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<p>The Rural Payments Agency (RPA) took on responsibility for Countryside Stewardship
and Environmental Stewardship in October 2018, and is simplifying the administration
of the schemes as far as possible under the current EU system by streamlining processes,
making changes to IT systems and boosting the workforce to speed up processing.</p><p>
</p><p>All eligible Countryside Stewardship 2016 and 2017 claims have received a payment
apart from exceptional cases, for example, those that cannot be paid for legal reasons
such as probate. Any claim that was not paid a 2018 advance payment by the end of
March was issued a bridging payment in early April.</p><p> </p><p>The RPA is on track
to meet its commitment to complete 95% of 2018 final payments on claims by the end
of July.</p>
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