Guidance

Agreement holder's guide: Woodland Management Plan grant 2023

Updated 6 December 2023

Applies to England

If you’re applying for a CS Woodland Managagement Plan agreement, follow sections 1 to 4 of the applicant’s guide.

If you’re an agreement holder, follow section 6 and 7 of this guide, and the CS Terms and Conditions.

A Countryside Stewardship (CS) agreement comprises:

• the scheme Terms and Conditions
• an Agreement Document (which sets out Agreement Holder specific details)
• the supplementary documents referred to in the Agreement Document.

The Terms and Conditions refer to the mandatory elements of this manual that Agreement Holders must comply with. See Annex 1: CS Terms and Conditions 2023.

Mandatory sections you must comply with:

• section 5 Woodland Management Plan grant: scheme requirements, procedures and agreement management

5. Woodland Management Plan grant: scheme requirements, procedures and agreement management

You must read and meet the requirements detailed in this section as these are mandatory for all CS Woodland Management Plan (WMP) agreement holders.

‘Agreement Holder’ means the person (whether an individual, a company or other entity) who has entered into the CS agreement as identified in the Agreement Document (in line with clause 1 of the Annex 1: CS Terms and Conditions.

‘Agreement Land’ is defined in clause 1 of the Annex 1: CS Terms and Conditions.

5.1 Entering into an agreement

If your application is successful, we will send you an agreement offer. If you want to accept, you must return the signed acceptance declaration to us within 20 working days of the date on the offer.

If you do not accept your offer in time, we will withdraw it. Once an agreement offer has been made, you can reject it.

The agreement start date will be set out in the agreement offer.

Once you have accepted the offer and entered into an agreement, you can only modify, extend, or amend the agreement with the RPA’s consent.

5.2 Agreement period

Once you accept an agreement, you have 3 years from the start of the agreement to create the WMP and get approval (including any associated felling approval) from the Forestry Commission. You then have a further 3 months to submit your payment claim.

For example, if your agreement starts on 1 June 2023, the end date of the agreement would be 31 May 2026. Your WMP would need to be completed and approved by then. You would then have until 31 August 2026 to submit your payment claim.

We recommend that you send your draft WMP to the Forestry Commission within the first year of your agreement. If they receive your WMP after this time, they cannot guarantee that they will approve it within the 3-year period. You will get more information about this in the agreement offer letter.

The 3 year duration of your agreement is for the submission and approval of a WMP, including any associated felling approval. It is not for the duration of the work detailed in the WMP itself.

5.3 Agreement management

A CS agreement is made up of:

• CS Annex 1: Terms and Conditions
• the Agreement Document (which sets out agreement holder-specific details)
• any supplementary documents referred to in the agreement document

5.4 Record keeping

Agreement Holders will need to keep the following records and supply them on request:

• any consents or permissions connected with the work
• receipted invoices, or bank statements where a receipted invoice is unavailable
• Forestry Commission WMP approval letter

5.5 Claiming for the WMP

You must claim payment for your WMP in a single claim, once your WMP has been approved by the Forestry Commission, and within 3 months following the agreement end date.

You can submit a payment claim for your approved WMP at any time of the year, providing:

• the WMP was completed to the standards set out in create a woodland management plan within 3 years from the agreement start date (see section 2.6 of the applicant’s guide)
• the WMP and associated felling permissions have been approved by a Forestry Commission Woodland Officer

If we receive a claim more than 3 months but less than 6 months after the agreement end date, a late claim reduction will be applied. If we receive a claim more than 6 months after the agreement end date, the claim will not be accepted and no payment will be made.

You can only make one payment claim for the WMP grant, for the full amount. We will pay valid claims within 2 months of receiving them. We will reject any payment claims which are late.

You can read the how to make a capital or revenue claim for Countryside Stewardship guidance for information on how to submit your claim online.

If you cannot claim online, contact us to get a claim form.

Email: ruralpayments@defra.gov.uk

Telephone: 03000 200 301
Monday to Friday, 8:30am to 5pm, except bank holidays
Find out about call charges

We will make payments directly into your bank account. It is your responsibility to keep your bank details up to date on the Rural Payments service. You do not need to send any evidence that we have approved the WMP with the payment claim.

5.6 Change in circumstances

You must notify us as soon as you can if there is a change in your circumstances that might:

• affect the amount of funding you have been or will be paid
• prevent you from complying with the conditions of your agreement
• prevent you from carrying out the work set out in your agreement, including preventing you from carrying out the work to the agreed standard or in the agreed timeframe
• affect your continued entitlement to agreement funding, for example if you no longer have management control of the land parcels included in your agreement

5.7 Amendments

If, after you’ve been offered an agreement, you want to change or amend your agreement you need to write to us to ask for permission. We will tell you if we can accept your request and confirm the date the change or amendment will take place. You cannot change or amend your agreement after you’ve been offered an agreement without our written permission. We will write to confirm if your request is successful.

The amendment will not be valid until you have received a letter from us, agreeing to the amendment, and advising you of the date from which it will take effect. You should be able to carry out the WMP under your agreement without difficulty. However, should an exceptional situation arise where you need to change it or the time schedule, you can ask us to amend your agreement. We will only agree to changes that are necessary to achieve the objectives of the scheme. You need written permission from us before you can amend or reschedule approved capital items.

