RPA admits challenging year – but complaints halve

Rural Payments Agency (RPA) Mark Grimshaw has admitted having a challenging year – but the number of complaints received by the RPA has almost halved despite farmers’ frustration.

Writing in the agency’s annual report, Mr Grimshaw said the past 12 months and introduction of the Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) had presented opportunities and challenges in equal measure.

He added: “This has been a challenging year and I anticipate 2016-17 to be more of the same.”

In the first year of BPS the agency’s focus was to pay as many claimants as quickly as possible, says the annual report.

The agency paid 33,376 claims on the first day of December, by the end of the month 50.9% of claims were paid, worth more than £424m.

See also: Scale of BPS underpayments problem revealed by National Audit Office

This had increased to 76.7% and £1bn by the end of January 2016 and by the end of March 2016, the totals had increased to 84.8% and £1.2bn.

Bridging payments were made to those claimants that did not receive their BPS payments by the end of April 2016.

The report concedes that, during 2015-16, the agency made BPS 2015 payments net of certain system-calculated reductions.

But it says the agency will assess the validity of these reductions and make up any shortfalls during a process starting this summer.

“A provision for this additional expenditure of £32m has been recorded in the accounts, along with corresponding accrued income to be reimbursed by the European Commission,” explains the document.

Fall in complaints

Overall the number of complaints received by the agency fell to 1,364 during the year – compared with 2,143 in 2014-15.

Many of these related to the registration and application process for BPS, said the report.

Towards the end of the year, most complaints were about BPS payment issues, including payment reductions.