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Recent Warmwell postings on the RPA ( Rural Payments Agency) Since Jan 2006
..................... September 12 2008 ~ "I think that you do have a tradition of being a rather bureaucratic and top heavy department. Do you really need in the Rural Payments Agency the best part of 5,000 civil servants to manage payments, subsidies, given to just over 100,000 farmers?"
The part of the public Accounts Committee report that dealt with Defra's handling of the RPA includes a question from the Chairman, Edward Leigh: " I know we have had this conversation before but I just cannot resist asking you again."
Helen Ghosh replied: "... the plan is that we will significantly reduce that number of people..... Tony Cooper has been able to identify I think more than 200 additional staV that he can now lose because of the improvement programme there. Again, the NAO Report made clear that by the end of the CSR 07 period, it is expecting to have lost at least another 1,000 staff, operating on SPS (Single Payments Scheme)...."Thursday 17th July 2008 ~ RPA officials paid more than £175,000 in farm subsidies to a Norfolk farming family - and then two years later asked for the money back.
Food East's article makes even those of us who have been following the chaos of the Rural Payments Agency (see RPA page) feel utter incredulity.
On Tuesday, the Public Accounts Committee released a 44-page progress report. Food East reports that "...staff made two sets of 19 payments of more than £50,000 to the same claimants and the Defra agency has only issued two invoices demanding repayment of this overpaid £1m." British taxpayers will have to fund a total of about £348m in fines from the European Commission for RPA failures.
Edward Leigh is quoted in the Farmers Guardian: “The Rural Payments Agency’s poor implementation of the Single Payment Scheme continues to cause problems for farmers. Most are being paid earlier than they were in 2005 but errors persist.” Apparently, nearly 20,000 farmers’ entitlements under the 2005 and 2006 schemes were calculated incorrectly and overpayments to farmers in those two years totalled some £37 million. Individual farmers who were overpaid in error have not yet been told how and when they are to pay it back.May 8 2008 ~ Thousands of farmers still waiting for their single farm payment for last year.
According to the Rural Payments Agency (RPA), about 9,000 farmers in England are owed a total of £190million. Annabelle Morshead, North- East chairman of the Country Land and Business Association (CLA), is still waiting for her payment. She said: "I find it completely unacceptable that we are going through this again. It is causing huge problems, coming on the back of an appalling spring, rising prices and the aftermath of draconian foot and mouth restrictions." A spokeswoman for the North- East National Farmers' Union (NFU) said some farmers had been told they would not be paid until November. More at the Northern Echo.
Jan 25 2008 ~ Private Eye 1202 25.1 - 7.2.08 Down on the Farm
"It’s often said that the best way to hide embarrassing political information is to publish it in a written parliamentary answer. And so it was when the independent Labour peer, Lord Stoddart of Swindon, tried to find out recently how much had been lost to taxpayers by DEFRA’s almighty cock-up in failing to pass on EU farming subsidies to English farmers in 2005 and 2006.
This column has reported several times on what must be one of the most grotesque examples of maladministration any British government has ever been caught out in. The root of the problem, as a committee of MPs found out last year, was that Margaret Beckett, when she was in charge of Defra, had personally chosen the most complicated of the various methods suggested for doling out the subsidies. It was then made much worse by contracting out the design of the system to a firm of consultants, Accenture, which first charged £18m to set it up, and then when it all went belly-up, was given another £19m to sort out the mess that it itself had created.
These were mere incidental expenses, however, compared with what happened when Brussels learned that most of the money it had given the Treasury had not been passed on to farmers. Two years running the EU Commission fined the UK for late payments and other breaches of the rules. But what then became something of a mystery was the precise size of the bill UK taxpayers were left to pay as a result, and it was this figure that Lord Stoddart asked the government to reveal.
The answer given in Hansard on 8 January and ignored by the media was that the fines paid so far amount to £63 million. But Defra revealed that it has also had to set aside a further £355m to pay fines for late payments and other offences bringing the grand total to a staggering £418m.
Such is the possible bill for all Defra’s cock-ups to date - to make up for which it has already had to slash various parts of its budget for other vital tasks such as providing flood defences and keeping the canal system in good repair. And since MPs were told last year that this shambles might not be finally sorted out till 2012 we c an expect the final bill to rise even higher.
But this remarkable revelation was not the only nugget of information to emerge from recent parliamentary answers. Another device used by Defra to make up this massive shortfall was to offer hundreds of its officials early retirement. In answers given to Tory MP Peter Ainsworth on 10 January, the junior farming minister, Jonathan Shaw, revealed that 372 officials had so far taken up the offer - the bill for which this year alone will amount to a further £47m. So, adding up the fines from Brussels, pay-off to Defra’s goons for early retirement and Accenture’s bonus for its incompetence, the total bill we must all pay for sorting out Mrs Beckett’s shames comes (so far) to nearly £500m, around £20 for every taxpayer in the land. Not bad for a woman who rarely bothered to hide the contempt she felt for Britain’s farmers.
MuckspreaderJanuary 10 2008 ~ £63 million has already been paid in EU fines for late SFP payments; National Audit Office has warned the bill could reach £292 million.
At a time of stringent cost cutting on the ground, there is some anger today after news that 25 top DEFRA staff are paid more than £100,000. (In 2002 only eight of the Defra civil servants received such salaries.) Michael Jack is quoted in the Western Morning News on the subject of the RPA fiasco and said that "once the full scale of the mess - overseen by the then-Environment Secretary Margaret Beckett - became clear, farmers and people in the countryside would see further cuts to services to help balance the books." of the big pay awards to the top brass he said,
"If it means they have managed to recruit a better quality of senior management able to avoid some of the problems Defra has run into in the past, that might be money well spent. But if it's some of the people with errors on their hands just accumulating more money, farmers would rightly have something to say about that."
We await with interest further news. Richard Haddock is quoted as saying " ... things have not got any better on the ground. Since the number of highly paid staff has rocketed, the service has definitely got worse." (See also recent warmwell blog)December 18 2007 ~ Full Single Payments to begin in England this week
Good news. The FG reports that "....Rural Payments Agency chief executive Tony Cooper had given the green light following a successful pilot run on December 10. The decision means payments have been initiated a month earlier than last year. No indication is given, however, of how many people are to be paid and how much over the coming weeks. Mr Benn said the agency was ‘on track’ to meet its 2007 SPS targets of paying 75 per cent in value by the end of March and 90 per cent by the end of May..."
December 12 2007 ~ The chaotic Rural Payments Agency could end up costing the taxpayer up to £292 million, it emerged last night.
says the Western Morning News. Although the National Audit Office found that the RPA had made "significant" progress since the fiasco of the first year of the Single Payment Scheme in England, branded "a first-class cock-up" by the chairman of the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee, it has warned that the RPA "still has more to do" to resolve its problems and remained at risk of further fines from the European Commission over its handling of the scheme. Its report noted that Defra had set aside £292 million to cover any possible EU penalties, up from £139m last year. The WMN reports,
".....Sir John Bourn, head of the NAO, said: "Since my report over a year ago on the implementation of the Single Payment Scheme, the RPA has made encouraging progress in remedying the problems I highlighted, as demonstrated by an increase in farmers' satisfaction with the handling of their claims. "But until the agency is in the position consistently to meet the June deadline each year and can process payments within an acceptable tolerance of error, the risk is that farmers' confidence in the scheme will wane and the European Commission will levy financial penalties."
December 11 2007 ~ DEFRA is not issuing receipts.
Lord Jopling's speech last Thursday had this to say about the RPA:
"Frankly, I am sick to death of successive Ministers coming to Parliament and endlessly repeating phrases such as, “We are doing our best”, “We can only apologise”, and, “We are learning from mistakes”. That is really not good enough.
(Debate in full)
Finally, I want to voice a particular concern. I have here a document that refers to some of the environmental programmes, such as the environmental stewardship scheme, the higherlevel stewardship scheme, the entry- level stewardship scheme and the organic entry-level stewardship scheme, as well as the environmentally sensitive areas scheme, of which I claim a certain paternity. The department says:“It is important to note that these changes mean that we will no longer be acknowledging the receipt of your claim forms or indeed other correspondence”.
It goes on to say:“Alternatively, if you require confirmation that your claim has been received, please contact the Incentive Scheme Service Team after 17 September 2007 on one of the following telephone numbers”.
Anyone who has tried regularly to telephone Defra knows that if ever there was an appropriately named department, with its deaf ears, that is it. I was talking over the weekend to a consultant who helps me considerably at home. He is a person who handles these claim forms and he was telling me of a recent case in which he contacted Defra or the RPA - I forget which - and asked about a form that he had sent in. He was told, “Oh, we’ve lost it, we haven’t had it”. He said, “Don’t be so silly, here is the receipt you gave me”. He also had a copy of the claim. He made the point that farmers could lose thousands of pounds because of the frequent instances of Defra losing claim forms. It is absolutely wrong if Defra is not issuing receipts; certainly some of us in the Chamber today who are former Ministers would never have done that. Will the Minister give an assurance that he will review the ending of issuing receipts? Will he give a particular assurance that it will not apply to the single payment scheme?November 2007 ~ RPA's minuscule payout calls system into doubt
FWi "The Rural Payments Agency has sent a 2005 SFP cheque for a single penny to a north Devon farmer, raising questions as to whether the agency is using both time and resources efficiently. John Day, who farms 110ha near Barnstaple, Devon, received modulation remittance advice amounting to £0.01. The cheque, which cost 38p in bank charges to deposit, came out of the blue...."
October 2007 ~ RPA effectiveness May 2006 to October 2nd 2007
We publish this anonymously but can vouch for its authenticity
"SP5 submitted 3/5/06
There are no words adequate for further comment. The sorry saga continues.
SP5 acknowedged receipt 8/5/06
Entitlements Statement received from RPA dated 22/12/06
No money received by 26/3/07 so e-mailed RPA e-mail acknowledged automatically 26/3/07 No reply by 27/4/07 so e-mailed again automatic acknowledgement 27/4/07 No reply by 25/5/07 so phoned RPA My caseworker said he would look into it No reply by 29/6/07 so phoned again and was told I had never submitted SP5 for 2006 Sent copy of SP5 acknowledgement and Entitlements Statement to RPA on 2/7/07 No response by 23/7/07 so phoned to be told my caseworker had left and my file was empty. Was asked to send copies again which I did on 23/7/07 Phoned on 3/8/07 to be told I had a new caseworker who had no record of my correspondence. Copies sent for third time and acknowledged Phoned on 10/8/07 and was told that my case could not be processed without a replacement SP5 as my original had been totally lost.
