Agreement holder's guide: Facilitation Fund 2023

Question 1

1. What happens when you enter into a Grant Funding Agreement (GFA)

Accepted Answer

If your application is successful, we will send you a letter confirming this, and you will also receive a GFA. We hope to start sending out GFA’s from the beginning of April 2023. You should check your email regularly from this date as you will only have a limited time to accept the offer.

The GFA will confirm the legal terms and conditions of the grant, including the:

amount of the grant
outputs we have agreed for your project

You should check all details in the agreement carefully before confirming and signing the acceptance declaration.

If you want to accept the offer you must sign and return the declaration as per the instructions in your agreement letter within 10 working days of receipt of the agreement offer. If you do not accept your offer in time, it will be withdrawn.

Your agreement will start on 1 June 2023 and run for 3 years.

Do not start any work until on or after your start date and only once you have accepted the offer.

Once you have accepted the offer and entered into an agreement, you can only modify, extend, or amend the agreement with the Rural Payments Agency’s (RPA’s) consent. If you need to change anything in your GFA over the course of the project, you must get written approval from us first. If you do not, we could end your agreement and claim back any funds we have already paid. If you are offered an agreement, we will give you more information and advice on making changes throughout the length of your agreement.

Question 2

2. What to do if you need to make a change to your facilitation plan during your agreement

Accepted Answer

You may find that due to factors outside of your control, you will be temporarily prevented from carrying out some of the actions required under your agreement. If you need to make a change to your facilitation plan at any time throughout the length of your agreement, you must let us know.

If the change is straightforward, for example, changing the date of a training session, you can tell us on your quarterly claim form.

If you are making a significant change, for example, changing what you’re planning to deliver, purchasing consumables or obtaining a new group member, you must apply to us for a variation to your agreement.

2.1 How to apply for a variation

You must apply for consent to make significant changes and we must grant you permission before you make the requested change, for example, before you stop any work or carry out any additional work. If you act without written or conditional permission, we may apply recoveries or reductions for a breach of agreement. For more information about recoveries and reductions, you can read the ‘Terms and Conditions’ at Section 15.

You should request a variation through your change log, which we will set up once we offer you an agreement. Fill in the change log as required and return it to us by email to ruralpayments@defra.gov.uk.

Permission to make a change is not automatic and we require up to 15 working days to consider any request you make. We’ll contact you and update you with our progress if your request is likely to take longer to review.

We will look at your request as quickly as possible, and we may need to contact you for clarification or for more details.

If we agree to your suggested variation, we will email you with permission. You should keep this approval with your agreement documents.

Types of variations include:

decrease in funds
changes to projects outputs
changes to claim submission dates
changes to number of claims
project delays
purchasing of consumables over £100

2.2 Request a £500 uplift for new members

When a new member joins your group, you can apply for an additional £500 uplift per year to cover additional costs of administration and management for the new member. You’ll need to request this as a variation to your GFA and give details of how the £500 uplift will be used across the remaining length of the agreement.

The maximum you can get funding for is 80 members. You can have more than 80 members in your group, but the fund uplift will be capped (stopped) if you reach 80 members.

We will look at each variation request, making sure the member is not already part of this facilitation group, or any other group. If we’re content, then we’ll issue the variation and you will receive the £500 uplift. This is subject to funds still being available. If the budget for the scheme has already been spent by the time you request your variation, we will not be able to give you the uplift payment.

2.3 What to do if a member leaves the group

If a member leaves your group, you should request a further variation to your budget to reduce it by £500 per year. You’ll need to look at your costs and amend them for the following year and for the remainder of the agreement to consider the reduction in funds.

If a member leaves your group, we will not recover any funds for the current or previous years that person has been a member, as the costs will have already been incurred.

2.4 When we may need to change an agreement and what happens

Occasionally, we may need to change the agreement in line with changes to law and other exceptional circumstances. In applying for the scheme, you accept that such changes may be made at any time. We’ll tell you about all changes and where these changes will significantly affect your individual agreement as soon as possible.

