EC's £15.9m fine sparks outburst

The director of communications for the National Farmers' Union (NFU) Terry Jones said that the latest round of fines handed to Defra over its failure to correctly administer Single Farm Payments to farmers was showing people the cost of the Common Agricultural Policy, rather than the value it can bring.

The criticism comes after officials from the EC said that a total of 15.9m is to be claimed back from the UK, 12.5m of which relates to late payments of the subsidy cheques.

Defra said this week that the 12.5m fine is already accounted for and will not come out of taxpayers' money.

Mr Jones said: "Despite improvements at the RPA in delivering the Single Farm Payment, this news will be disappointing for taxpayers and for farmers. It also reflects badly on the Common Agricultural Policy at a time when we need to be talking about its value rather than its cost"

The rest of the fine relates to the Government's failure to properly administer the rural development programme, resulting in 3.1m being claimed back.

Last year the department faced a 75m fine for late payments to farmers under the Single Farm Payments scheme following well-documented problems with the RPA which was lambasted last year in an Audit Commission report for its poor performance.

In total more than 305m of EU farm money is being claimed back across member states after Governments improperly spent it. Of all the member states Greece is the country facing the highest bill with more than 100m due to be clawed back from its public finances. Virtually all members of the EU are facing a fine.

A Defra spokeswoman said: "This money mainly relates to payments under the 2005 Single Payment Scheme and has already been accounted for and deducted from funds we claim from the Commission. The main financial impact was reflected in Defra's 2008/09 accounts and paid from sums agreed with HM Treasury for this purpose.

"Payment deadlines have been met and therefore no late fines are expected for the 2006 SPS or subsequent years."

The news comes as this week the RPA prepares to publish information about all CAP payments it has made. The information is to be released on the Defra website by the end of April.