Prepare for a farm inspection

The rules here are for England.

Know who may visit and how much notice you get

Which inspector comes, and what they check, depends on why you were picked: a scheme agreement, a permit, a complaint, or a random or risk-based selection.

Notice differs from one inspector to the next:

• The Environment Agency gives up to 14 days' notice of a planned inspection, which takes about 2.5 hours on average. It cannot give notice when it is responding to a pollution incident.
• Under the SFI26 scheme rules, the Rural Payments Agency tries to agree a date with you and otherwise gives at least 48 hours' written notice. It may give none if it reasonably suspects a serious breach or fraud. It also checks by aerial and satellite imagery and by desk-based checks of your evidence.
• Rural Payments Agency site visits about sheep and goat identification are not usually announced, though you may get up to 48 hours' notice. They usually take about 5 hours.
• The target for a complaint that suggests a high risk of animal suffering is a visit within 24 hours, normally unannounced, from the Animal and Plant Health Agency or your local authority.
• Local authorities usually contact you first to agree a date, except where a complaint suggests a major breach.

Have your records ready

Inspectors ask for the records that match the reason they came. Keep them together, keep them current as you work, and make sure you can find any one of them quickly.

If any of your land is in a nitrate vulnerable zone, you keep further records.

On the day

Ask the inspector who they are, which body they represent and what they have come to check, and look at their identification before you let them on to the holding. If you doubt it, ring the body on a number you have found yourself.

Go round with the inspector if you can. If you cannot, make sure the person who is there knows where the records are. Welfare inspectors look at animals in their normal setting rather than gathered in pens, because the buildings and fields where they are kept are part of the inspection.

Help the inspector and give them what they ask for. Under the SFI26 scheme rules, obstructing a site visit, refusing to help, or not supplying requested evidence counts as a breach of your agreement. Keep your own notes of what was checked and what was said.

After the visit

• The Animal and Plant Health Agency writes to confirm its findings. Your local authority takes any formal action, such as a caution or a prosecution.
• The Environment Agency writes to list any issues and the corrective action it wants. Depending on the severity and what you do about it, that can be verbal advice, a warning letter, a caution or a notice, and it prosecutes in some cases. For the Farming Rules for Water it usually gives advice and agrees a timescale first, then checks by a follow-up visit or photographs, and takes formal action where there is already pollution or a significant risk of it.
• If the Rural Payments Agency suspects a breach of an SFI26 agreement, it carries out a proportionate investigation and does not usually withhold payments while it does. It writes with the outcome and a deadline to respond in writing, then makes a formal decision. You can ask for reconsideration through its complaints procedure within 60 calendar days of that decision, and appeal the result within 60 days on grounds such as an error of fact or of law.