If we need to make adjustments to meet changes in regulations, relevant mandatory standards, requirements or obligations but you are not willing to accept these changes, your agreement will end. You will not need to repay funds already received as part of your agreement.

Question 3

3. How to request an extension if you have an underspend

Accepted Answer

If you have not spent all available funds at the end of your agreement period, you may request an extension.

You must submit your request for an extension to us 6 weeks before your agreement ends (for agreements that start on 1 June 2023, this would mean submitting your request by 18 April 2026). We will not make additional funds available during extension period. This includes the funding of consumable items and any uplift for new members joining the group.

3.1 Eligibility for extensions

You must continue to meet all eligibility criteria (or explain why it cannot be met, as agreed by the panel at application stage)

Extensions will run for a 6-month period only (up to 30 November 2026).

For the 2023 round, agreements will:

start on 1 June 2023
end on 31 May 2026

The 6-month extension period will:

start on 1 June 2026
end on 30 November 2026

All facilitation plans must be on track to be achieved by the original end date.

Additional activities must be agreed and delivered. You must tell us of any planned changes to activities by applying for a variation using your change log form. Read Section 2.1 on how to apply for a variation for more information.

Question 4

4. How to make a claim for payment

Accepted Answer

We must receive all claims for payment as per your agreed schedule. You must submit your final claim for payment no later than 3 months after the agreement end date. We will not accept claims after this date.

The table below shows the claim schedule for each period you can claim for throughout your agreement.

Period covered	Submission dates
1 June to 31 August 2023	15 September to 31 October 2023
1 September to 30 November 2023	15 December 2023 to 31 January 2024
1 December 2023 to 28 February 2024	15 March to 30 April 2024
1 March 2024 to 31 May 2024	15 June to 31 July 2024
1 June to 31 August 2024	15 September to 31 October 2024
1 September to 30 November 2024	15 December 2024 to 31 January 2025
1 December 2024 to 28 February 2025	15 March to 30 April 2025
1 March to 31 May 2025	15 June to 31 July 2025
1 June to 31 August 2025	15 September to 31 October 2025
1 September to 30 November 2025	15 December 2025 to 31 January 2026
1 December 2025 to 28 February 2026	15 March to 30 April 2026
1 March to 31 May 2026	15 June to 31 July 2026

The periods for submitting annual reports for each year of the agreement are:

1 June to 15 July 2024
1 June to 15 July 2025
1 June to 15 July 2026

We will only pay for approved and eligible spending that is recorded on your GFA and evidenced by supporting documentation. If you’ve changed your GFA and what you will be claiming for in any given quarter, you must have requested this change and received permission from us before claiming.

When you’ve finished the work and the payment for the items or activities has left your bank account, you can send us your claim for payment. If you are using a contractor, you must pay them before you make a claim for payment from us.

We will pay valid claims within 2 months of receiving them. If we receive a claim for payment after the last date of submission for the relevant claim period, the claim will be rejected.

4.1 Complete a claim form

Use the Facilitation Fund claim form (not yet available).

You must fill in this form to confirm the activities carried out against your planned milestones. You must keep evidence to support your claim. You must provide proof of spending and evidence of payment (for example, invoices, payslips and bank statements) in support of any items you’ve claimed for.

You must fill in timesheets with the names of each person you are claiming for and the length of each activity so that we can accurately process your claim.

Claims and supporting documentation should be sent to us by email only.

To make a claim:

make sure you have the correct permission levels on the Rural Payments service
make sure your email address is registered on the Rural Payments service
put CS Facilitation Fund Claim – SBI123456789 and CSFF123456 in the subject heading of your email to us
send your email to ruralpayments@defra.gov.uk

RPA will make all payments directly into the facilitator’s nominated bank account.

4.2 If you make a mistake

If you make a mistake on your claim form, you can resubmit it. If you have any questions or concerns about completing the form, get in touch through the rural payments helpline on 03000 200 301 before you submit your claim.

