EWGS applicants and the land must be registered on the Customer Register (CR) and the Rural Land Register (RLR) respectively. This requirement was introduced in April 2008 to meet European Union regulations, notably:
- to maintain a list of 'beneficiaries' with unique references so that inspections can be co-ordinated, cross compliance applied and to enable reporting on total EU funding by beneficiary.
- to ensure that no parcel of land is receiving incompatible EU funding via the use of cross checks. This includes the Single Payment Scheme and/or any of the RDPE schemes (of which EWGS is part).
The Customer Register links information about customers to their relevant business activities. It gives each business a Single Business Identifier (SBI) and each person within that business a unique Personal Identifier (PI). You will only have one PI even if you represent more than one business. Other agencies as well as the Forestry Commission, e.g. Natural England, will use your PI so you only need to register once.
You will need an SBI registration for applications made in England even if you are already registered in Scotland or Wales as different customer registers operate in each country. You will need to register as a customer before you can register land. See Registering with the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) (PDF 39kb) for details of how to do this.
Operations Note 019 - Customer and Land Registration (PDF 52kb) gives further details and explains transitional arrangements.
How to obtain a customer registration number
Application forms (CReg01) and guidance can be obtained from RPA by either:
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phoning 0845 603 7777,
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writing to the Rural Payments Agency, PO Box 1058, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, NE99 4YQ,
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going to the RPA Customer registration web page.
Customer registration forms should be returned to the Newcastle office (address above). The RPA will notify applicants of their SBI along with the PI of each person associated with the business.
The register must be kept up to date at all times and customers must notify RPA of any changes in circumstance that arise.
Managing your payee information
If you are registering with RPA for the sole purpose of applying for a Forestry Commission grant you do not need to provide RPA with your bank details. RPA will check this with you if you register over the phone. The Forestry Commission will collect your payment details later when processing your application for the grant itself.
If RPA already hold your bank details but you want to change the bank details for only your Forestry Commission payments there is no need to notify RPA - you only need to tell us. You will need to confirm the change in writing but once we have this we will change your payment information and direct your future Forestry Commission payments to your new account. We will not pass these changes on to RPA. To change your bank details for payments under other schemes such as Single Payment Scheme or Environmental Stewardship you will still need to notify RPA.