Replacement SP5 received in post on 20/8/07 and was completed and returned on 23/8/07 No response by 28/8/07 so phoned for a response and was told that I had a new caseworker who would look into it.
No response by 7/9/07 so phoned again and was told that my documents had been sent to the scanning room but were not yet up on the computer so caseworker could not do any more. She promised to phone and update me on 13/9/07.
No phone call at time promised on 13/9/07 so I phoned to be told that she had not phoned because there was nothing to report.
Phoned again on 17/9/07. Told no further news but phone call promised. Line manager had been informed of problem.
No reply by 1/10/07 so phoned again and was told caseworker was in a training meeting but would phone back.
No reply by 2/10/07 so phoned again. Was told by telephone receptionist that caseworker did not want to talk to me as she had nothing to report. I asked to be put through to her line manager but he was away so asked to be put through to next most senior, and was promised he would look into the whole problem.
Was phoned back!!! after 25 minutes to be reassured that something would be done but at present they could not locate my file."September 17 ~ "How much money has to be wasted and how many lives ruined ....?"
The Telegraph, reminding us that the famous Crichel Down affair, the big political scandal of 1954, which resulted in the resignation of the Minister of Agriculture, concerned a claim of unfair treatment at the hands of the Ministry of Agriculture. The bone of contention was 725 acres of a farmer's land. It was followed by a public inquiry scathing in its criticisms of official procedures and practices. Sir Thomas Dugdale told Parliament that he took full responsibility for "any mistakes and inefficiency of officials in my department"
That was 1954. This is now.
The shrugging off of responsibility by DEFRA and the government over the RPA scandal and the miserable FMD situation - a situation that could, without any need for "hindsight", have been stopped in its tracks on August 5th by the immediate use of the vaccine that was mere yards away, has seemed to so many of us despicable. And as the Telegraph says of poor, ineffectual but bullying DEFRA, "In the space of a few weeks, it has been accused in two inquiries of such culpability as to make the fuss over Crichel Down seem risible ...Vast sums of money have been wasted and people’s lives blighted because of actions taken by or on behalf of ministers, who not only escape responsibility but are often promoted...."September 6 2007 ~ The government's failure to get EU subsidies to thousands of farmers on time has been called "a master-class in bad decision making" by MPs.
Defra and its Rural Payments Agency failed in the "basic principles" of project implementation, the Commons Public Accounts committee said. See BBC ".... The UK has also set aside £436m in anticipation of possible fines from the European Commission over the administration of the 2005 scheme. Mr Leigh said Johnston McNeill - the former head of the RPA - had failed to confront his bosses at Defra with the "highly risky" project's problems.
He also said the then permanent secretary at Defra, Sir Brian Bender, bore "a large part of the responsibility."
EDP24 says, "...its implementation last year to a near-impossible timetable was a master class in bad decision-making, poor planning, incomplete testing of IT systems, confused lines of responsibility, scant objective management information and a failure by the management team to face up to the unfolding crisis," Mr Leigh said. "The story of the inept handling of the scheme should make a richly rewarding study for senior civil servants across the whole of government for some time to come."
According to the MPs' report, Defra spent £122m to implement a highly-complicated new payment scheme for farmers in England while Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland all opted for tried-and-tested solutions..
...The decision by Mrs Beckett, later promoted to foreign secretary, to opt for the so-called dynamic hybrid scheme was the first stage in what was described as a "train wreck" about to happen..."
The full report (pdf) The Delays in Administering the 2005 Single Payment Scheme in England can be read here.July 25 2007 ~"The Government appears to have taken the Pontius Pilate approach and washed their hands of it because it was somebody else's responsibility. On some of the key issues, they have not engaged at all."
The WMN reports, "....The Government took more than three months to respond to a Commons inquiry into the workings of the Rural Payments Agency, which concluded there should have been top-level ministerial and civil service sackings - with former Environment Secretary Margaret Beckett first in the firing line.
The powerful cross-party committee of MPs accused the highest levels of Government of not caring about rural communities, as thousands of farmers teetered on the brink of financial ruin. Mrs Beckett and her officials ploughed on with the project, despite repeated warnings that the new payments system was too complicated, it was claimed.
But the response from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, finally published yesterday, offers little in the way of answers and even criticises the select committee for naming civil servants who should "consider their position"...."July 9 - 14 2007 ~ Continuing frustration at lack of accountability
EDP24 reports that the sacking of Johnston McNeill over the rural payments debacle had cost tax payers more than £250,000 - and he could seek further compensation. As Michael Jack said:
"... On the question of risks, it beggars belief that the Office of Government Commerce did not put the brakes on what was happening. Yes, it produced some reports and red traffic lights, but despite the mounting risks of failure that were pointed out to DEFRA, which had a finger in the pie and an interest in the running of the Rural Payments Agency, and despite a great deal of investigation - I do not know whether the Department was blinded by events or by ministerial assurance that it would all be all right on the night - the wheel fell off big time. When, at the beginning of 2006, Ministers were promising payments first in February and then in March, the Committee produced an interim report warning of what was happening and talking about the need for interim payments, but we were rubbished by Lord Bach. I remember him talking on the "Today" programme about the Select Committee being chaired by a "very strong person, that Michael Jack - he's a Conservative." I resented the fact that he tried to politicise my work as the Chair to highlight the failures and danger points and what was going to happen with the Rural Payments Agency. In fairness to Lord Bach, he retracted some of those remarks when he gave evidence before us. When the wheel fell off, however, DEFRA had not heeded the warnings, and we now know what happened to the rural economy.
Mr McNeill said he had only ever had two conversations with then Environment Secretary Margaret Beckett - the second the day before he was suspended. However, her junior minister, Lord Bach, was kept "fully briefed" as the project ran into difficulties.
As for who was responsible and who should have accepted responsibility, the head that rolled was Mr. Johnston McNeill's - it was the agency's former chief executive who was fired. Sir Brian Bender, the former permanent secretary at the Department, whose name was on the documents about the Rural Payments Agency, the DEFRA change programme and the agreement on the path forward, and Mr. Andy Lebrecht, one of the most senior civil servants in the Department - he sat on the management boards of the Rural Payments Agency and, indeed, on DEFRA's own boards and should have been the link - were the people who effectively signed off what happened. Rachel Lomax, who was supposed to be an expert, was brought into the Department to provide advice. Despite all that, there was still failure, but only one person has paid for it with their job. The then Secretary of State went on to become the Foreign Secretary..." Hansard
Mr McNeill went on to insist that he had never been approached about his performance at the Rural Payments Agency prior to his suspension. Asked whether anybody else should have taken some responsibility, he said: "I would really rather not comment."June 12 2007 ~ " just cannot afford any more time on Mr Miliband's bureaucratic administration of the English interpretation of the CAP"
A Mr Rogers in the Isle of Wight wrote a comment on the BBC's Farming Today page".. The utter incompetence of Dedra's administration continues. I have been attempting to agree the mapping of our holding since Oct 2004. In dealing with the RPA I have communicated with no less than 15 people over this time and in August 2006 achieved agreement, but it cost me over £1000 to employ independent surveyors to confirm our ha.
We still are waiting for full payments for 2005 and 2006, and have had to suffer the frustration and financial penalty of our contractor grabbing our historical payments.
Now we have received a letter from the RPA claiming that we have over-claimed on our SPS application by 43.96% (18.03H) The Mapping section of the RPA confirm our field areas. We are at our wits end and just cannot afford any more time on Mr Miliband's bureaucratic administration of the English interpretation of the CAP. Perhaps it is the governments hidden agenda to kill off the farming industry."June 6 2007 ~ RPA. Mrs Beckett's legacy lingers on
The Foreign Secretary, instead of accepting that she really should be held accountable, left Lord Rooker, the new Defra minister in the House of Lords, to try to sort out the chaos that is the Single Farm Payment scheme. Following a meeting with him yesterday, the National Farmers' Union, the Country Land and Business Association and the Tenant Farmers' Association have issued a joint statement deploring the "large backlog" of disputed payments going back two years - and have asked that the 2007 payments should at least be paid by the end of this year (they are due now). The Yorks and Dales news reports that
"Support payments to farmers who work common land are lost in a red-tape maze because their rights to do so can go back centuries and are sometimes a matter of legal dispute. After the meeting, Douglas Chalmers, Director of CLA North, commented: "In the North, we are particularly disappointed over the lack of progress on the commons problem. Because the RPA are using an old Commons Register, farmers who have grazed commons for many years are facing hardship and future uncertainty. Resolving who is eligible to receive Single Farm Payment and Hill Farm Allowance on commons has now become an urgent task."
May 28 2007 ~ It is the wrong approach; it leads to mistakes, confrontation and disaster
The Earl of Erroll: Hansard "The average farmer farms because they hate paperwork. What are we doing now? We are making them farm paperwork. No longer can they use their judgment about anything. Everything is process-driven. It is not a factory out there; you do not know what the weather is going to be like or if the season is going to be early. You know that if you do not cut your hedges for three years, they will get leggy and the English partridge, a biodiversity action species, will be wiped out trying to nest under them. But the environmentalists do not know that, so they want you to grow your hedges tall for some other songbird. It is all balance and judgment, and you must work it out.
You now need quite a seriously high education standard to fill in all these forms. What are we going to do with all the people who live in the country who do not want to be educated to that standard? Presumably they have their 10 per cent adult illiteracy rate like everyone else. How do you deal with deadlines when you are ill? The real problems come with the confrontational approach of the RPA and others. Instead of ringing up and saying that there is a 0.4 discrepancy - to which the response would be, "Oh God. I am sorry, I wrote 0.7 and not 0.3, but the net area is correct" - they say "We are going to fine you if we can under the penalties in section P", when you know that they do not even have the right to do so. It is the wrong approach; it leads to mistakes, confrontation and disaster. ..."May 15 2007 ~ The RPA needs to pay out about another £280m over the remaining seven weeks to meet its deadline this year
The Farmers Guardian says that this is an average of £40m a week, more than double the payment rate of recent weeks. "Just over 100,000 claimants have now received full or partial payments. Of the 8,500 claimants yet to receive a payment, the majority have claims under 1000 Euro (sic). ...."
