Rural Payments and Services

After receiving an Offer of Grant, you may ask Scottish Government Rural Payments and Inspection Division (SGRPID) to formally review a decision about its assessment of your evidence or your compliance with the Offer.

This includes decisions relating to:

• whether the required evidence for an approved investment is satisfactory;
• whether an approved investment or approved quantity meets the scheme requirements;
• compliance with the Whole Farm Plan requirements;
• the amount of grant supported following reconciliation;
• recovery of grant; or
• another post-award decision about compliance with your Offer of Grant.

A review will consider whether the original decision was made correctly using the information and evidence available when that decision was made.

You cannot use the review process to provide new information or evidence that should have been provided within an earlier deadline.

The review will be carried out by an officer who was not involved in making the original decision.

Application decisions

The review process does not apply to decisions made when assessing, scoring, ranking or funding Future Farming Investment Scheme (FFIS) applications.

You cannot request a review because:

• your application was found to be ineligible;
• an investment was removed from your application as ineligible;
• your Application Score was not high enough to receive funding;
• your application did not rank high enough to receive funding;
• a tie-break did not fall in your favour; or
• the available scheme budget was fully committed before your application was reached in the ranking.

The published Item Scores, scoring methodology, ranking rules, tie-break rules and available scheme budget are not subject to review.

Other limitations

The review process cannot be used to:

• obtain retrospective approval for an investment that was omitted, changed or reduced without prior written approval;
• substitute a different investment;
• provide evidence that should have been submitted within the required timescale; or
• extend the Completion and Evidence Deadline retrospectively.

How to request a review

You must request a review in writing within 28 calendar days of the date of the decision.

Your decision letter will explain where to send your request. You must quote your case reference number and explain why you believe the decision was incorrect.

SGRPID aims to provide a written response within 28 days.

A review does not suspend recovery or another decision unless SGRPID confirms otherwise in writing.