Action required by businesses who used FWAG as their SRDP agent
Background
The activity of the Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group (FWAG) activity in Scotland should have ceased on 26 February when they went into voluntary liquidation. As the Scottish Government's Rural Payments and Inspections Directorate (RPID) has to ensure that only those with valid agent mandates are able to work on any SRDP scheme activities, we will immediately be end-dating all FWAG Agent mandates from our IT system. This will then prevent anyone using a FWAG Agent ID to successfully log into Rural Payments Online (RPO) to process any applications, claims and/or forms they were working on as FWAG employees. To minimise any disruption this may cause for your business/organisation, it is advised that you urgently undertake the following action.
Business Action
You should urgently complete an Agent Authorisation (AA1) form at Section 1, tick the relevant schemes/forms at Section 3 and sign at Section 4 before immediately forwarding to the agent you wish to act for you. It is recognised this may cause your business some immediate work but, other than deciding not to employ an agent, there is no alternative to resolve this situation. Any queries should be directed to your agent or to your RPID Area Office, who can also provide copies of the AA1 form. Alternatively go to :
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/Doc/971/0056538.pdf AA1 form
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/Doc/971/0056613.pdf AA1 Q & A
Agent Action
When received, the agent should complete Section 2 of the AA1 and sign it at section 4. Then immediately forward the AA1 form to the relevant RPID Area Office for data capture. This will lead to the agent being given a new Agent ID which they will need to quote when contacting the Rural Payments Online Heldesk (0845 601 7597) to obtain a new password so they may continue any applications and/or forms they were previously working on for that business, or begin any new applications. Alternatively, rather than wait for an AA1 form to be submitted, the agent may immediately contact their local RPID Area Office to request a new Agent ID.
Any queries on this exercise should also be directed to the local RPID Area Office.