See also warmwell RPA pages which catalogue the developing and sorry situation. In March 2006 the Countess of Mar asked " I am deeply dismayed by the complacency displayed by the Minister and his right honourable friend Mrs Beckett ......Why is it that Ministers were so unaware of what was happening? Were they taking the glossy annual reports, with their glowing record of targets achieved, at their face value? Did they ever ask about targets that were not achieved? Why, when all the alarms were sounding from at least November 2005, and probably much earlier, did Ministers not heed them? Could it be that facing the facts became so repugnant that an ostrich-like mentality set in?"
Similarly the Earl of Arran wryly remarked: ".... Perhaps the word "regret" as used by the Minister could be changed to the simple words: "We are very sorry. We got it wrong". However, I suspect that, as happens all too often, the Government could not give a toss for the plight of the rural economy. One day, they will deeply regret that. In the mean time, farmers the length and breadth of the country are furious and fuming. ..."
That was well over a year ago. The Earl of Arran called it "probably the most incompetent piece of government administration ever known in a government department. It certainly rivals that of foot-and-mouth disease. It is utterly deplorable." And on it goes.April 27 2007~ Single Payment Scheme Lord Rooker unable to answer questions about the level of the EU fine
Lord Stoddart of Swindon asked what discussions had been held with the European Commission "concerning any proposed fine arising from the allegations of mismanagement of the single farm payment scheme; and what is the likely level of any proposed fine. [HL3249]"
Lord Rooker's reply was a model of elegant side-stepping: " The Government are in regular contact with the European Commission regarding the administration of the single payment scheme (SPS). The European Commission's audit of the 2005 SPS in England is on-going and it is too early to draw any firm conclusions. No proposals have been made to date for financial corrections and, should the Commission make any in due course, the Government will continue to defend the UK's interests with the aim of ensuring that any corrections are minimised to the fullest possible degree."April 27 2007~ Lord Rooker admitted that when David Miliband first came to DEFRA, he thought about bringing in a new payment system
See Farmers Guardian
April 23 2007~ The Rt Hon Margaret Beckett will surely go down as one of the least effective ministers - and that says a lot - to oversee rural affairs.
Dan Bugloss in the Scotsman "... Fortunately, her remit in the Scottish context was relatively minor, but some of her decisions and inactions still have consequences north of the Border. Beckett's handling of the 2003 reforms of the Common Agricultural Policy has proved disastrous for farmers in England. She chose the most complicated system imaginable. Thankfully, Scotland opted for a more pragmatic approach, which is working reasonably well. The Rural Payments Agency was completely out of its depth in assessing the single farm payment due to every farming business in England, resulting in enormous cash flow problems and to many cases of stress, and worse. The business in which my son-in-law is a partner in Essex did not receive its 340,000 final payment for last year until October; it should have been paid in March or April. And he was lucky - some are still awaiting the balance of the 2006 payment. .."
See also "Huge bonuses for civil servants in farm fiasco" in the TelegraphApril 2007~ Some of the Press stories following the findings of the EFRA report, published 29 March
Beckett should be brought to account
ic Wales - Cardiff,UK
Committee chairman Michael Jack MP said only one man - former RPA chief executive Johnston McNeil - had paid for fiasco by losing his job. ...MPs baying for Beckett's head
Daelnet - Yorkshire Dales,UK
Mrs Beckett said this morning that she had not read the parliamentary report. DEFRA and the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) should read this report carefully ...800 face sack in Beckett farm payment fiasco
This is London - London,England,UK
"As a result of difficulties in the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) we have been unable to meet the timetable to deliver our original target to reduce our ...Report blasts Beckett on farm payments
Norfolk Eastern Daily Press - Norfolk,England,UK
Mrs Beckett, who told the National Farmers' Union conference in February 2006 she was bloody livid by the RPA's failures, was succeeded by David Miliband ...Payments fiasco: Beckett should have gone'
Cumberland News - Carlisle,Cumbria,UK
A damning report into the failing of the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) and the implementation of the single payment scheme called for heads to roll at the top ...UK Lawmakers Attack Beckett for Farm Subsidy Payment Error
Bloomberg - USA
While the EU changed the way these payments were calculated in 2006, problems at the RPA mean the agency probably won't be able to deal with them until 2008 ...Beckett attacked on farm payments
Guardian Unlimited - UK
... questions why some of those in the Defra and RPA leaderships most closely involved, in particular the former Secretary of State Margaret Beckett, ...Farming fiasco 'should have cost Beckett's job'
Guardian Unlimited - UK
The RPA had warned the department repeatedly that its payment method was complex and high-risk, but the only person held responsible was Johnston McNeill, ...Beckett criticised over farm payments
999 Today - UK
"Defra's choice of payment method was complex and very high risk and the RPA had warned Defra repeatedly of the risk involved," the report said. ...UK MPs call for Beckett's resignation over farm subsidy 'fiasco'
Forbes - NY,USA
Part of its responsibility was to hand out EU subsidies to farmers through the Rural Payments Agency (RPA). However, a change last year in calculations on ...April 3 2007 ~ Mrs Beckett should have been sacked
"A culture where ministers and senior officials can preside over failure of this magnitude and not be held personally accountable creates a serious risk of further failures in public service delivery," says the report. "Accountability should mean that good results are rewarded but a failure as serious as this of a department to deliver one of its fundamental functions should result in the removal from post of those to whom the faulty policy design and implementation can be attributed." icwales
".....Defra's leadership was at fault for accepting the RPA's statements that the project was "do-able" in the time allowed as an adequate basis on which to pursue such a risky course. The report said Mr McNeill was not personally and solely responsible for the failure to pay farmers. All the crucial decisions were made jointly with Defra. Shadow Agriculture Minister Jim Paice said, "The fact that Margaret Beckett was rewarded for her incompetence by promotion to the Foreign Office says a great deal about the Government's contempt, not only for accountability but for the farming community."...."
April 3 2007 ~ Westmorland and Lonsdale MP Tim Farron
chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Hill Farming, is quoted by the North West Evening Mail He says he is pleased the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee of MPs have issued a report criticising former DEFRA Secretary of State Margaret Beckett over the Rural Payments Agency fiasco. Mr Farron says the RPA has been guilty of a catalogue of errors over recent years, leaving thousands of farmers without Single Farm Paymen ts, which could lead to an EU fine of up to £300m.
March 29 2007 ~ "The Committee very much regrets the former Secretary of State's attempts verbally to distance herself from the consequences of policies which she herself must have approved "
The EFRA report on the Rural Payments Agency, published today (pdf) and expressed in the clearest and most unequivocal English, says that Margaret Beckett, Sir Brian Bender and Andy Lebrecht have not been held "personally accountable" for delays. The EFRA chairman, Michael Jack, said: "The reason that we are calling for people to consider their positions is because of Defra's failure to carry out one of its principal core functions. Those involved should examine their consciences about the role they played in this failed venture, which could well cost Defra and farmers up to half a billion pounds." The report calls the handling of the SPS a "catastrophe" and a "serious and embarrassing failure for Defra and the RPA."
It also recommends that the Cabinet secretary reappraises the work of the past and present members of Defra's senior management team to determine whether they should remain in post.
"Decisions should not be made in isolation from practical realities," says the Committee - a sentiment with which long term readers of warmwell will heartily concur..
The overview begins,"This report is as much about failed policy implementation as it is about a lack of accountability..... In our view it is this failure by Defra to carry out one of its core functions in accordance with its own policies which differentiates this issue from the myriad of botched Government IT projects.....The Government does not seem to be learning the lessons of previous failures. There is a need for greater expertise within Government....
The HTML page where individual sections of the report can be read is at www.publications.parliament.uk
accountability for the eventual failure of Defra's ambition has been limited so far to the removal and eventual dismissal of Mr Johnston McNeill, the Chief Executive of the RPA, and one minister accepting some measure of accountability for what occurred following his removal in the reshuffle in May 2006. But responsibility for this failure goes wider than this. It embraces the then ministerial and senior official leadership of Defra and they too should be held accountable.
Some of those in the Defra and RPA leaderships most closely involved, in particular the former Secretary of State Margaret Beckett, the former Permanent Secretary Sir Brian Bender, and the Director General for Sustainable Farming, Food and Fisheries, Andy Lebrecht, have moved on unscathed or stayed in post. A culture where ministers and senior officials can preside over failure of this magnitude and not be held personally accountable creates a serious risk of further failures in public service delivery. "March 28 2007 ~ The RPA fiasco is likely to cost the country £500 million
Telegraph
"...the cost includes up to£305 million in fines from Europe, £156 million on "fixing" the failures at the Rural Payments Agency and £21 million in interest payments to farmers last year. In a long-awaited report which is expected to be critical of the Government, MPs on the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs select committee are expected to determine whether responsibility should rest with a wider range of ministers and officials than who have lost their jobs so far.. The role of Andy Lebrecht, the senior official responsible for the payments policy, who briefed ministers on whether the complicated system chosen to make the payments would work, may be examined......".
It is interesting to see this name turning up in the press at last. Taking responsibility for actions should surely be the first principle of a government or government agency - especially one that persists in talking about "customers"- as if those who pay have any real choice.March 10 2007 ~ Over 3000 people employed by the RPA with a total paybill 2005-2006 of over £85 million. Highest salary £ 205,000.
A Parliamentary Question asked on January 26th....
Daniel Kawczynski: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how many staff are employed in the Rural Payments Agency; what the cost of staff salaries was in 2005-06; and what the (a) highest and (b) lowest salary is for each job. [111396]
Barry Gardiner: The total number of Rural Payment Agency (RPA) employees on the payroll as of31 December 2006 was 3,187 (3,025.26 FTE).
The RPA paybill for the 2005-06 financial year was #85,792,426 and this includes employer national insurance contributions and superannuation.
Salary is determined by grade and the highest and lowest salary in each grade at RPA is:
# Highest Lowest Note: The pay scales above are effective from 1 July 2006. March 2 2007 ~ Farmers still waiting to receive EU subsidies have been told "don't call us, we will call you".
Yorkshire Post "The Rural Payments Agency (RPA) has asked farmers not to contact them for information about their claims, as the organisation works to complete outstanding subsidy payments. The request in a letter has angered farmers who see it as further evidence of poor management. Some farmers are still waiting for money as part of subsidies for 2005 and, while the Government has begun to make payments for 2006, payouts are still lagging behind Europe........ The Government is now facing EU fines of £300m which will have to be met by the taxpayer. ........"
