The Integrated Administration And Control System: explanatory booklet

IACS - SINGLE APPLICATION FORM ( SAF) 2007

Introduction

1. This booklet sets out the detailed rules of the IACS and how to fill in the SAF for the SFPS. The SAF also incorporates the application for NAS, ECS, PCP and the area based options of the LMCMS. You should read the following publications before you submit an application form:

• SFPS Notes for Guidance
• LMCMS Notes for Guidance Booklet
• LMCMS Notes for Guidance Leaflet (included in this year's pack)
• SBCS Notes for Guidance
• Cross Compliance Notes for Guidance.

Releasing information about you and your payments

2. We have a legal duty to keep the conditions of the Data Protection Act 1998, the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 and the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004.

It is our policy to release information about the amounts of subsidies we pay and who receives payment through the Single Farm Payments Scheme and the new schemes under the Rural Development Regulation. We will process personal information we receive in line with the Data Protection Act 1998, but you should be aware that we will generally disclose (that is, make available for other people to see) the particular information mentioned above.

We will also protect other personal information we receive in line with the Data Protection Act 1998. We will use the information provided in the Common Agricultural Policy subsidy application mainly for the purpose of processing the applications. However, we may also use personal information, depending on the conditions of the 1998 Act, for purposes connected with:

• Administration of the Common Agricultural Policy;
• Scottish Rural Development Plan and other aid schemes;
• The production and safety of food;
• Management of land and other environmental controls;
• Providing services to businesses;
• Animal health and welfare; and
• Occupational health and welfare.

We may pass information (when necessary for these purposes) to other organisations. For example, to Customs and Excise for import and export purposes, or to local authorities for milk or health purposes. This may include sharing field-boundary information with organisations who can show they have a need for this kind of information. We may use information for statistical purposes, which may reduce the need for collecting some statistical information, or when we need to keep to the Freedom of Information Act or the Environmental Information Regulations noted above. We may also pass contact information to research organisations to conduct surveys on our behalf which will help us to monitor and improve our service to you.

Who is Eligible to Apply

3. To be eligible to claim SFPS, you must be a farmer with SFPS entitlements, carrying out an agricultural activity. To be eligible to claim LMCMS, you can be any land manager. To be eligible to claim ECS and PCP you must be a farmer.

4. To be eligible to claim SFPS:

• A farmer is defined as a natural or legal person, or a group of natural or legal persons whose holding is situated within Scotland and who exercises an agricultural activity. This includes a legally constituted body such as a partnership, company or trust. Note that you must be over 16 years of age.
• Agricultural Activity is defined as producing, growing or rearing agricultural products, including harvesting crops or keeping animals for milking, breeding animals and keeping animals for other farming purposes, or maintaining the land in Good Agricultural and Environmental Condition ( GAEC).

5. You need not produce anything to be eligible to claim for SFPS but, whether you do or not, you will still need to keep your land in GAEC.

6. If you are involved in different businesses, and only if each business is managed as a separate business according to certain rules, you can submit a separate application for each business. In most cases we will have assessed already whether businesses are separate but in some cases we may need to seek more information. We will consider the legal status of the businesses, how far operations are run separately each day in practice, whether there are separate farm plans and accounts, the independence of decision-making between the separate farms and where the overall economic control of the businesses rests. Each of these factors is not necessarily conclusive by itself and we may ask farmers for more information, for example, partnership agreements, Articles of Association and accounts. Ultimately, you must satisfy us that the businesses are separate.

7. We must check that, where businesses are split or created, they have not been established with the main purpose of avoiding individual limits on aid. If you tell your SEERAD Area Office, or you have indicated on your SAF or LBCF, that you have created a new business or that you have changed an existing business, we may need to get more information.

Cross Border Applications

8. If you have farms in different parts of the UK, which you manage as part of one business, you must submit one SAF covering each of those farms. Please note that land in another country must be entered in that country's forms. You should submit all of your SAF's (which may consist of Scottish, English, Welsh and Northern Irish forms) to the Area Office in the country which deals with your main farm unit. Under IACS rules the country to which you submit your SAFs to is responsible for the processing and payment of your claim.

Who needs to apply?

9. You must submit a SAF if you wish to claim under any of the following 2007 schemes: SFPS; SBCS; LMCMS; ECS; PCP; and NAS.

Who Need Not Apply?

10. You are not required to submit a SAF if:

• You do not wish to activate your SFPS entitlements;
• You do not wish to claim any other schemes listed at paragraph 9.

If you do not submit a SAF, your SFPS payments will be lost for the scheme year.