Once you have submitted your Proposal you will not be able to make changes to it until your Case Officer has carried out the first stage assessment and provided you with feedback. The 'case status' shown will change to 'Proposal submitted'. You will then receive an on-screen acknowledgement, notifying you that your submitted Proposal has been received and asking you to send any supporting documentation (i.e. map, reports, etc.) to the Case Officer who dealt with your SoI within 14 days of submitting your Proposal.
If supporting information is in electronic format and in a file size and type that can be easily emailed, then this is the preferred method for passing the information to your Case Officer. Alternatively, you can save your electronic information on to a CD and send it along with any paper-based information to your Case Officer.
Once your documents have been linked up with the Proposal the Case Officer will start their Stage 1 assessment.
Stage 1 assessments will cover the following:
Checking eligibility:
- The applicant and the land is eligible for the individual options you have selected, i.e. meets any Option-specific eligibility criteria
- The Annual Recurrent and Capital items selected within each Option are eligible
- A preliminary check, where the Case Officer is aware, of any potential duplication or conflict with other management schemes operated by Scottish Environment and Rural Service (SEARS) organisations
Please Note, when completing your online Proposal you will be asked to declare that you are not applying for Rural Priorities Options that conflict with, or duplicate, existing management activity
for which you are receiving other public funds.
- The physical attributes of the holding or characteristics of the business are suitable for delivering the proposed outcomes
- There is no incompatibility between the Options selected
Checking the Proposal is valid:
- All the necessary supporting documentation has been submitted including a map for land-based Options and an Outcome Plan in all cases
- Any relevant specialist advice is included in the Outcome Plan
- There are no obvious errors or omissions
- All text boxes contain appropriate information
Checking the fit with Regional Priorities:
- The Options, Packages and regional priorities you have selected are correctly aligned.
Note: At this stage the Case Officer is simply checking that the named Options are correctly aligned with the selected regional priorities.
The Case Officer may, at this stage, seek input from colleagues within other relevant public organisations to confirm that the information that has been included within your Proposal is appropriate and necessary for the operations you intend to carry out. The Case Officer will also contact other public organisations regarding the need for any statutory consents and/or approvals for the Proposal.
Once they have received this advice and completed all these checks, the Case Officer will provide you with feedback by letter or email. The Case Officer will also change the status of your Proposal to 'Proposal incomplete' which will allow you to make any further changes, if you wish.
You can amend and re-submit your Proposal for further feedback from your Case Officer as often as you wish until you are satisfied your Proposal is ready to be committed for formal assessment.
Where there are no issues arising from the checks, your Proposal will be put out to public consultation where required (e.g. new woodland planting) for a period of up to 28 days.
Consultation with other Public Organisations
Where there is a requirement to formally consult other SEARS public organisations on any aspect of your Proposal, the Case Officer will initiate this on your behalf. You will be expected to initiate consultation with public organisations, other than SEARS organisations, likely to have an interest in your Proposal, e.g. the local planning authority if your Proposal requires planning permission.
When consulting public organisations the Case Officer will supply the relevant information you have supplied with your Proposal (such as an electronic version of any maps you have supplied) to allow these public organisations to run through their own systems to assess any likely impacts. These organisations will have up to 28 days to respond.
Please note applications that contain Woodland Creation Options and/or the Woodland Improvement Grant - Long Term Forest Planning Option and/or the Short Rotation Coppice Options will be sent to appropriate consultees and placed on the Public Register for 28 days. See Consultation and Public Register guidance on the procedures your Case Officer will follow with regard to placing Proposals containing those woodland Options on the Public Register.
With more complex cases and/or where a field visit is required, more time may be required. You will be informed of any delays beyond the 28 days.
Once the public organisation advisors have provided their comments, the Case Officer will collate them, together with any comments received from formal and public consultations, and offer feedback to you. The Case Officer will change the status of your Proposal to 'Proposal incomplete' which will allow you to make changes, if any are required. You can then either 'submit' to allow the Case Officer to re-run the Stage 1 checks or go straight to 'commit'.
Only after you have submitted and discussed your Proposal with your Case Officer at least once, and you are satisfied you have supplied all the necessary information, should you 'commit' your Proposal.
Any site visits should be undertaken before the Proposal is 'committed'.
Once you have 'committed' your Proposal, the case status will change to 'case committed' . At this point you will be able to read your Proposal but you will not be able to make any further changes.
This triggers the formal assessment and scoring by the Case Officer (Stages 2 and 3). During this phase, you are permitted to 'withdraw' the application which stops all further processing of the application. Should you wish to amend your committed application, you will have to resubmit the Proposal from start of the process, i.e. you will need to submit a new SoI.