You should contact us if you would like to discuss an amendment to your agreement before the end of the original agreement period to complete the management plan. We must agree to the request before you make any changes to the plan, its location, or timing, and you may need to repay all or part of previous payments that you have received. We will write to confirm if your request is successful. The amendment will not be valid until you have received a letter from us agreeing to the amendment and advising you of the date from which it will take effect.

5.8 Recoveries and reductions

We may reduce or withhold payments, or recover previous payments if you:

• breach the terms of your agreement
• do not meet the relevant eligibility criteria on all or part of your land

5.8.1 Late payment claims

You must claim for payment no later than 3 months following the agreement end date. If we receive a claim more than 3 months but less than 6 months after the agreement end date, a late claim reduction will be applied. If we receive a claim more than 6 months after the agreement end date, the claim will not be accepted and no payment will be made

5.8.2 Cross compliance

You must comply with all applicable domestic law. In particular, note that while cross compliance no longer applies, the majority of cross compliance rules are also requirements under domestic legislation.

5.8.3 Breaches of Agreement

If you do not meet the terms of your CS agreement, we may reduce or withhold your payment or ask you to repay any monies we have already paid to you.

If we find a breach, we will write to you and tell you. You’ll have the opportunity to appeal if you do not agree with our findings. If a breach is confirmed, we’ll work out the most appropriate action we need to take and let you know. We may apply more than one course of action depending on the breach found. We’ll assess the level of breach in a fair and consistent manner, on a case-by-case basis, using the following set of criteria:

• to what extent the breach can be rectified
• the circumstances, nature and consequences surrounding the breach
• any failure to cooperate with site visits, or further investigations
• any steps taken to report a change in circumstances
• whether it is an isolated or a repeat occurrence
• whether it was intentional
• whether it was because of reckless or negligent action

If there’s a breach of your agreement or the regulations, we may:

• ask you to correct the breach
• issue a letter explaining that we’ve assessed the breach and what you have to do to amend your agreement

For more serious breaches, we may:

• reduce the payments you get, or withhold part of them
• reduce or withhold money from other schemes
• recover money we’ve already paid

In the most extreme cases, we may:

• end your agreement
• stop you receiving financial assistance (other than BPS) under any other scheme for up to 2 years

In exceptional circumstances where there is reasonable suspicion of a serious breach or fraud, then we may access land and your premises without notice, using powers of entry. In these circumstances, for example as part of a fraud investigation, we may access any computer that’s been used in connection with the evidence or these records.

If we find breaches during administrative checks or any site visit, we will write to tell you and you will have the opportunity to make written representations if you feel that our findings are incorrect. These representations will be taken into consideration before a decision is made on whether it is appropriate to apply reductions or withhold payments.

We will work out the level of reduction we need to apply by looking at the severity of the breach and whether it is an isolated or a repeat occurrence. We may apply a reduction to your current year’s claim and to previous years’ claims (under your SBI), unless you can demonstrate you were compliant in previous years.

A brief explanation follows of how breaches are assessed.

Severity

We will assess what has happened due to the breach or non-compliance and consider the objectives of the agreement or options that were not met as a result. For example, if we find an item has been constructed in a way that means it does not deliver what it was designed for, we would class this as a severe breach. As part of this assessment, we will also take into account whether the breach will have short or long-term impacts.

Re-occurrence

The assessment will depend on several factors, for example whether a similar event of non-compliance has been found in previous years of your agreement and whether the re-occurrence concerns the same or a similar type of work.

If we consider that a breach is so serious that it cannot be rectified, we may cancel the agreement. In serious circumstances, you may not be allowed to enter into other agriculture or forestry schemes for up to 2 years.

5.8.4 Over-declaration of claim

If you submit a claim for more than is eligible to be claimed, we will reduce the payment to the correct amount.

5.8.5 Refusal or withdrawal of support claimed

In certain cases, we may refuse or withdraw in full the support claimed and terminate your existing agreement. We will do this if we think you have:

• committed a serious non-compliance
• provided false evidence
• negligently failed to provide the necessary information (for instance, where we have asked for it repeatedly and there is no good reason why you have not provided it)

If we have to withdraw support for these reasons, we will terminate the existing agreement and you will not be permitted to re-apply for the scheme or to other Defra grant schemes for 2 years. We may also refuse support for other Defra grant schemes for up to 2 years. If this is the case, we will tell you and you will have the right to appeal against this decision.

5.9 Good reasons for a breach

You may be unable to meet your requirements under the agreement because of exceptional circumstances. If this happens, you must write to tell us within 8 weeks from the date on which you (or any person authorised to act for you) are able to do so.

You will need to provide evidence in writing to show:

• what has happened
• how the event meant you were unable to meet the scheme rules

Good reasons for a breach may include, but are not limited to:

• the death of the agreement holder
• serious illness
• a severe weather event
• the accidental destruction of capital items connected to your agreement
• damage caused by criminality
• supply chain issues
• an epizootic or a plant disease affecting part or all of your crops, trees or livestock

We will consider the facts to decide whether the Agreement Holder is relieved of all or part of their obligations under the agreement, and whether all or part of the grant should be withheld or repaid.

If you are aware of the issue when entering into your agreement, then it is unlikely to be considered a good reason for a breach.

5.10 Disputes, appeals and complaints

If you are unhappy with a decision we have taken about your application or agreement, you can appeal.

If you’re unhappy with a decision we’ve taken or service you’ve had from us, you can ask us to reconsider. If you’re still unhappy with the result of our decision, you can appeal.

Follow the RPA complaints procedure to raise a complaint. This also includes information on how to request a reconsideration or submit an appeal.