February 23 2007 ~ Select Committee blames DEFRA financial mismanagement for budget cuts
(EFRA Select Committee) The Committee has today published a Report on Defra's Departmental Report 2006 and Defra's budget. The Committee has blamed financial mismanagement for a £200 million deficit in the annual Defra budget. For further details please see press release dated 23 February 2007
February 23 2007 ~ How Defra hid its bad news
- i.e. of a possible £305 million EU fine ... Western Morning News "Neil Parish MEP, the Conservative agriculture spokesman in the European Parliament, claimed the true extent of the likely EU fine had been deliberately revealed on the day of the Prime Minister's announcement on Iraq troop withdrawals. Mr Parish said: "What will annoy farmers most is the cynical way this story was snuck out under the cover of bigger news stories like the withdrawal of our troops from Iraq. "It seems yesterday was a good day to bury bad news."......The estimated 8,000 hill farmers in the Westcountry have been particularly badly hit by the fiasco. Tim Farron, chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on hill farming, said: "If the Government hadn't shown such incompetent disregard for the countryside, £300m could have been spent on supporting British farming rather than on an avoidable, but deserved, fine. ..."
February 22 2007 ~ "Gordon Brown has bailed out his cabinet colleague David Miliband with more than £300m of taxpayers' money
to pay for the Whitehall computer fiasco last year, which left thousands of farmers without cash subsidies from the European community, it has emerged. The payment was slipped out on Tuesday from the Treasury's contingency fund, which is normally used to cover unforeseen disasters and top up spending on the Iraq war and security. ...
The department confirmed last night that it had been bailed out by the Treasury, but said that the money allocated was an estimate of the cash the ministry might have to pay if it is "fined" by the EU for not making the payments on time.
Richard Bacon, Conservative MP for Norfolk, South, and a member of the Commons public accounts committee, said: "The sheer incompetence and ineptitude of this government in handling [the matter] has now been compounded by them screwing the taxpayer as well." ......" Guardian
( The phrase "Whitehall computer fiasco" des rather suggest that the RPA computer and software was wholly to blame. This page may contradict that assumption.)January 29 2007 ~ Michael Jack, is now demanding an explanation for the sheer volume of unresolved cases.
Yorkshire Post ".....an outcry in Westminster after official assurances that barely 1,700 farmers out of a total 116,000 needed final top-up payments. Today, the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) used its latest progress report to state that it was
"continuing work to review possible errors in some 20,000 entitlements and associated payments."
Chairman of the Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee, Michael Jack, is now demanding an explanation for the sheer volume of unresolved cases."January 18 2007 ~"....there was now a need to broaden the question of accountability of Ministers as well as officials.." Michael Jack
Yorkshire Post Civil servant sacked over EU payments fiasco claims Minister was warned of scheme's high risk " ...The blame for the farm payments disaster shifted towards former Environment Secretary Margaret Beckett last night as the civil servant sacked over the furore gave his side of the story. Johnston McNeill, who was dismissed as chief executive of the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) last March when it became obvious that the Single Payment Scheme was in utter chaos, has until now taken the blame for the fiasco which landed English farmers with a £22m bill in bank charges as well as untold stress. But his long-awaited testimony to the Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee - given behind closed doors but published last night - has convinced many key MPs that he was framed as a scapegoat for Ministerial failures..The chairman of the committee, senior backbencher Michael Jack, told the Yorkshire Post last night that he believed the recent portrayal of Mr McNeill by the Government had been a "fiction" and there was now a need to broaden the question of accountability of Ministers as well as officials. ."
January 18 2007 ~ RPA ".... this is about accountability. Here we have got mounting complexity and problems.. and yet onward sailed the ship heading towards the iceberg. What I want to know is who was on the bridge?"
The uncorrected oral evidence of Johnston McNeill to the EFRA committee was put up yesterday and makes for interesting reading. The bungle has cost farmers something like £21 million, DEFRA went way over budget and is now cutting back on financing important rural agencies and research (see below.) The process of applying for the Single Farm Payment has been in many cases very stressful indeed and the whole RPA fiasco would be a laughing stock were the consequences not so serious. Mr McNeill has borne the entire burden of responsibility - but it will be remembered that it was Margaret Beckett's decision to introduce a complex hybrid system. Both the WMN and the Liberal Democrats today carry comments that might be thought rather predictable - but the oral evidence does need to be read in full before any fair judgement can be made.
As for the warning that the cuts in research, caused by the RPA overspend, could leave the UK more vulnerable to animal disease, please see the discussion on www.fmd-and-csf-action.org/forums Extract: "We need to start with a clear public statement by the Head of DEFRA on what is needed technically to respond effectively to foreign disease outbreaks in the UK, what technologies are already available in the world today, and what needs to be devised."January 15 2007 ~ the RPA has admitted that thousands more farmers are waiting to receive the correct money.
WMN "...official figures on the 2005 Single Payment Scheme show that barely 1,700 farmers out of a total of 116,000 are awaiting final payments and that more than 99 per cent of the subsidy fund has been handed out. Now the RPA has admitted that thousands more farmers are waiting to receive the correct money. Last night, Devon farmer Richard Haddock said the latest revelation was evidence that "we are having to squeeze this information out of them instead of Defra being totally straight with us".He added: "Most of us are seriously concerned that these others have not been dealt with. It all adds to the pressure farmers are under."
The powerful select committee inquiry into the debacle of the subsidy system will also press the Government to take action when it publishes its report next month...."January 4 2007 ~ "Rural England has paid twice for the RPA debacle.."
Clive Aslet, writing in the Telegraph Opinion column, pulls no punches on the subject of Margaret Beckett, the RPA and New Labour's attitude to farms and farming."The chaos was so great that the EU imposed a £131 million "disallowance" fine on the Government. The Treasury clawed the money back from the offending department.
So the agencies through which Defra delivers its policies have had their budgets slashed. The new countryside agency, Natural England, has been still-born. Kew Gardens, British Waterways (which runs the canals), the Drinking Water Inspectorate - these and other admirable bodies are paying for ministerial incompetence. .....
Abolishing Defra would not be the solution. But farming, as Mr Miliband has found, is a complex subject. It needs a minister from a rural constituency, preferably a rural background, to preside over it.
Trust between Whitehall and the countryside has collapsed. The Tories' first objective should be to rebuild it. In 1997, Jack Cunningham severed the Secretary of State's hotline to rural opinion and knowledge by abolishing the old advisory panels of landowners and farmers. They should be re-established. The disasters of BSE and foot and mouth show that the Whitehall-Knows-Best approach does not work. A supervisory culture is needed: one that sets and monitors farm outcomes, but does not insist on inspecting every step of the way.
Labour likes to see farmers as supplying a beautiful countryside, full of golf courses and bed and breakfast establishments, which the urban majority can enjoy. But the perspective is shifting. Very soon the four fifths of Britain that is still more or less rural will come to be valued in the new context of climate change. ....."December 9 2006 ~ Johnston McNeill has been sacked nearly nine months after he was suspended on his £114,000 year salary.
Johnston McNeill has been paid £57,000, or six months pay. The Telegraph reports that "Mr McNeill, who with his board is likely to have incurred £131 million in fines from the EU because payments were late, will get a pension of £12,000 a year for life and a payment of £42,000. Michael Jack is reported as saying, "... there is a much greater need for expertise within government."
On Farming today this Week reaction to the news.December 6 2006 ~ RPA fiasco must not be repeated - says Lib Dem Rural Affairs Spokesman
www.libdems.org.uk "Responding to the announcement that 75% of Welsh farmers have received their RPA funding, Liberal Democrat Rural Affairs Spokesperson, Roger Williams MP has demanded that David Miliband does not allow a repeat of last year's single farm payment fiasco. Mr Williams said: "English farmers will be bitterly disappointed that again their farm payments will lag far behind their neighbours in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland...."
November 28 2006 ~ "It is like mashing your head against a brick wall..."
Farmers' Weekly reported yesterday that
"Scotland and Northern Ireland are about to begin making 2006 single farm payments - a development that will further inflame the situation in England, where £10m of 2005 payments is yet to reach farmers.
In England, complaints against the Rural Payments Agency are growing. FWi has been contacted by producers who say they have reached the end of their tether with the RPA.
Writing on FWi's forums, a farmer calling himself Romper Stomper said: "Apparently, I am a priority claimant - the RPA admitted they made an error in my form in July over the phone. But they will never write a letter or send an email. It is like mashing your head against a brick wall."
Another contributor, called Skint, added: "We have made numerous phone calls to RPA to ask where payment is and no one can give us any info. Surely their computer system can tell us?"...."November 27 2006 ~ "The government is trying to end the employment of the former head of the troubled Rural Payments Agency
eight months after he was replaced. Johnston McNeill left on paid leave of nearly £114,000 a year, amid complaints that many farmers had not received their 2005 EU subsidies. Since he left in March, he is thought to have cost the taxpayer £71,000. ..
The RPA has yet to make more than 1,700 payments from 2005, of which 41 are claims for more than 1,000 Euros, MPs were told on Monday. The interim chief executive of the RPA, Tony Cooper, told the Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee there was also a backlog of 12,000 letters and pieces of correspondence to answer.
But he said the figure was down from 28,000 and there was a "concerted effort" to sift through it all.
Environment Secretary David Miliband has already said that not all farmers will get their 2006 subsidy by the target date of next June. ..." BBCNovember 23 2006 ~ RPA staff will be telephoning all those who have yet to be paid in the next two weeks
The Journal "...... the Rural Payments Agency has finally agreed to contact all outstanding claimants for 2005 Single Farm Payment. RPA staff will be telephoning all those who have yet to be paid in the next two weeks, to discuss what is happening with the claim and to hopefully finalise payment....
Richard Brown, of Hexham & Northern Rural, said:"With a number of farmers still awaiting their 2005 Single Farm Payment (SFP) or Hill Farm Allowance (HFA) only a cautious welcome can be given to the RPA's commitment to pay 96% of valid 2006 claims by June 30, 2007."
According to Mr Brown, while farmers can initially expect to receive 2006 Entitlement Statements early in the New Year, due to an inadequate computer system at the RPA, statements will not show any entitlements which may have been transferred in or out since the 2005 allocation."16 November 2006 ~ "SACKED RPA BOSS 'MAY NEVER FACE INQUIRY' ..." WMN
The Western Morning News reports that eight months after Johnston McNeill was removed as chief executive of the RPA, the EFRA select committee inquiry into the Agency has been told he is not well enough to appear before MPs. He has been on full pay of £114,000 a year since he was removed from his post.
