Natural England

Speaking at the National Farmers' Union annual conference on 27 February, Natural England’s Chief Executive Helen Phillips has announced changes to streamline the application procedure for Higher Level Stewardship.

From 1 April, to save prospective Higher Level Stewardship applicants wasting unnecessary time and money in conducting Farm Environment Plans (FEPs), there will be an initial consultation to ascertain whether or not an application has a strong chance of success.

'Today’s announcement is part of Natural England’s drive to eliminate unnecessary bureaucracy'

With each FEP costing the Environmental Stewardship (ES) scheme £1500 on average, the change ensures that the scheme’s funds are focused on delivering environmental benefits. Since the Higher Level Stewardship scheme began in summer 2006, £235,000 has been spent on unsuccessful FEPs, equating to roughly 10 per cent of applications. With interest in the scheme continuing to grow, so will competition for places.

Speaking at the National Farmers' Union conference, Dr Phillips said: “Today’s announcement is part of Natural England’s drive to eliminate unnecessary bureaucracy. Higher Level Stewardship is a highly competitive scheme and we don’t want to waste land managers' time and money on applications that have little chance of success.”

Since its launch in August 2005, more than 4 million hectares – over 40 per cent of all farmland in England – is now entered into the Environmental Stewardship scheme. Land managers have received more than £50 million as a result.

Dr Phillips also told delegates that a new approach to distributing and targeting agri-environment funding is required to maximize environmental and other public benefits: “I believe there is a case for raising the bar on securing entry into the Entry Level Stewardship scheme, to ensure that public money secures real, large-scale environmental gains.”

Dr Phillips continued, “We also need to target more of the funding at those land managers who can best help meet the most pressing environmental challenges we face. In this context, I believe there is potential for Higher Level Stewardship to be an invitation only scheme – directed at those areas where there is the greatest need to support environmental benefits.”

Natural England will be working with Defra and stakeholders to review the targeting approach for the Environmental Stewardship scheme.

See Helen Phillips' speech to the National Farmers' Union annual conference.