Farm agency in subsidies farce rewards boss with £250,000

A TEMPORARY senior manager at the troubled Rural Payments Agency was paid £250,000 last year – £100,000 more than the Prime Minister earns – in spite of the organisation being said to be not "fit for purpose".

Steve Pearce, who bore the brunt of farmers' anger over a fresh fiasco at the agency earlier this year, pocketed at least 250,000 as interim chief operating officer in 2009/10.

And the agency, subject of a damning report by the National Audit

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Office last year and criticised for failings in leadership by a Government-commissioned review last week, paid another 70,000 to third parties "in respect of his services", taking the total bill to more than 320,000.

Farmers criticised the amount paid to Mr Pearce, who is due to leave at the end of October after two years at the RPA, while an MP said the pay was "unnecessarily high".

In a further sign of the work still needed to turn around the agency, the National Audit Office yesterday refused to give its accounts a clean bill of health because it still does not know how much has been overpaid or underpaid to farmers since the Single Payment Scheme began.

The Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) also had its accounts queried after being forced to pay 160m in fines to the European Union because of the bungled handling of subsidies, which left many farmers in crisis because of delayed payments.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

A review commissioned by Defra last week concluded the RPA was still not fit for purpose, criticised the leadership and accused RPA bosses of trying to scupper their work.

New Agriculture Minister Jim Paice is now chairing a new board to oversee improvements.

The amount of money spent on securing the services of Mr Pearce will raise eyebrows. Appointed for two years, his salary of 250,000 to 255,000 is nearly 100,000 more than outgoing chief executive Tony Cooper earns, and well above David Cameron's pay of 142,000.

Mr Pearce – who is responsible for operational delivery including the Inspectorate, site management and customer services – faced anger from farmers this spring when the agency blundered in attempts to update farm maps on its computerised database.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

An NFU insider said: "Inexplicably, we appear to have entered an era where conspicuous organisational failure seems to bring ever greater rewards to those at the top of those organisations whilst pressurised and demotivated staff have to pick up the pieces on the front line.

"The exploits of the RPA have descended into music hall farce, with the big difference that the consequences, far from being funny, are tragic.

"The role of the RPA is going to be even more pivotal in the future and it is essential that whoever is managing it must make it fit for purpose."

Chairman of the parliamentary all-party group on hill farming Tim Farron said: "It's very difficult to provide credible leadership when you're in charge at an organisation that has consistently failed and is responsible for delivering payments for farmers, many of whom are on or below the breadline, if you're earning such a massive salary.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

"It's unnecessarily high particularly in these difficult times."

A spokesman for Defra said: "The chief operating officer was appointed on an interim basis and commercial rates had to be paid for someone of the required experience and track record."

Chief executive of the agency Tony Cooper said: "RPA continues to strive to provide a consistently good-quality service for our customers and achieve all of our externally published targets.

"Our enhancement programme has resulted in faster payments for the 2009 Single Payment Scheme year and our dedication to improving and expanding our online services will continue to help bring down the cost of claim processing."

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Auditor General Amyas Morse said yesterday that he was "qualifying" the accounts of both Defra and the RPA to reflect the fact that shortcomings in both bodies had caused "significant loss to the taxpayer".

A new leadership team is also being installed at the agency, after the resignation of chief executive Tony Cooper earlier this month.

Mr Paice announced that Richard Judge has been appointed interim chief executive until a permanent replacement can be recruited.

Related topics: