Online is fine, but where's the money?

A Government agency says farmers are completely happy with the trial of an online method of applying for subsidy payments. Chris Berry meets one who is not.

A Yorkshire farmer who volunteered to be part of a pioneering Rural Payments Agency scheme to simplify the subsidy process has fallen victim to it.

Christian Carver from East Yorkshire was approached last year to be part of the pilot scheme and submit his RPA claim online. He did so without a hitch – except that he has not received the money that is due.

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"Perhaps naively, I thought that by applying online, and being part of a pilot scheme, they would bend over backwards to make sure it was a success and that I would be paid promptly," he says. "In fact I seem to have been pushed under the proverbial carpet."

He is a partner in Hotham Estate Farms in the East Riding which operates as an in-hand farm of 850 acres and an estate totalling nearly 1400 acres. "I do quite a lot of my work for the estate online. After attending college I spent about ten years in insurance so I became quite computer-literate. I've tried to carry forward that approach to the farming operation we run here. We were invited to apply this way and I found the process very easy.

"I was sent a receipt letting me know that my forms had landed at their end. There was a dedicated number you could ring at any time where you were straight through to a human being. I received a good, sensible and fast response. In fact I was very impressed with the whole application process."

The trouble is, that process has not yet led to the money finding its way into the Hotham Estate Farms coffers.

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What has fuelled his anger more is that he has recently received a leaflet from the RPA about applications for next year's payments. On top of the leaflet is a recommendation from him and all of the others who took part in this year's online pilot scheme.

"At the end of the application we were asked to complete a feedback form and I ticked a lot of 'positive' boxes. I believe everyone else involved must have done the same – and we all must have said that we would use the online method again.

"They have now used a quote on the top of their flier, which has come out with their recent statements, saying that 100 per cent of farmers were satisfied with the online application and that they would use it again."

Christian has received notification of the amount he is due to be paid, but not a penny of it has been received. He hasn't had a call, or correspondence informing him of any reason for holding up the release of the payment and his finances rely upon the subsidy monies arriving within a certain time.

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"We have generally been paid by the end of December and at the latest by mid-January. We're now in to the middle of the month and, since we budget accordingly, things are getting very tight. We're currently sailing very close to our bank overdraft limit and so I am anxious and keen to receive our money."

This week the Yorkshire Post revealed that staff at the Rural Payments Agency have been rewarded with bonuses totalling nearly 2m.

The RPA made a disastrous start to its life five years ago with miscalculations and huge delays in payments which created immense cash flow difficulties for many farmers. Heads eventually rolled at Defra, who are responsible for the department which has been termed "a masterclass of misadministration".

Farmers across the country have little respect for the RPA. But they are wary of making a public fuss. This year 15 per cent of all farmers and landowners have still to receive their monies. That figure is much better than it used to be and might suggest that everything is at last getting on track.

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But too often things seem to fall apart customer service-wise at the RPA. This has been Christian Carver's experience. "'When I rang through to the RPA saying I had received my claim statement and asking when I was likely to be paid the lady I spoke to said she could not give me any date, or even a suggestion of a date.

"That was before Christmas. I waited until January 5 before I called again. I rang the customer service department in Newcastle, asking whether I could speak to somebody in the online department. The gentleman tried to put me through but then told me there was nobody there. I asked for them to phone me back, leaving both of my telephone numbers. I've heard nothing since, so this week I have sent an email and letter to the complaints department in Reading."

Christian Carver has tried to discover if other farmers who took part in the online pilot scheme have suffered a similar fate, however as yet he hasn't found another who took part. The National Farmers Union office in York, which serves all Yorkshire and the North East, says it does not know of other individual complaints about the RPA's online process.

"I am very clearly reluctant to apply again online for the 2010 payment in view of the fact that, to my mind, the application process has not been seen through to a successful conclusion," adds Christian Carver. "You would have thought that any pilot scheme would be closely monitored and this doesn't appear to have been."

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Serious questions hang over the future of the Rural Payments Agency and Defra is reviewing its status. Last year it lost the bank details of 100,000 farmers while transporting them between offices. It was also revealed last year through the National Audit Office that the agency had wasted 680m of taxpayers' money on fines and administrative bungles between 2005-2009.

Each claim handled by the agency costs the taxpayer 1,743 a time.

A spokeswoman for the Rural Payments Agency said: "There have been no problems with the SPS online pilot. We have received valuable feedback from farmers which has helped us improve services for 2010 including improvements to the registration process for the government gateway.

"We had 2,266 farmers apply electronically in 2009. A key benefit of applying on line is that the e-channel includes a number of prompts which reduce the amount of errors made by farmers completing their SPS applications."

She said being part of the pilot had not delayed Mr Carver's payment.