Basic Payment Scheme Launch

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Basic Payment Scheme Launch

In this blog we’ll provide an overview of the Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) launch and the changes that are happening in 2021.

Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) is currently the biggest of the rural payments that provide support to the farming industry. Farmers apply once a year – between March and May – and payments begin in December.

This year, you can apply for BPS 2021 from Thursday 18 March through to midnight on Monday 17 May. This includes Young and New Farmer applications. We would always encourage you to apply as soon as possible to give you enough time. You can still submit an application until midnight on Friday 11 June, but penalties will apply for any submitted after 17 May.

We’ve listened to your feedback. BPS scheme rules that apply from this year have been simplified and will affect the information you need to give in your application. You can read more information in the BPS rules for 2021 but a quick rundown of the main changes are as follows.

• All 3 greening requirements have been removed: crop diversification, Ecological Focus Areas and the greening permanent grassland rules
• Removal of cross-border applications: we will process and pay your English entitlements only
• We have removed the entitlement expiry usage rules from 2021 onwards
• We will accept supporting documents until 11 June without penalties being applied to your application, provided your application was received before midnight on 17 May
• You can amend your application up to 11 June, as long as the original was submitted before the 17 May deadline
• The force majeure notification period has been extended from 15 days to 8 weeks

As well as BPS, the claim window for customers with existing Countryside Stewardship (CS) and Environmental Stewardship (ES) revenue agreements also opened on 18 March. If this applies to you, we would also encourage you to submit your claim for 2021 payment as soon as you can, ahead of the 17 May deadline.

We recently announced the opening of expressions of interest for the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) pilot. Remember you can take part in the SFI pilot this year, if you meet the eligibility criteria, as well as applying for BPS.
You can read more information about SFI in the Defra blog.

These are our top tips to make the BPS application process as smooth as possible.

1. Check all personal details in the Rural Payments service now to ensure they are correct and up to date
2. If you apply online, check the ’Apply less BPS area’ screens to make sure that any changes to activated areas have been captured and always generate, save and print a PDF claim summary once you’ve submitted your claim
3. And most importantly, apply for BPS 2021 as soon as possible. This gives you and us more time to deal with any problems or issues that may arise and will ultimately avoid any subsequent difficulties with payments

You can also watch Richard Wordsworth, Senior BPS Adviser at the NFU, talk about how to prepare for BPS 2021 applications on the video below.

As always you can contact us if you need help or advice.
Email: [email protected]
Helpline: 03000 200 301

 

[Formatted]

I sent you an REL1 form with three new fields on it, you've only included 2 fields and you haven't replied to my email.

 

[delilah]

Am hugely encouraged that this has been posted in the main section.
I think I am right in saying that these posts have till now gone in a dedicated Govt release section where, frankly, most of us only stumble by chance when looking for the music or footie threads or suchlike.
I really hope that Defra continue to post in this main section. Not everything, just the important ones.
I would also suggest that they don't reply to whatever we post by way of reply. They should commit to read it all, and take it all on board, but not reply on here. Otherwise it just turns into a slanging match.
Thank you again to Defra for this positive move.

 

[Highland Mule]

It’s an RSS feed, so presumably managed by @Chris F with no government input?

 

[delilah]

It’s an RSS feed, so presumably managed by @Chris F with no government input?

then Chris should give himself a mug.

 

[Walton2]

I sent you an REL1 form with three new fields on it, you've only included 2 fields and you haven't replied to my email.

Surely....if they had replied to your email,they would have been working for you.
Life doesn’t seem to work like that. Consultation and co-design are the latest buzz words.It seems to me that despite being outnumbered by employees in DEFRA,Natural England ,Rural Payments Agency etc, we generally don’t get our questions answered, or suggestions taken on board.
As I asked in Clive’s questions to ask regarding the ELMS consultation,if they don’t or won’t, answer a question....well it would show good faith to explain their reasoning !

 

[Dman2]

then Chris should give himself a mug.

Or maybe Chris is the mug

 

[Brisel]

Or maybe Chris is the mug

Maybe he's trying to encourage the spread of information from DEFRA to make our lives easier when filling these forms?

Edited to add - you may just have been cracking a joke there, so apologies for the more serious reply.

 

[Chris F]

It’s an RSS feed, so presumably managed by @Chris F with no government input?

It is an automated feed - but I speak to the Defra comms team most weeks to make sure all the right info is going on TFF. We have to make judgements on the fly to where things go often.

So there is a bit of government input and I will add they are trying to communicate better.