"..... Last night, the chairman of the EFRA committee Michael Jack said he was "immensely disappointed" with Mr McNeill's latest absence which comes only two weeks after the powerful Public Accounts Committee (PAC) was told it could not quiz the ousted agency boss. PAC chairman Edward Leigh has previously warned Mr McNeill could be reported to the Commons authorities if he failed to attend the EFRA hearing."
November 14 2006 ~ "Just one-tenth of only one year's money unspent would have covered the £23 million spent by farmers on interest and fees to banks as a result of their late single farm payments."
News that DEFRA repeatedly underspent its budget (£ 750million over five years) has been called "staggering". The Western Morning News reports the story.
In a Parliamentary Question Chris Huhne asked by what (a) percentage and (b) total amount DEFRA required cuts from its executive agencies. Among the cuts to agencies such as the British Waterways, Natural England, Environment Agency, Food From Britain , Marine Fisheries Agency, Meat and Livestock Commission,National Forest Company, Pesticides Safety Directorate, Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, the State Veterinary Service, Veterinary Laboratories Agency, Veterinary Medicines Directorate - will be noted a £23.0 million (11 per cent.) increase to the Rural Payments Agency.November 10 2006 ~ Farm subsidy delays could continue into early 2009 because of the total incompetence at the Rural Payments Agency, a leading trade union has warned.
business.edp24.co.uk "Environment Secretary David Miliband has already told MPs that £1.52bn of payments to farmers in England for the current year will not be made until the mid-February at the earliest. Staff who are represented by the Public and Commercial Services Union have been told that the single farm payment systems will not be resolved until 2008. As a result, farmers might not actually get their money until 2009 if the previous payment timetable is followed......
The National Audit Office revealed last month that Defra expects to be fined £131m by the European Commission for misadministration of the SFP scheme. An extra £23m has been allocated to cover spiralling costs, mainly a result of hiring hundreds of staff to deal with massive delays...... .'November 9 2006 ~ "there's some super people in DEFRA who work extremely hard on our behalf"
Arthur Hill, an arable farmer in Shropshire - still waiting for some of his 2005 payments - explained the Single Payment situation and the cash-flow difficulties faced by farmers to the BBC's PM audience in Wednesday's programme. "This government have so far failed to meet any of their targets" he told PM.
He had praise for DEFRA "The dealings I've had with DEFRA, as opposed to the Rural Payments Agency who make these payments....there's some super people in DEFRA who work extremely hard on our behalf. But in the RPA it's difficult to get..I think it's the management level that is the problem. There are people on the "shop floor" if you like, working extremely hard to get payments out to us and the systems have not been correct and the managers have not reported to government the things that have gone wrong."November 8 2006 ~ Fiasco to roll on for another year
Telegraph Charles Clover reports: "The fiasco that has surrounded the payment of £1.5 billion worth of annual subsidies to English farmers is to roll on for another year, the Government admitted yesterday. The announcement raises the prospect of further costs for farmers and further substantial cuts in state funding across the rural economy to pay more fines from the European Union. The expected cuts will come on the heels of £200 million in cuts to nature conservation, land drainage and coastal defence this year. ..... A recent National Audit Office (NAO) investigation found that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has made provision to pay fines known as "disallowance" to the EU totalling around £131 million for its failure to pay farmers their subsidies by the legal deadline this year. This figure came on top of the £122 million cost of the single farm payments scheme. NAO investigators blamed Margaret Beckett and Lord Whitty, former Defra ministers, for choosing the most complicated way possible of mapping English farmland and then ignoring a warning that the computerised payments scheme would not work......."
October 26 2006 ~ "The department and the agency knew from the beginning ..."
Phillip Gibby, the director of Defra value for money studies at the NAO
"The department and the agency knew from the beginning this was going to be a very high risk scheme. Also, they have not shared or connected effectively between the different teams."
See also NAO report which refers to the stress and frustration among farmers. "The Agency relies on farmers' cooperation to administer the payments scheme effectively. The absence of key information on the progress of each claim hampered the ability of staff in the customer contact centre to resolve farmers' queries." According to the Ipsos Mori poll, when asked" How well informed, if at all, did the Rural Payments Agency keep you about the progress of your claim?"
56% said either Not very well informed (34) or Not informed at all (22). (1000 farmers were interviewed.)October 24 2006 ~ Lord Rooker: "... the catastrophic lack of trust that we had this year, which would be compounded if there was a problem two years running."
In the Lords debate yesterday, Lord Rooker did his best with a situation inherited and not of his making. The EFRA committee, meanwhile, has been taking evidence from Lord Bach and Lord Whitty, the former Defra Ministers with responsibility for the RPA. Matt Chorley, the London Editor of the WMN reports this at some length.(read Western Morning News in full) The UK Government now faces a fine expected to top £130 million from the European Commission for its handling of the scheme.
October 20 2006 ~ It beggars belief that all those people who make the greatest messes are promoted or given honours, rewarded with bonuses, or kept on full pay.
Email received, Oct 21. Alas, it must remain anonymous:
".....Depressing Farming Today this Week this morning - Rural Payments Agency. It beggars belief that all those people who make the greatest messes are promoted or given honours, rewarded with bonuses, or kept on full pay. On this precept Blair should go straight to heaven to sit to the right or left, or possibly on, the celestial throne, at the end of his disastrous regime.
Farming Today This Week Saturday 21st October 2006 BBC website
Thank goodness for animals..."It seems the chaos at the Rural Payments Agency which farmers have suffered over the last twelve months could very well be repeated. The RPA has told the BBC farmers can expect problems similar to those of the last year when it comes to awarding subsidies. Some in the industry are warning of bankruptcies not only in the farming industry but in the wider rural community. Listen Again to hear more. "
October 20 2006 ~ ".... what sort of Government do we have that keep the then chief executive on full pay six months after he was sacked, and promote the responsible Minister to Foreign Secretary?"
Jim Paice launched a fierce Prime Minister's Question Time attack about the RPA. Prime Ministers Question Time (Wednesday) "Now that the National Audit Office has laid bare the chaos of the Rural Payments Agency, and given the potential fine of £141 million by the European Union because of the inaccuracies, plus the fact that the then Secretary of State was warned in June 2005 that the project was off course and yet did nothing, what sort of Government do we have that keep the then chief executive on full pay six months after he was sacked, and promote the responsible Minister to Foreign Secretary?"
Mr Blair could only reply:"First, as we have said on many occasions, we are sorry for the delays that there have been. Now, 97 per cent. of farmers have received full or partial payments. The Rural Payments Agency is in contact with the remaining high-value cases, and it is working to pay the remaining claims as soon as possible."
Hardly an answer to the questions raised about Mrs Beckett's promotion, the continuing payment of Mr McNeill and the reasons behind both.
October 18 2006 ~ NAO report covered on BBC "auditors found a catalogue of management errors.....Our correspondent added that industry experts say it is inevitable some farmers will go bankrupt as a result. "
BBC "A series of government mistakes while bringing in a system of agricultural payments cost UK farmers up to £22.5m, the National Audit Office says. Its report on the Rural Payments Agency found the costs related to additional interest and arrangement fees on loans. ....
The report points to failings at all levels in appreciating the risks and complexities involved in implementing the scheme. The report's authors say the agency underestimated not only the number of people who would claim under the new system, but also the amount of land they would register.
The computer system that was used was not fully tested, it said.
.... The report's authors say that 5% of the farmers they spoke to were considering leaving farming altogether because of the stress and financial hardship caused by delays in payments. ...... industry experts say it is inevitable some farmers will go bankrupt as a result. "October 18 2006 ~ RPA's Johnston McNeill is still being paid his £114,000 salary
The NAO report reminds us that Margaret Beckett , ( now, of course, appointed to the most important political job after PM), and Lord Bach were both warned in June 2005 that the scheme would not work - and that was seven months before it was even due to come into action.
They made no contingency plan.
The Telegraph reports:"...Johnston McNeill, the former chief executive of the Rural Payments Agency, is still drawing his £114,000 salary more than six months after he was removed from the post, a report revealed yesterday.
National Audit Office investigators said this was "unsatisfactory" and called on the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to "resolve his status" as soon as possible.
It was also revealed that Mr McNeill received a £21,000 bonus last year, a few months before a review found that the complex scheme for paying single farm payments in England over which he presided was unlikely to work. Mr McNeill also received bonuses totalling £40,000 between 2002 and 2004.October 18 2006 ~ Little prospect of the problems being remedied in time to deal with the 2006 claims
"The Government has plunged thousands of farmers into serious financial uncertainty" said Jim Paice in a news release yesterday. Commenting on the NAO report on the delays in administering the Single Payment Scheme, he said:
'This report is damning confirmation of the Government's disastrous administration of the Single Payment Scheme which has plunged thousands of farmers into serious financial uncertainty..... The report's conclusion that problems with the Single Payment Scheme were not picked up early enough for corrective action to be taken is astonishing considering the repeated warnings given .....'
Read in fullSept 28 2006 ~ Thousands still waiting for money
Farmers Weekly The Rural Payments Agency has confirmed that 99 farmers in England are yet to receive a penny of their single farm payment for 2005 and some 7300 claimants are awaiting their top-up payments ........."
Sept 15 2006 ~ "I feel if we could just sit down together, with all the paperwork, we could solve all this in half an hour."
And on it goes.... The RPA said this week that "just " 134 commercial producers are waiting for 100% of their payment, although another 7954 people are waiting for a top-up payment.
Farmers Weekly quotes Oxfordshire producer Richard Strainge"....Oxfordshire producer Richard Strainge of Springhill Farm, High Cogges, Witney said he had received a payment on 27 July from an emergency fund. But he said queries about his claim had yet to be resolved and he still does not have an entitlement statement. "The thing that bugs me the most is that I can't do anything to change the situation. They won't let me go to the office and sort it out. But I feel if we could just sit down together, with all the paperwork, we could solve all this in half an hour."
Aug 15 2006 ~ Vital hill farm support still hasn't been received by some farmers in Cumbria, Lancashire and Cheshire
FarmingUK "The Hill Farm Allowance (HFA) assists farmers in maintaining the unique and beautiful upland countryside. And in many cases it also helps alleviate the hardship that some hill farmers face due to high winter feeding bills.
