2023 will be the last manually entered Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) application and unique payment year for claims in England.
From 2024 BPS payments in England will be averaged on what was claimed historically from 2020-2022 inclusive, against the payment rate per hectare for delinking payments, which is yet to be confirmed.
In readiness for the 2023 BPS Window opening, which is usually the first week in March for Wales (to be confirmed) and for England the second week in March, (again, to be confirmed), there are a number of steps you can take to get a head start in preparing:
England
- Have a look online at your RPA maps, did you submit an RLE1 form last year?
- If so, have the correct changes been made?
- Is all of your land showing on the mapping online that you want to claim BPS on? The field data to complete for the application is pulled from the mapping element
- Get your RLE1 forms completed and ready to be emailed in, maps and electronic/paper form. Remember for the RPA to accept the RLE1 form via email, the email address the form is sent from must be the email address registered on your RPA account or from an email address for someone who is empowered on the business with high enough permissions
- Look at your entitlement balance, this is the last year entitlements will be worth anything, so if you have surplus, this is your only chance to sell them. If you don’t have enough to cover your eligible land, you may be able to pick some up cheaply to cover the one year’s claim!
- Make sure any annual entitlement leases are scheduled to run for the 2023 BPS year
- Re-familiarise yourself with your stewardship agreements, if applicable, and look at which options need to be split off on land use or coded compatibly for the RPA; a list is usually provided with the BPS guidance as to which stewardship options need their own land use code
- Have your 2023 harvest cropping plan ready to extract the data from
- If a third party is completing the claim on your behalf, get the individual or firm empowered on the account now to save delays when the window opens
Wales
- Have a look at the mapping online and make sure all land you want to claim for is accounted for
- Any Manage My Land submissions from last year should have been actioned, if applicable, so cross check your forms from last year to make sure it all correlates
- Check your entitlement balance; can you sell any entitlements, or do you have a shortfall where you could purchase the balance to maximise your 2023 and 2024 payment?
- Make sure you have up to date stocking numbers to complete this section of the form
- Have a look over the cross compliance questions on last year’s form and check you have the answers available to fill in this year’s application
- Have your 2023 harvest cropping plan ready to extract the data from
- If a third party is completing the claim on your behalf, get the individual or firm empowered on the account now to save delays when the window opens. In Wales, the third party needs to request to be added on and the BPS claimant must approve the link
BPS Phase Out Reduction – England
The phase out of direct payments through BPS in England continues, and the percentage rate increases in 2023 to between 35% to 50% depending on the annual payment figure.
The Progressive Reductions table below gives the specific percentage based on which payment band is present. If for example your payment totals £40,000, then £10,000 would be deductible at 40% and the £40,000 would be deductable at 35%.
| Scheme year | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 |
| £30,000 or less | 5% | 20% | 35% | 50% |
| Amounts above £30,000 and no less than £50,000 | 10% | 25% | 40% | 55% |
| Amounts above £50,000 and no less than £150,000 | 20% | 35% | 50% | 65% |
To plan for future years, follow the link below to give estimated payments up until 2024.
Enter the total starting payment to calculate revised payments. Calculate my progressive reductions – GOV.UK (defra.gov.uk)
BPS Phase Out – Wales
In Wales, a budget of £238 million (the same as the last three years) will be available for direct payments in 2023. It has also been confirmed (subject to budget availability), that BPS at the current level will continue to be provided in 2024 as the Welsh Government want to continue supporting farmers until the Sustainable Farming Scheme comes into effect from 2025.
