Farming body making ‘promising’ progress

Payments totalling more than £1.2 billion were released on December 1 to 84,600 farmers, an improvement on last year’s performance which puts the agency on course to hit its targets for paying out money on time.

The agency has been repeatedly criticised for failing to pay claims on time in previous years and has also come under fire from MPs for paying out the wrong amount in too many cases, but the Government has pledged to turn around its fortunes.

Farming Minister Jim Paice said: “There remains much to do, but this promising beginning places RPA in a good position to meet its first Single Payment Subsidy 2011 performance indicator, namely to pay 78 per cent of the total estimated fund value to a minimum of 86 per cent of eligible claimants by the end of December 2011.”

The agency, whose blunders have cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of pounds in fines by the European Union, will shortly write to farmers who are unlikely to be paid this month to explain what else is needed to validate their claim and predict how long it may take to do so.

Former farmer Neil Parish, now a Tory MP who sits on the Environment select committee, said it was a “good start” but that the easy claims had been settled.

He said: “The rest will be much harder. They have to aim to pay the more difficult claims well before June. That is a big issue for farmers – if they are paid six months later than farmers who were paid on time they are at a competitive disadvantage.

“While I appreciate there are complexities, we’ve spent six or seven years trying to get it right, and it won’t be too long until the payments face new reform.”