Once you have submitted your full application to us you will be sent an acknowledgement email within two working days. We will then check it for completeness and ask you to provide any missing information or clarification. You must provide this within ten working days of our request, or your application will be rejected as incomplete.
Your application will then be sent to an experienced approved appraiser who will assess your application prior to the final Decision Making Panel. The appraiser may contact you for further information if he/she requires further clarification. You will be given ten working days to provide this. If you do not provide the information, it may affect the appraisal which could lead to a rejection at the Decision Making Panel.
The appraiser will look at whether the project is relevant and meets the Loddon and Test LEADER local priorities as well as at least one of the six National Priorities set by DEFRA. Your project will be assessed for whether it will deliver the outcomes we expect, how capable your organisation is of carrying out the project, how well planned it is, whether it meets sustainability objectives and whether we think it is financially viable. We will look at whether your project shows overall value for money for the proposals and what you expect to achieve, and we will look at whether your project looks sustainable in the long term.
Once the appraisal is complete, it will be quality checked by the Rural Delivery Team at the Rural Payments Agency, it will then be put forward for the next Decision Making Panel. For a list of dates of Decision Making Panels for each Grant Programme, please check the timescales section of the website.