We will work out the payment due to you based on your claim. If we notice there are errors, we will remove any ineligible amounts and pay you only on the eligible claims we can verify.

If your claim does not reach us on time, is incomplete or not in accordance with the scheme rules and scheme manual, then we may have to take action such as withholding payment or reducing part or all of your grant.

Question 5

5. How we monitor progress, evidence and record keeping

Accepted Answer

You must read and meet the requirements detailed in this section as these are mandatory for all CS Facilitation Fund agreement holders.

We are required to make sure that CS and the Facilitation Fund are properly controlled in order to protect public money. To support this, we will undertake administrative checks and site visits to monitor your compliance with the rules governing your agreements.

We can undertake 3 main checks:

administrative record checks
agreement monitoring checks
site visits

You must allow us (or our authorised representatives or auditors) to access your land or premises to carry out site visits. Other UK public authorities may also visit you.

You must help and co-operate with any person carrying out a site visit. Any refusal to do so or obstruction will be treated as a breach of your terms and conditions, and you may face recovery of funds, suspension or termination of your agreement.

5.1 Administrative record checks

We’ll check all stages of the application and claim processes, including your application form, claim forms and, where appropriate, the nature and quality of any supporting evidence, such as receipts and assessment forms. This is to make sure that you meet eligibility requirements at the application stage, and that your forms and records match up throughout the agreement period.

If you do not provide records when asked, or there are discrepancies, we will treat this as a breach of your agreement. It is your responsibility to keep such records if you want to rely on this to support your claim.

5.2 Agreement monitoring checks

As part of the administrative checks on claims, we select a percentage of claims to carry out follow-up checks of facilitator records. Therefore, we may ask you to send us copies of records for us to check.

5.3 Site visits

Each year, we will carry out site visits on a number of agreements to make sure environmental aims are being delivered and scheme requirements have been met.

You must follow the requirements set out in your agreement and keep any records that are necessary to support your claim.

If we find any discrepancies during the site visit, we may have to apply reductions to your grant funds.

5.4 When evidence is required

You must obtain and keep evidence to show that you’ve carried out all the requirements of your agreement to support your claim or to support a site visit.

Your evidence must show that:

you are eligible for the scheme
the activities funded under your agreement are appropriate
the funded activity is taking or has taken place

You need to do this so that we can show that public money is being spent effectively and is delivering the intended results.

You must keep any required evidence and supporting documents and have them available on request.

5.5 What evidence you need

You must keep evidence to show that you, the business, the land and all consumable items are eligible. You may have to show this if you are chosen for a site visit.

Some of your evidence including references, maps and group member forms must be submitted with your application. Other supporting evidence such as your group agreement should be kept by you as we may ask to see it as part of our checks. You should keep copies of all supporting documents for the duration of your agreement and for 7 years following the end date of your agreement. For more information, read the ‘Terms and Conditions’ at Section 15.

Read Step 4 ‘Supporting documents’ in Section 4 ‘How to Apply’ of this manual for the supporting evidence you need to have in order to support your application.

5.6 Evidence during the agreement period

You may also need to supply evidence to show that you have carried out required actions such as:

to support a claim (where relevant, information will be sent with the claim form covering letter) – for more information, read section 5.8 ‘Evidence in support of a claim’
during or after an administrative check, an inspection or other checks

5.7 Evidence after the agreement period

The ‘Terms and Conditions’ at Section 15 state that you must keep all invoices, receipts, accounts and any other relevant documents relating to the expenditure of grant funds for at least 7 years from the end of your agreement. If we find that the eligibility criteria are no longer being met, we may end your agreement and recover funds.

5.8 Evidence in support of a claim

Each claim for payment will require evidence of the progress made against each delivery milestone.

All applicants in receipt of funds should provide invoices, timesheets and payslips, accompanied by completed BACS runs (if applicable) and bank statements. Bank statements must show that payment of expenses linked to those invoices occurred on a date prior to the date of your claim. You must have this evidence in support of every item you claim grant funds for.

