The Scottish Government

21 October

The dates for the next RPACs have been finalised for March 2010.

Applicants should ensure that all supporting documentation that they wish to have considered as part of their application is provided by the dates shown above.

This will be the seventh assessment round since Rural Priorities formally kicked off in April 2008.

Applicants should also be aware that the number of committed cases for the upcoming RPACs (mid-late November) has hit record levels, with more than double the number of projects under consideration than at the RPACs held in August. While demonstrating that the objectives and requirements of Rural Priorities now appear to be well understood across the country, applicants should also be aware that only projects of the highest possible quality are likely to be funded this time round, with competition particularly high for agri-environment projects wishing to start work in January 2010.

* - Please note that there will be cases where it is not possible to move from the 'submit' to 'commit' stage in the minimum three-week period indicated above, particularly for forestry options where public consultation or associated consents may be required. In these circumstances, you should contact your Case Officer to discuss an appropriate timescale. Cases that require to be placed on the public register and/or require consultation (eg: woodland creation) will require at least 6 weeks between Case Submit and Case Commit (As an example: for the March 2010 RPAC, this means that any forestry proposals that require to go on the public register should be submitted the week commencing 7 December).

** - Please note that any Proposal committed after the cut off date will not go forward to that RPAC. However, we cannot guarantee that all Proposals committed by the cut off date will be considered by that RPAC, as the time taken for a Case Officer to assess and score a Proposal will vary, depending on the complexity of each Proposal and any advice from other public bodies which may be required.

Before we publish any further dates for 2010, we will take account of a number of points raised by stakeholder groups about how to improve the scheduling of assessments. We will make further details available in due course.

6 October

Following the recent announcement by the Cabinet Secretary at the Rural Gathering near Perth we can confirm that the Rural Priorities Community Services and Facilities option will be shortly be transferred into the LEADER Programme, a mechanism of the SRDP which closely relates to the option's themes of community empowerment.

Therefore, following the Regional Proposal Assessment Committees (RPACs) sitting this November, all future projects will be assessed by LEADER Local Action Groups (LAGs).

Further details on the change will be available in the coming weeks and applicants are advised to check the LEADER website for further details as they emerge. Final applications already committed for the upcoming RPAC will not be affected and will be considered as normal.

2 October

Data Capture System Improvements

Please be aware that following the recommendation in July to allow applicants to be able to bypass Statement of Intent (SoI) feedback, the option to bypass the SoI stage entirely will be available from Tuesday 6th October. The 'new look and feel' to the Rural Priorities online application goes live on the same day.

Case officers should be aware that applicants will notice a number of changes aimed at tidying up the pages and ensuring users are more comfortable using them. This is the first stage of a rollout of a new look and feel for all schemes that can currently be accessed through Rural Payments Online (RPO) and will be followed in the near future by similar visual changes to the Single Application Form (SAF) and the Scottish Beef Calf Scheme. These changes will give all RPO schemes a standardised look and feel and also form part of a wider remit to bring together the RPID online development teams, technologies and systems.

1 October

A planned shutdown of the Rural Priorities Front Office Data Capture will take place on Tuesday 6 October 2009 from 8am to 1pm to allow system improvements to be made. The system will be unavailable for use during this period.