Cross Compliance Audits - 1 Mar 2008

Avoid the risk of an RPA or Environment Agency inspector catching you out, we can audit your business to make sure you are compliant. Also some key points to be aware of.

There are 109,000 applicants to Single Payment. Of these 1% will be definately inspected, a total of 1090 holdings. These holdings will mainly be those with known issues, or past failures. There will be an element of random inspections as well, from both ends of the payment scale.

If more than half of the inspections fail, then next year 2% of farms will be inspected, 2180 holdings. It is unfortunate that those targeted who have been known to fail in the past, may well fail again, and so we are almost certain of having more inspections in the 2008 scheme year.

Soil Protection Review: If you cannot produce this at the start of an inspection then you immediately incur a penalty of 15% of your Single Payment.

If you do produce your Soil Protection Review then make sure you have updated it with any soil issues that may have occurred during the year. If an inspector notes a soil issue on your farm (a soil issue is one greater than 20 square metres) and you have not made a reference to it in your Review, then this is another penalty.

Please note that if the 2007 floods have affected your property you should enter the details in your Soil Protection Review.

Environmental Stewardship: As mentioned in our other article, these schemes will be inspected as part of the Cross Compliance inspection.

What we can do to help: Whatever schemes you have signed up to, we can help you ensure you have the correct documentation in place for inspection. This includes Cross Compliance, Waste Regulations, Environmental Stewardship, Nitrate Vulnerable Zones, Organic Schemes and Farm Assurance. We also have expertise in the 'old' agri-environment schemes such as Countryside Stewardship, Environmentally Sensitive Areas and Woodland Schemes.

We will visit your holding, and conduct a thorough tour of the land, yard and buildings. As a result of this we can then advise you on any points of failure we may have found, relating to the schemes you are part of. This could be 2 metre field margins, non exempt waste or inappropriate storage of muck.

Back to News Page