This is the process for approving forestry cases eligible for ongoing approval and recording that approval.
1. Proposals will proceed through the system as normal until 'committed'. Once 'committed', Case Officers assess and review the eligibility of the proposals against the criteria for "Ongoing Approval of Forestry Proposals". The value of the proposal must be confirmed as below £250k. (Case Admin can assist in calculating the monetary value for 'borderline' cases)
2. If eligible for Ongoing Approval, the Case Officer gets FCS Operations Manager approval for the proposal to be processed by the ongoing approval route. The Case Officer enters a Note on the Case Notepad to explain that the case is being passed for ongoing approval as it is for less than £250k and that the Conservator (name) will make the RPAC decision on the case.
3. Those proposals that are eligible must be registered on the spreadsheet as awaiting ongoing approval. Complete columns A -F only at this stage (if a calculation of the monetary value for 'borderline' cases has been made complete columns A - Q). A copy of the spreadsheet is sent to FCS National Office.
4. If the proposal is not eligible for ongoing approval, it must proceed to scoring and RPAC as normal.
5. The Proposal will then proceed through Stage 2 Assessment and will be data cleansed. Offline scoring will be completed, but the score will NOT be input onto the system at this stage to avoid the scheme registering on the NPAC report as going to the RPAC for consideration.
6. Proposals that meet the threshold score or buffer score (defined by the NPAC) will be passed to the Forestry Commission Scotland Conservator for approval, with delegated authority. The Conservator will subsequently notify the RPAC chair.
If the Conservator does not approve the Proposals, these will be submitted to the RPAC in the normal way ( FCS National Office to be notified of Proposals being 're-routed' to the RPAC).
7. Once approved the case officer will, sequentially, in one operation, record on the system:
- The score
- RPAC decision
- Ministerial approval
8. On the Case Notepad, the Case Officer will also record the date that the Conservator gave RPAC approval. The system will generate an RPAC Decision letter for the applicant and initiate the contract. The case will then register on the NPAC reports as previously approved.
9. The produced case "Schedule of Works" will display the monetary values of the contract. The Case Officer/Case Admin can use these values to complete the Ongoing Approval spreadsheet (Conservancy version) and send to National Office. (This should be completed immediately after points 7 and 8 above.)
10. FCS National Office will collate the information on the Ongoing Approval spreadsheets and log on the FCS shared area and on Sharepoint as 'read-only' files.