The NFU have received the following update from Natural England on the Commission Audit and change to the payment cycle for ES agreements which came into force 1st July this year.
Natural England have now introduced a Single Administrative Cross-check (SAC). This will run annually and it was initiated for the first time over the weekend of the 15/16 August. Therefore, ES Agreement holders who have passed the check and were due a partial payment in July and August (i.e. Jan 1st and Feb 1st agreement start dates), will start to receive their payments in the next 2 weeks.
Defra and Natural England had originally indicated that partial payments normally due after the introduction of the new payment cycle (i.e. expected on or after 1 July 2011), would not be expected to appear until this autumn at the earliest. This news suggests that some of these payments will now be released much sooner than they had anticipated, which will be good news for some of our members, but no doubt will cause confusion on the ground.
For further information please refer to the Natural England website http://www.naturalengland.org.uk/ourwork/farming/funding/developments.aspx
The NFU will be pressing Natural England to provide further updates on progress with payments over the coming months.
- Roy Gamlin - 24/08/2011
Well done Natural England staff. You appear to have played the EU at their own game. I always knew you had it in you. May this original thinking spread far and wide.Thankyou from all Agreement Holders.