National uplands spokesman and Keswick farmer Will Cockbain said:"It is totally unacceptable as we approach the autumn sales period that many farmers are still awaiting HFA payments which were due in the spring. We are being told by the RPA that the bottleneck which has occurred in the last two weeks is now clearing and payments should now speed up. While we have lobbied both Defra and the RPA over the unacceptable delays to this year's payment we are also putting pressure on to ensure the same mistakes are not made next year and the RPA has assured us a system will be in place for next year which will rectify the vast majority of this year's problems. We have also pointed out some payments are wrong and again have been assured checks will be made once all HFAs are completed to pick up on any mistakes. There have been particular problems with some commons but we are now led to believe that the problems that have occurred on these commons have been resolved."
Aug 10 2005 ~ Four 'naked civil servants' fired by RPA
The Register reports: "The inquiry into reports of shenanigans at the Rural Payments Agency has resulted in four staff being booted out of their Newcastle jobs. A further five have received written and verbal warnings. The controversy was sparked by reports of staff vaulting filing cabinets nude, which the investigation said were derived from a prank where staff took photos of each other for a colleague's leaving present. It compared the incident to a "student rag week" gag.....Allegations that staff hid vomit in the office in order to fester was borne out by investigators, with four cups of sick confirmed. The report also reveals: "There have been incidents involving faeces, female sanitary products and mucus deposited." ........ RPA chief executive Tony Cooper said: "Staff at Newcastle and RPA offices across the country are hard-working and dedicated to performing a very important job for the farming industry." ...." More at http://www.rpa.gov.uk/rpa/index.nsf/0/0fe8d6accb5124c9802571c300481548/$FILE/RPA Newcastle inquiry - Executive Summary.pdf
Aug 5 2006 ~Lord Haskins "can't get any sense" out of the RPA
The Yorkshire Post " ... Lord Haskins has received just 35 per cent of the amount due. The former head of Northern Foods said even he "can't get any sense" out of the RPA and branded its behaviour "a disgraceful piece of blundering bureaucracy".
The agency claimed last night that the overpayments were identified during routine checks, although many farmers had also contacted them about the problem. Officials are now left having to correct this latest mistake while trying to resolve outstanding issues.
The RPA's latest figures show 5,895 claimants - including 250 farmers with a claim of more than E1,000 or £682 - are yet to receive any payment whatsoever. Around 13,000 claimants who have received partial payments are still waiting for their top-up cheques. The RPA is also still working to set up an IT system to calculate and pay interest payments for customers who received payments after the June 30 deadline. RPA Interim Chief Executive Tony Cooper promised to urgently tackle the overpayment fiasco. .... But senior countryside figures in Yorkshire were scathing. Scarborough and Whitby MP Robert Goodwill said:"Incredibly, the situation has gone from bad to worse. Things were already chaotic - now they're in meltdown."
...."Aug 2 2006 ~ RPA bungle has led to DEFRA Budget needing to be cut by £200 million
Chris Huhne, the Liberal Democrat shadow environment secretary said "This cock-up by Margaret Beckett should be met from the contingency reserve not key budget lines for environmental spending."
The Guardian reports today that DEFRA"....was in financial crisis last night after being told to cut its budget by nearly £200m over the next six months. The Guardian has learned that the 7% savings are expected to bite deeply into flood defence work, nature conservation and canal repair schemes as well as a host of scientific bodies and research groups..."....
"....The biggest reform of agricultural subsidy in a generation backfired when it led to a 50% increase in the number of claimants to 120,000, and the IT system failed to cope. Hundreds of extra staff had to be hired and administration costs soared. Some payments were made more than seven months late, driving many farmers close to bankruptcy. ...."July 7 2006 ~ Fresh evidence of Stress caused by delays
Calls to the Farm Crisis Network Hotline in the first five months of 2006 were over 50% higher than in the same period the previous year, an increase driven by anxiety over single farm payments.
Lord Rooker has said that a decision over partial payments will not be made until October.
Mr Paice said:"The financial uncertainty the farming industry has suffered as a result of delays in single farm payments has clearly had a serious effect on levels of anxiety and stress among farmers. The fact that calls to the Farm Crisis Network's helpline have increased so dramatically underlines the importance of getting this year's payments to farmers as promptly as possible. To achieve this, the Government must make arrangements now for partial payments to be made by December 1st. Farmers cannot afford another year of financial uncertainty, stress and worry."
June 23 2006 ~ 2,300 claimants of more than 1,000 have not been paid, and about 12,000 - it might be 12,200 - claims of less than 1,000 have not been paid.
" I know that this year's problems have caused real distress and I repeat the apology to farmers that I have made before, both in the House and elsewhere..." It is decent of David Miliband to apologise - and one senses that he knows that anything that sets him apart from Margaret Beckett - who didn't do apology - can only be a good move. Andrew Gimson's Telegraph Sketch is also mildy approving: "If the Labour Party is serious about climate change, it might come to see Mr Miliband as a source of renewable energy, and more environmentally friendly than Mr Brown, who finds it so hard to hide his close resemblance to a heavy industry which still runs on coal..."
June 23 2006 ~"I am grateful to the Secretary of State for keeping the House informed of the modest progress that is being made to deal with this problem.
Peter Ainsworth. Hansard " It is unfortunate, Mr. Speaker, that the BBC's "Farming Today" programme probably heard about this statement before you did - but that is life these days, under new Labour. ... Many questions remain to be answered, however. How did the problems arise in the first place? What happens next? The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee is conducting an inquiry into what went wrong. Will the Secretary of State give an assurance that the Committee will be given access to all the information that it needs to form a balanced, accurate and comprehensive view of the events that led to the failure to make payments on time? The Committee's inquiry has already produced some interesting evidence, and we look forward to its findings with great interest. Meanwhile, the BBC's "File on 4" programme has disclosed that the Office of Government Commerce gateway review was warning two years ago that there were severe problems with delivering the new system. Why were those warnings ignored?..
I welcome the announcement that the Government will start paying interest on the money that they owe from 1 July. But what about the people who are entitled to payment but have received nothing for the six months before 30 June? Those people have been put at ahuge competitive disadvantage by the Government's incompetence, denial and mismanagement, and have been forced to take out commercial loans. The Secretary of State said that 90 per cent. of the total fund had now been paid, but he did not say - unless I missed something - how many claimants remained unpaid. I would be grateful if he could give us that information. Will he also tell us whether the hill livestock allowance claimants will benefit from the initiative on interest payments that he has announced today?
How many farmers will receive compensation equal to the salary of the sacked chief executive of the Rural Payments Agency, who, as I understand it, is still on the payroll but doing nothing? ...... Does the Secretary of State realise that the RPA is still getting its field data wrong and making wildly inaccurate partial payments? ...............Will the Secretary of State take this opportunity to comment, however, on press reports about RPA staff who, even as calls to the rural stress network reached record levels, were cavorting naked in the office and hiding cups full of vomit in office cupboards?
We detected a bad smell about the handling of the single farm payment last year, but the Government denied that there was a problem. We called last year for the Government to introduce a partial payment scheme. Their refusal to open up that option at the time cost the farming community millions of pounds. We called on Ministers to return to farmers the interest that they had paid because of the Government's failure, but again the door was closed. It has taken months for them to accept any financial liability at all. Every time we prise open the door on this wretched affair a little further, the smell gets worse. ." Peter Ainsworth. HansardJune 23 2006 ~ What other budget lines will be cut to defray the extra cost?
Chris Huhne asked "... late payments will have an impact not just on the finances of rural communities, but on Government finances. However, I did not hear him specify a figure that he has told the Treasury to expect for the overrun that will be caused by the fact that the European Union will not meet any payments made by DEFRA after 30 June. What is that figure, and will it be met from the departmental budget? If so, what other budget lines will be cut to defray the extra cost? If not, will the Secretary of State assure us that the amount will be met from the contingency reserve? That would obviously be preferable for all concerned..." Hansard
June 16 2006 ~ Oliver Letwin says that the RPA in "no position" to lecture farmers on small mistakes
See Western Morning News "A Westcountry farming couple have become embroiled in a "bureaucratic nightmare" with the Government's Rural Payments Agency (RPA) after a typing error led to a 16-month inquiry...."
June 15 2006 ~Andrew George: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs how many (a) permanent staff and (b) temporary staff
were employed by the Rural Payments Agency in each month since October 2001 expressed in terms of (i) actual staff numbers and (ii) full-time equivalent staff; and if he will make a statement.
Hansard has the answer...and it may cause steam to rise even higher....June 13 2006 ~Complaints of scandalous and time-wasting behaviour by staff at RPA
The Western Morning News reports
".... Several staff at the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) head office in Newcastle are facing disciplinary procedures over claims that they leapt naked from filing cabinets, held break-dancing competitions during work hours and vomited into cups during workplace pranks...... Their behaviour was revealed to a local newspaper in Newcastle by a whistleblower sick of their outrageous antics. ... In a letter to the newspaper, the whistleblower wrote:
"I am appalled at the level of depravity that is being tolerated at my workplace. Activities have been caught on official cameras. There is a list of shocking and awful acts in work time, including sex in the toilets. Drug taking and swearing is rife."
Many farmers in the Westcountry have been financially crippled by delays, of up to five months or more in some cases, in receiving the Single Farm Payment. .............
The chairman of the Regional Dairy Board for Devon, John Daw, a farmer who is still waiting for up to £15,000 in farm payments from the RPA, said he was not surprised by the mischief. "With such a high turnover of staff they are bound to get the people nobody else wants and we farmers suffer as a result," he said. ..." WMN story30 May 2006 ~ Ian Johnson : "This whole scheme has been nothing but a fiasco.
When you consider that hundreds of years ago they managed to create a similar log in the Domesday Book, it is amazing that with all the technology they now have they cannot get it right. It strikes me that to make a payment of 1p is going to cost the RPA even more in processing it. The whole thing is ridiculous."...." Western Morning News has the latest report.
19 May 2006 ~ "... if we are going to protect British agriculture, then let us at least do it efficiently.
I have no doubt that, during this debate, other noble Lords will draw attention to the scandalous inefficiency of Defra, which has got itself a hopeless muddle, largely because the present system is complex to administer and calls for excessive bureaucracy. Farmers have had to find millions of pounds to pay interest on loans they have taken out to cover shortfalls caused by the failure of subsidies to arrive. No other government in Europe bungled it. The failure is unique to Britain and Margaret Beckett, who had been head of Defra since 2001, was responsible for this fiasco. The new Minister will need a big broom to clean the Augean stables. ..."
