You are asked to make claims for Annual Recurrent Payments via the Single Application Form (SAF) and so arrangements will mirror those already in place for the SAF. Claims must be submitted by 15 May each year.
The scheme year for Annual Recurrent payment claims is 1 January to 31 December, in line with the Single Farm Payment. You may submit Annual Recurrent payment claims where:
- A contract has been approved by 31 December of the previous year; and
- management arrangements will be in place in time to claim on the SAF; and
- no incompatible payments are being claimed on the area (e.g. single farm payment and farmland premium are incompatible) for that year; and
- the claimant expects to be contributing towards the intended outcome of the Option by the time payments are made following the end of the management year in question, e.g. for claims submitted with the SAF in May 2009, payments will commence in early 2010.
The only exception to this rule is for First Afforestation of Agricultural Land. For this Option, we will allow claims to be made on the SAF even if the establishment of the trees is not completed until June of that year, to allow for the natural planting season to run its course.
Different Options in the same contract can start in different years, in accordance with your contract, as long as the decision to stagger the start years is explained in the Proposal. Multi-annual Options will still have to be carried out for the number of years specified for the particular Option.
For example, your contract is approved in 2008 and management arrangements are started prior to the SAF deadline on 15 May 2009. You would then be eligible to claim on the 2009 SAF. However, if the management is started after 15 May 2009, the claim should be made on the 2010 SAF, e.g. if the claim relates to winter Options which don't start until October, you should make the claim the following year. For particular shorter Options, where all the first year's work is completed within 2009, this should be claimed in 2009.
Claims for the natural regeneration Option, where the claim is submitted once a certain number of years worth of growth can be shown, should start management and claims as agreed in the contract (e.g fencing off), although evidence of the management may not be visible until at a later date. Please see the Option specific guidance for further information.
If you are claiming for an Option which includes an element of compensation for income foregone (for example, for some afforestation and Natura 2000 Options), the compensatory payment claim must be started in the same year as the Annual Recurrent claim. You can only do this if you are not claiming an incompatible payment on the same piece of land for that year. For example, in the same year you cannot receive both a Single Farm Payment as well as a compensatory rate such as the Farmland Premium. Please refer to guidance for your specific Option to find out when you can make claims for the different elements of the Option payments.