If we find any evidence missing from your claim, we will contact you. We will give you 10 working days to submit this information to us. If we do not receive it, we will remove the associated funds from your claim.

Members will need to complete an evaluation form after each session held with a facilitator to give feedback on the value of the session. We may request copies of these evaluation sheets.

Evidence of spend

You must give evidence of all spending you’re planning to claim for. Some examples of evidence include:

invoices
breakdown of travel and subsistence
receipts
signed Facilitation Fund timesheets (you must use the template available on GOV.UK)
staff costs, with separate calculations for each staff member where appropriate
payslips (where facilitator or staff are employed by a company)
receipts from any sub-contractors, including evidence they were selected in a fair and open way and were the best value for money

If you provide copies of invoices or electronic invoices in support of your claim, you must keep the original invoice as evidence. We may request to see a sample of your invoices to compare against copies you’ve provided during site visits. You must also provide invoices as evidence of overhead expenditure, such as bills for heating, lighting, room hire, refreshments, stamps or consumables.

Facilitation Fund timesheets must show:

duration
dates
issues covered
time spent on preparation
details of costs

Bank statements as evidence of payment

Proof of payments should be from bank statements or certified copies of bank statements. This means evidence that is clearly and directly generated from your bank’s own system.

Acceptable evidence includes screen shots from an online account with necessary payment details and showing the bank logos.

Elements that should appear on the bank statement, whether online or hard copy, are the:

bank’s name and logo
account holder name
sort code
transaction date
transaction type (including payee reference or cheque number)
transaction amount
date bank evidence generated

We’ll also accept a printed report from a banking system that, despite not clearly showing it has been generated by a banking system, can be verified by your bank.

Pay slips

You must provide pay slips and BACS evidence alongside bank statements.

Pay slips must contain sufficient detail to link the payment to your other payment evidence, although sensitive personal information should always be redacted (covered up).

We will accept P60s as evidence for salary payments. If the person remains employed for a project under the same terms in a subsequent year, you can use a P60 from a previous year if verified at the end of the year. Proof of payment for national insurance contributions, pension contributions and income tax must also be supplied.

If payslips are generated from an organisation in a general electronic format (for example, without a logo or other branded and identifiable features), we can still accept them as supporting evidence. However, we must formally verify them as an official payslip during site visits.

Evidence you supply should be from a system that cannot be manipulated or falsified. Excel spreadsheets and screenshots of payroll information, for example, are considered open to manipulation and we will therefore not accept them.

5.9 Annual report

As facilitator, you must provide an annual report which draws on the quarterly reports. This report should identify what is being done differently and the effect this is having on the ground. Natural England uses this information in case studies for monitoring and evaluation purposes.

5.10 Publicity

The ‘Terms and Conditions’ at Section 15 require you to comply with all instructions, the scheme manual and any guidance relating to acknowledging and publicising the support provided. This includes using any materials or templates which are provided for this purpose.

Question 6

6. When an agreement can end early

Accepted Answer

An early exit (termination) is where the request to close your agreement happens before it has reached its official end date. Only the delivery body for the scheme (in this case RPA) or you, as the facilitator, can request to make an early exit from an agreement.

If you wish to end your agreement early, this can be done at any time by giving us 3 months written notice (by email).

6.1 Early exit by the facilitator

This usually occurs when you request to leave your existing agreement early to allow you to apply for a new agreement.
A written exit request must include:

your contact details
the correct agreement reference and single business identifier (SBI) it relates to
the reason for early exit (this must be clearly stated)
a signature by a person in the business who has ‘Submit’ permission levels for CS (Applications) and CS (Agreements) on the Rural Payments service

6.2 Early exit by RPA

We may end the agreement early if we find:

you have breached the terms of your agreement
there is a change in circumstances affecting your eligibility to receive payments
you have failed to repay any monies which have become recoverable by us

We will send you written notice to confirm our decision to end your agreement early.