The Lords debate on agriculture on Thursday (Hansard) was, as usual, informed and readable. Lord Vinson began the debate with a laudably clear explanation of both the current difficulties and the extreme importance of British Agriculture. He said".... it used to take 200 sheep to buy a tractor but now it takes 400 sheep, and milk is sold in supermarkets for half the price of bottled water. When it comes to regulation, a farmer said to me the other day, "I spend most of my time filling forms. We shouldn't now be called "farmers"; we should be called "formers". But the present wasteful and inappropriate EU subsidy shambles does not weaken the case for agricultural support. It is difficult to see what our membership of the EU does for Great Britain, and farming and fishing in particular. We are currently supporting our farming industry with money recycled back from part of our contribution to the EU, and it would be sensible seriously to consider repatriating the right to run our own agriculture with our own money in our own way..." (Read debate)
12 May 2006 ~" Tony Blair's decision to allow John Prescott to keep his pay and perks has left him unable to appoint a full-time minister
to sort out the chaos at the Government's Rural Payments Agency, it was claimed last night.Mr Prescott was stripped of all his departmental responsibilities last week after humiliating revelations about his affair with his diary secretary. But fearful of sparking a full leadership contest, Mr Blair allowed the Deputy Prime Minister to retain his status as a Cabinet Minister along with his 3134,000 salary.Last night, rural campaigners claimed the decision had forced Mr Blair to make the crucial post of Farming Minister part-time...." WMN
12 May 2006 ~ RPA cost us £634 million between 2002 and 2005
Other questions and answers from Hansard
On the question of gobbledegook, we particularly liked:Mr. Laws: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs whether the 2006 single farm payment application form was passed to the Plain English Campaign for editing before its despatch to farmers. [66174]
Read in full
Barry Gardiner: The 2006 version of the single payment scheme handbook and (guidance for England was not submitted to the Plain English Campaign for editing; however it was edited by the Central Office of Information. The application form was not.12 May 2006 ~ Bishop Michael Langrish questioned whether ministers had fully understood the impact of the chaos at the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) on the wider rural economy.
He said a medium-sized livestock farm typically provided employment and income for around 60 rural businesses, and a typical dairy farm relied upon 27 suppliers.
"To what extent do the Government recognise that those firms are also incurring debt and facing the prospect of losing their livelihood? What plans do they have to address the latest distress in the rural economy?"
Bishop Michael's comments came as new figures from the Bank of England underlined the depth of the financial crisis sparked by the problems with the Government's new farm payments system. The figures showed that farmers' debts rose by £862 million last year ..." WMN10 May 2006 ~ Baroness Ashton of Upholland turns down poisoned chalice
We understand from the Western Morning News today that, as they put it,
"the chaos surrounding the Government's new farm payments system descended into farce last night as the minister appointed by Tony Blair to sort out the crisis quit after just four days. In a desperate face-saving exercise the Prime Minister's official spokesman said the veteran minister Lord Rooker would now take up the post, although he will also retain responsibilities at the Northern Ireland office, where he is already a minister..."
Baroness Ashton was to have replaced Lord Bach - but also expected to retain her responsibilities at the Department of Constitutional Affairs, where she has been a minister since 2004. The Rural Payments Agency is to get its third interim chief executive in seven weeks. Shadow Agriculture Minister Jim Paice has said:"This shambles just demonstrates the contempt with which the Government treats farmers and rural communities. At a time when the industry is already in desperate straits as a result of Government incompetence they give us part-time ministers and civil servants. It is absolutely dreadful and will surely do nothing to speed up the processing of desperately needed payments."
Simon Hart, Chief Executive of the Countryside Alliance, said: "Responsibility for food and farming is not a part-time job. Five years ago there was a Minister for Agriculture in the cabinet, now it seems farming is only worth half a junior minister......"
The WMN comments further: "The botched reshuffle last night threatened to overshadow a rare sliver of good news emerging from the RPA. New Rural Affairs Secretary David Miliband yesterday announced that partial payments would begin going out this week to the tens of thousands of farmers still not paid money owed since December."9 May 2006 ~ "grief, stress and financial burden"
Stackyard " The Tenant Farmers Association's National Chairman Reg Haydon has written to new DEFRA Secretary of State David Miliband to welcome him to his new post....... "The grief, stress and financial burden being suffered by these farmers is devastating. I have asked Mr Miliband to press ahead with interim payments to ensure that they are out within the next two weeks. Farmers should not be left beyond the end of this month without receiving a payment", said Mr Haydon.
8 May 2006 ~ "How can you expect us to ever believe you again?
Extract from the letter to Mrs Beckett from Peter Clarke, the chairman of the Cornwall branch of the National Farmers' Union two days before her promotion to Foreign Secretary. He warned her that if the SFP is not completed before October 15, there could be an "implosion in the rural economy". .... Western Morning News One significant passage:
".... would not be in the current situation if you had taken advice from outside of your departments, and not gone bullheaded down a route that most realised was impassable."
8 May 2006 ~ .Margaret Beckett gave out £100,000 to rural-support organisations offering counselling before she was reshuffled. Yes, counselling.
Madeleine Bunting in today's Guardian
".....To add to the chagrin of English farmers, their neighbours north of the border in Scotland or those in Wales received their payments without a hitch months ago. The system agreed in 2003 has gone smoothly across Europe; even Poland has paid its 1.5 million farmers on time. But not England.
Beckett's reputation has miraculously escaped the battering inflicted on that of her former cabinet colleague Charles Clarke, but the grisly displays of incompetence at her erstwhile brief, the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), more than match those at the Home Office. David Miliband will have a huge task in his new job at Defra to unravel a monumental mess that bears all the hallmarks of New Labour's style of government: over-centralisation, inflated expectations of IT, ruthless job cuts, overpaid senior executives and ballooning numbers of temporary staff.
The litany of mistakes beggars belief, and one thing underlies them all - hubris. An impatient ambition and a refusal to listen to anything they didn't want to hear is what led the politicians to insist that the benighted civil servants of the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) simultaneously implement three huge projects involving the distribution of £1.5bn of public money....." See Guardian for Full article7 May 2006 ~ Bitter harvest (Telegraph Opinion)
Sunday Telegraph Many rural communities in Britain are on the edge of financial collapse, with farmers owed £1.6 billion in EU subsidies. The unpaid farmers have already had to find £8 million to pay the interest on loans they have taken out to cover the short-falls caused by the failure of the subsidies to arrive. And it is not only the farmers who face ruin: the companies who supply them also feel the squeeze when their bills cannot be paid.
.......... it is the Government's maladministration that is wholly responsible for the failure of the money to reach the people to whom it is owed.....The Government has demonstrated, yet again, that it does not care about the fate of rural communities: it should have been within the capacity of even this Labour administration to make the payments promptly. It is not a difficult task. No other government in Europe has bungled it........ Labour, which constantly boasts of its technical competence and capacity to "modernise" institutions and procedures effectively. ...Margaret Beckett, who, as head of Defra since 2001, is responsible for this fiasco, has just been promoted to Foreign Secretary. We shudder to think what will happen ..."6 May 2006 ~ Farewell to the can carriers
The Telegraph says:
"....Lord Bach, the agriculture minister in charge of the bungled farm payments scheme, was among six ministers outside the Cabinet who lost their jobs yesterday..... Elliot Morley, the long-serving environment minister, was also axed from the department, because he was seen as failing to rise to the green challenge presented by David Cameron, the Conservative leader.
It adds,
Alun Michael, the industry minister, who has had an up and down career in government, returned to the back benches. ...""....Margaret Beckett, the Cabinet minister in charge of the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, acknowledged a "human crisis" caused by the delays. But her junior minister carried the can and she escaped unscathed, promoted to be Foreign Secretary."
06 May 2006 ~ Beckett leaves farm aid mess for Miliband
Yorkshire Post "Margaret Beckett, who admitted failing farmers over rural payments, has been rewarded with the post of Foreign Secretary. The mess she and now dismissed Farming Minister Lord Bach presided over will be swept up by high flier David Miliband, 40, who succeeds her .......... Despite Ministers' promises of all payments being made by the end of March only £362m had been allocated with more than 70,000 farmers still waiting for cheques, leaving many facing hardship. One of Mr Miliband's first jobs will be to ensure the remaining £1bn of grants are delivered as soon as possible. ........... Last night Countryside Alliance chairman Kate Hoey, a Labour MP, welcomed his appointment, saying: "David is a very brilliant politician. The rural community is feeling fed up over all sorts of issues, the most pressing being the catastrophic failure of the Rural Payments Agency. He will be a breath of fresh air at Defra and has a real opportunity to reconnect with rural people and their concerns." But Scarborough and Whitby Tory MP Robert Goodwill said: "Lord Bach deserved to get the boot... But I am incandescent that Margaret Beckett has been rewarded for the outrageous hardships she has caused thousands of farmers across Yorkshire. It says it all about the way Labour views Britain's farmers."
May 2 2006 ~ Letters in the Guardian - Human cost of farm payment delays
Peter Griffith, the Director of Farming Online writes in the Guardian -
"You were right to question why the bill from Accenture doubled without query from either Defra or the Regional Payment Agency (Leaders, April 28). The National Audit Office will investigate what went wrong with the Rural Payments Agency and the single payment scheme in England: why the agency experienced difficulties in making payments, the impact on the farming sector, and what has been done to remedy matters.
Another letter from the Rev Elizabeth Clark:
But in part the fault lies with Defra for failing to realise the new system would introduce a raft of new claims: 120,000 claims for the single farm payment have been made, yet there are only 68,000 farm holdings over 20 hectares within England. This is the recognised minimum hectarage to sustain some form of farm income. There are probably only 45,000 farmers in England who rely on farming as their main source of income. These are the people who have not been paid and are now suffering. There is now the highest ever on-farm debt - exceeding £10bn - which is affecting all sectors of the agricultural and rural sector.
