in the ‘Photographic evidence’ section of the agreement holder’s guide for the relevant CS scheme.

Use the Ordnance Survey (OS) map sheet reference and National Grid reference for the field parcel, followed by the relevant proposed or implemented option or capital item code and, if more than one image is required, the image number.

The OS map sheet reference and National Grid reference should relate to the field parcel on which the feature or capital item is sited or for boundary features the adjacent field parcel. For example, if you need to take before and after photographs to show evidence that works have taken place for Gateway relocation (RP2), label the image as XX12345678_ RP2_1 and XX12345678_RP2_2. If there is no relevant land parcel reference, include a clear identifiable description such as Farmyard_RP22_1.

Save digital images under the label outlined above. If posting printed photographs, clearly write the label on the reverse of each one, detailing the OS map sheet reference and National Grid reference for the field parcel, the implemented capital item code, date, Agreement Holder name and SBI.

Question 11

How to submit your supporting documents and evidence

Accepted Answer

You can submit your supporting documents and evidence by email or post.

Submit by email

Scan your supporting documents and evidence and email them to ruralpayments@defra.gov.uk using ‘CS Capital Claim Evidence_[Your SBI]_[Claim Reference, if known]’ as the email subject heading.

Make sure your emails are not over 32MB as this is the largest email size we can receive.

Do not include links to cloud storage, for example Dropbox or Google Drive, as we cannot accept documents or evidence this way.

For security reasons, do not send discs, USB pen drives or other external storage media.

You can send digital photos by email, but do not send scans of printed photos as the quality is not good enough. Read the ‘Photographic Evidence Quality’ section of the agreement holder’s guide for the relevant CS scheme for more information.

Submit by post

You can also send supporting documents and evidence by post to:

Rural Payments Agency
PO Box 324
Worksop
S95 1DF

Remember to put your SBI, agreement number on all documents and, where possible, include the claim reference.

We recommend you get proof of postage.

Question 12

Submit your claim

Accepted Answer

Remember to sign and date the declaration section in the claim form if you are submitting your claim by either email or post. Send your completed claim (include all pages), supporting documents and any evidence that needs to be submitted, to reach RPA by the ‘claim by’ deadline date in your agreement document.

For all claims you must:

print, sign and date the declaration section
put your SBI and agreement number on everything you send to us
have the correct permission level (at least ‘CS Agreements –Submit) in the Rural Payments service before you submit your claim

Submit your claim by email

You can submit your claim by email if you received your claim form from us by email or by post.

If you received your claim from us by email

‘Reply’ to that email, attaching your completed documents to it. Remember to print the declaration section, then sign and date it. Scan it into your computer as well as the supporting documents and evidence that need to be submitted.

By ‘replying’ to the email we sent to you, rather than sending us a new email, your claim will be automatically forwarded to the correct team, and not have to wait in a queue to be sorted manually. For more information about submitting evidence by email read the ‘supporting documents and evidence’ section.

If you received your claim by post

You can submit it by email. Scan all the documents, attach them to an email and send the email to ruralpayments@defra.gov.uk. Use ‘Countryside Stewardship 2024 Capital Claim’ and your SBI as the email subject heading.

Remember to sign and date the declaration section.

Make sure that the email address you’re sending your claim from is registered for your business in the Rural Payments service before you send the email.

For more information about submitting evidence by email read the ‘supporting documents and evidence’ section.

Send your claim by post

If you received your claim by post and cannot submit it by email, you can post it to:

Rural Payments Agency
PO Box 324
Worksop
S95 1DF

Remember to sign and date the declaration section before you submit your claim. We recommend that you get proof of posting for any documents you send to us by post. You should keep a copy of everything you send to us.

Question 13

What happens next

Accepted Answer

We’ll contact you if we have any queries.

We’ll make all payments directly into the bank account we have details for, so it’s important that this information is up to date.

After you’ve submitted your claim, you can check the progress of it in the Rural Payments service. The claim status will change in the CS claims screen as your claim progresses through the following stages.

Submitted

You’ve submitted your claim, supporting documents and any evidence that needs to be submitted, to reach RPA before the ‘claim by’ date in your agreement document.

Claim validation

Your claim, supporting documents and any evidence that needed to be submitted are being checked to confirm eligibility.

Final checking

Your claim is waiting for final check and authorisation to pay.

Preparing for payment

Your claim is being sent for payment or has been paid.

The claim status will still show ‘preparing for payment’ after it has been paid. Please check your nominated bank account to confirm whether payment has been made. If your claim has been at ‘preparing for payment’ for longer than one month and you’ve not received your payment contact the RPA helpline.

Telephone: 03000 200 301 Monday to Friday, 8am to 5pm (excluding public holidays) Find out about call charges

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