Question 7

7. What happens if you breach your agreement

Accepted Answer

If you do not adhere to the terms and conditions set out in Section 15 ‘Terms and Conditions’ for the duration of your agreement, we would class this as a breach.

Examples of regulation breaches include if you:

do not report, as soon as reasonably possible, a change in circumstances which affect your ability to meet your agreement
give false or misleading information, intentionally or unintentionally
do not provide information or evidence when it’s asked for and in the way it’s asked for
prevent a virtual or physical site visit from being carried out
refuse to assist an authorised person in the course of a site visit

If we find a breach, we will write to you and tell you. You’ll have the opportunity to appeal if you do not agree with our findings.

If a breach is confirmed, we’ll work out the most appropriate action we need to take and let you know. We may apply more than one course of action depending on the breach found.

We’ll assess the level of breach in a fair and consistent manner, on a case-by-case basis, using the following set of criteria:

to what extent the breach can be rectified
the circumstances, nature and consequences surrounding the breach
any failure to cooperate with site visits or further investigations
any steps taken to report a change in circumstances
whether it is an isolated or a repeat occurrence
whether it was intentional
whether it was because of reckless of negligent action

If there’s a breach of your agreement or the regulations, we may:

ask you to correct the breach
issue a letter explaining that we’ve assessed the breach and what you have to do
amend your agreement

For more serious breaches, we may:

reduce the payments you get or withhold part of them
reduce or withhold money from other schemes
recover money we’ve already paid

In the most extreme cases, we may:

end your agreement
stop you receiving financial assistance under any other scheme for up to 2 years

In exceptional circumstances, where there is reasonable suspicion of a serious breach or fraud, then we may access land and your premises without notice, using powers of entry. In these circumstances, for example as part of a fraud investigation, we may access any computer that’s been used in connection with the evidence or these records.

7.1 Good reasons for a breach

You may have previously seen exceptional or understandable reasons why you are unable to meet the terms of your agreement called ‘force majeure’.

If you cannot meet the terms of your agreement for a good reason, you (or any person authorised to act on your behalf) must write to tell us as soon as you are in a position to do so. We will look at the circumstances and evidence provided on a case-by-case basis and decide what, if any, action will be taken.
You will need to provide written evidence to show:

what has happened
how the event meant you were unable to meet the terms and conditions of your agreement

Good reasons for a breach may include:

the death or long-term professional incapacity of the facilitator
a severe natural disaster, including flooding or droughts that gravely affect the land related to your agreement
the accidental destruction of capital items connected to your agreement
damage caused by criminality
supply chain issues
an epizootic or a plant disease affecting part or all of your crops, trees or livestock
serious illness
expropriation (confiscation) of all or a large part of the land (providing that the confiscation could not have been anticipated at the time the application for funds was made)

We will consider the facts to decide if you will be relieved of all or part of your obligations under the agreement, and if all or part of the grant should be withheld or repaid. If you are aware of the issue when entering into your agreement, then it is unlikely to fall under exceptional circumstances.

7.2 If we find evidence of a possible fraud

All cases of suspected fraud will be investigated.

If you are worried whether an approach you might wish to take to deliver the aims of a standard could be considered fraudulent, you should contact us to discuss.

Question 8

8. Complaints and appeals

Accepted Answer

Full guidance about how to complain or appeal is available on GOV.UK.

Question 9

9. Contact details

Accepted Answer

9.1 Contact RPA

You can contact RPA by email, phone or post.

Email: ruralpayments@defra.gov.uk

Phone: 03000 200 301 (Monday to Friday, 8:30am to 5pm, except bank holidays)

Rural Payments Agency (CS)
PO Box 324
Worksop
S95 1DF

Please quote your single business identifier (SBI) and agreement number in all enquiries.

9.2 Contact Natural England

You can contact Natural England by email, phone or post.

Email: enquiries@naturalengland.org.uk

Phone: 0300 060 3900

Natural England
County Hall
Spetchley Road
Worcester
WR5 2NP

9.3 Contact other organisations

You may also need to:

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Applies to England