Specialist Advice
Access further funded advice
Aimed at identifying business strengths and opportunities, specialist advice plans help you take a deeper look at specific issues of concern or interest with respect to you farming business.
Specialist advice topics
Up to £1000 of funding for specialist advice is available on the following topics:
- Animal Welfare
- Archaeological and historic site advice
- Biodiversity, habitat and landscape management
- Carbon audit action plan (New)
- Climate change adaptation and mitigation
- Crofter’s plan (New)
- Farm Business Efficiency
- Organics
- Resilience planning
- Soil and nutrient management
- Succession planning
- Water pollution prevention and control
- Woodland management and conservation
Specialist advice funding available without need for prior Integrated Land Management Plans (ILMP)
Access to specialist advice no longer requires applicants to apply for, or have completed, an ILMP, prior to accessing funding. Funding is available on a range of topics (shown below), including new areas covering:
- Carbon audit action plan – follow-up support for businesses who have received a carbon audit and need further advice and support to implement their action plan.
- Crofter’s plan – a thorough and impartial business review by an experienced crofting adviser, resulting in a flexible, tailored advice plan. A crofter’s plan may cover the following elements:
- Environmental sustainability, opportunities, and risks.
- Business finances.
- Identification of strengths, weaknesses and opportunities for the crofting business.
- Croft legislative status.
Reset of applications cap per business
From 1 April, restrictions on the number of ILMPsand specialist advice reports a single business can undertake will reset. Farming and crofting businesses that have already completed an ILMP and two follow-on specialist advice reports can apply for the same level of support for a second time.
*Excluding VAT, (the business must pay the full VAT) except for businesses that are not registered for VAT and will not reclaim the VAT from HM Customs & Excise, in which case the grant will be based on the total cost including VAT.
Apply online here
Please note that due to the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic, any grant application submitted via post will experience delay in processing. As such, anyone seeking grant funding should do so using our online application forms.
Alternatively, you can download a copy of the application form here.
The full rules and procedures of our Specialist Advice grant can be found here.
Benefit from the knowledge of specialist advisers
You can appoint specialist advisers of your choice, provided they are adequately qualified in the selected field. If you need assistance identifying specialists, the link below provides details of specialists who have delivered under the programme to date. This is intended to provide you with a useful resource, you are not limited to advisers on this list.
Specialist advisers skills matrix
Download the list of Advisers and their skills here.
If you have any queries regarding an Integrated Land Management Plan or specialist advice, please contact advice line on 0300 323 0161 or advice@fas.scot and we will be pleased to talk through the options.
*Excluding VAT, (the business must pay the full VAT) except for businesses that are not registered for VAT and will not reclaim the VAT from HM Customs & Excise, in which case the grant will be based on the total cost including VAT.
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