These are not farm subsidies, these are payments to maintain farmland in good agricultural and environmental condition, and thereby preserve the inherent characteristic of the English countryside. These are down-payments for the maintenance of the health of our regional environment. To date the RPA has been paying the wrong people; 40% of the claimants paid with 30% of the total subsidy shows these are not the main players. A survey of farmers, carried out by Farming Online, shows that to date only 17% have received this payment. England is the only country within the EU that has failed to pay its primary food producers to protect the environment. This is causing unnecessary hardship throughout the rural economy."As a rural minister, I and my colleagues see the results of the situation you refer to. Farmers and their families are facing rising levels of financial hardship and stress. This is possibly the biggest reorganisation in agriculture since the second world war and the way it has been introduced is shambolic. The silence on this matter in most of the media only increases the sense of isolation and frustration felt by farmers. There seems to be a feeling about that it doesn't matter where food comes from, as long as it's cheap; this ignores concerns about both animal welfare and environmental impact."
April 30 2006 ~ Beckett's farm payments chaos
The Times
" DEFRA'S shambolic handling of single farm payments in England has caused many farmers to suffer economic hardship.The Polish government has managed to pay out to around 1.5m Polish farmers, yet our government will have passed the deadline for receiving claims for 2006 (May 15) before it has even met its commitments for 2005.
..... The European commission asked Defra to stick with the historic system that served Scottish and Welsh farmers adequately, but Margaret Beckett decided to opt for the bureaucracy that has caused this debacle. ..... many English farmers will not receive their entitlement from January 1, 2005 until nearly the end of 2006 - a delay of almost two years. The situation would be laughable if it were not so serious for so many hard-working farmers.
Timothy Kirkhope MEP Leader of Conservative MEPsApril 28 2006 ~ Double Whammy for English Farmers (26 April)
" It emerged last night that the British Government wrote to Agriculture Commissioner Fischer Boel on 12 April to ask for an extension until mid-October to the deadline for the Single Farm Payment to be paid to English farmers. The Commissioner told Members of the European Parliament's Agriculture Committee that her services were "examining this request", which involves making outstanding 2005 payments by 15 October in addition to some payments for 2006. Under the current rules, the UK Government would be fined by Brussels if it fails to make all 2005 payments by 30 June this year.
The Commissioner made the revelation in answering questions from Neil Parish MEP, Conservative Agriculture Spokesman in Europe. Mr Parish said:<>"The payments were first promised in January, then in February, then in the middle of March and then in June. Now for the first time we hear that Margaret Beckett is manoeuvring behind our backs to secure an extension until the autumn for the Single Farm Payment to actually be paid to English farmers. She made no mention of this in her Ministerial Statement of 19 April. Moreover, in the debate that followed in the House on 20 April, she said: 'I do not tell the European Commission anything different from the House. The Commission is familiar with events and has been kept informed about the steps that are being taken. Like the House, it has been told that we anticipate making the payments in June.'"
From the Conservative Party website
When will our farmers be paid? How on earth can our farmers be expected to remain economically viable if they are not paid until October? How can farmers be expected to fill in their claims next month without even knowing if their 2005 claims have been accepted? Margaret Beckett needs to find answers to these questions fast."April 22 2006 ~Oral Answers to Questions - Environment, Food and Rural Affairs: Single Payments Scheme (20 Apr 2006)
Peter Ainsworth: The Secretary of State's approach to this whole fiasco smacks of complacency. Her own figures show that in the first four weeks the RPA paid 23 per cent. of the claims. In the last three weeks it has paid a further 16 per cent. How can she possibly claim that there is a significant improvement when the rate has slowed? Hansard
April 19 2006 ~ Single Farm Payments announcement adds insult to injury
Margaret Beckett has made a statement to admit that the Rural Payments Agency does not expect to complete single farm payments before the EU deadline.
A press release from Jim Paice"It is not just farmers who will end up footing the bill for the Government's mismanagement and incompetence, but taxpayers too.
The UK is the only country in the EU where a majority of farmers are still waiting for payments.
The belated decision to make interim payments is welcome but there are many questions left to be answered. How much will the Government's failure to make payments before the EU deadline end up costing British taxpayers in penalties? When will partial payments actually be made and will they be made to the large number of farmers who have received entitlement statements that aren't validated?
With less than four weeks before this year's claims have to be submitted how can farmers with unvalidated statements make a correct claim? Mrs Beckett must delay the deadline and seek the necessary derogation from the EU. "April 13 2006 ~ FARMERS 'SUFFERING' FROM LATE PAYMENTS
WMN A Westcountry MP last night called for an inquiry into the "chaos" at the Government's Rural Payments Agency - as it emerged that money owed to thousands of farmers may not be paid until the autumn.
Angela Browning, MP for Tiverton and Honiton, and a former Tory agriculture minister, said there was now a clear case for an inquiry by the independent National Audit Office into the problems at the agency, which have left thousands of Westcountry farmers facing serious cash flow problems.
Mrs Browning, a member of the powerful Commons Public Accounts Committee, said she was "very concerned" by the inability of the agency to offer any new timetable for making the vital payments, which are already months overdue.
She said it was even possible that the agency could miss the legal deadline for making payments by the end of June - a failure that could lead to the UK being fined tens of millions of pounds by the European Commission. "It is really very worrying that the agency cannot give any prediction about when these payments will be made," she said.
"Farmers are suffering now and there is a real danger that taxpayers will suffer too. It is an ideal subject for the National Audit Office to investigate and I think the Public Accounts Committee may well also want to look at it.
"Some of the case work I am dealing with on this issue beggars belief. The impact it is having is severe and getting worse."
A spokesman for the National Audit Office, which acts as Parliament's financial watchdog, last night said it was aware of the problems at the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) and was "monitoring" the situation.
Mrs Browning's comments came as it emerged that vital payments owed to farmers could be delayed until the autumn. The payments, which replaced traditional farm subsidies last year, were originally due to be made at the end of last year. That deadline later slipped to the end of March. The RPA's chief executive Johnston McNeill was removed last month when it emerged that the target would be missed, although he is still on the payroll and claiming his £150,000-a-year salary. Research conducted by the National Farmers' Union suggests that the process of validating claims for last year will not be completed until November, with some payments not following until the end of the year. So far less than a quarter of the £1.4 billion owed to farmers in England has been paid.
South Devon beef farmer Richard Haddock, chairman of the South West NFU, described the situation as "desperate". Mr Haddock said he had "no confidence" that the RPA would hit the legal deadline at the end of June. And he called for the resignation of Rural Affairs Secretary Margaret Beckett.
Mr Haddock said: "At the rate they are going they will not finish validation until November. I have not got a validated statement for my claim and I have just received the tenth version of maps for my farm, which were wrong again. It is hopeless.
"I have not seen such desperation in the industry since the height of the BSE crisis. Tenant farmers can't pay their rent; people can't settle their fertiliser bills. The whole rural economy is running into trouble."
A spokesman for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said changes put in place by the RPA's acting chief executive Mark Addison were still "bedding down". He said it was not yet possible to set out a new timetable for making payments."April 11 2006 ~Weston MP John Penrose is backing Mr Bateman's campaign.
Weston Mercury Mr Penrose said: "This is a real David and Goliath story. If the Government was a company it would have been in court and declared bankrupt long ago. I will be raising this in the House of Commons with the minister as soon as possible..."
April 11 2006 ~ Members of the NFU's ruling council have said that they will want DEFRA secretary Margaret Beckett's resignation
if the process of making single farm payments to all farmers in England is not completed by the EU deadline of 30 June. NFU council voted in favour of the demand following an impassioned debate on Tuesday morning (11 April)...They also made it clear they want to see a full independent inquiry into the SFP debacle.
Several council members offered accounts of the anxiety and hardship being caused by the chaos and confusion into which the process of making the payments has descended.
The meeting was told of overdrafts having to be extended, bills unpaid, of a cash-flow crisis, and of rural helplines such as the Farm Crisis Network being overwhelmed by calls from increasingly desperate farmers. ." FWiApril 7 2006 ~ Single Farm payment FAQ - in Farmers Weekly
"......NFU president Peter Kendall went on a fact-finding mission to the RPA this week and said the system did seem to be working. But he added that he was yet to be reassured that the changes introduced were helping to make a difference to the headline payment figures. " FWi
April 6 2006 ~ "stakeholders" have received this letter from Defra. How much public money did it cost to send?
It is written in execrable English:
"Due to be very high print runs, farming link is produced and printed a number of weeks before it is distributed to you. This quarters edition (March 2006) was sent out from 13th of March. Unfortunately this means that it can't tend in formation of the Single Payment Scheme (SPS) that has since been superseded." (sic)
It is not dated. The link to the DEFRA website is wrongly spelt.
One wonders just how much public money was spent, first in the "very high print runs" of March 13th and then in telling the same number of frustrated farmers what they - and everyone else with ears - has known since last year. One wonders too which bright spark thought it appropriate to reassure stakeholders thatThe Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural affairs said: "Central to the success of these steps is the team at the RPA. I am confident that with Mark Addison at the helm, we have in place the right people for the job in this next stage. Their work and commitment remains key to delivery."
According to the letter, Margaret Beckett appears to have discovered "officially" that the RPA was in tatters only one day after the original "Farming Link" letter, sent out on the 13th March 2006, claimed that "most of the £1.6 billion of subsidies for farmers would be paid by the end of March"
("out of their depth" is a phrase we hear more and more in emails - and for a government in charge of so many vital aspects of British life, this is deeply disturbing. The one thing everyone agrees the government does superbly well is covering their own backs, never saying sorry and managing to cling on to power with what seems the most egregious cynicism.)April 6 2006 ~ Cash delays are pushing farmers to the brink
"Farmers can't pay their bills and the stress factor of it is worse because it is right on lambing and spring calving time. "People are concerned about the money but what worries us is that it is going to end up with a fatality - people could kill themselves over it." Northumberland Today quoting Stoker Frater, council delegate for Northumberland National Farmers Union. Read in full
April 4 2006 ~ "...All he has received is a letter informing him of the amount he is still owed.... in Euros".
Weston-super - Mare MP John Penrose is backing a local farmer's court action against Margaret Beckett for non-payment of the Single Farm Payment (SFP) to his North Somerset farm.
Local farmer Paul Bateman issued the claim against the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs after he failed to receive payment by the due date on October 31st 2005 and the subsequent deadline Feb 28th 2006. All he has received is a letter informing him of the amount he is still owed, in Euros. Mr Penrose said:"This is a real David and Goliath story. If the Government was a company, they would have been in court and declared bankrupt long ago. I will be raising this in the House with the Minister as soon as possible in Parliament. Many farmers are in the same position as Mr Bateman. But as far as we know, Paul is the first farmer to take a Cabinet Minister to court.
( Information from press release received at warmwell on 4 April)
The Head of the Regional Payment Agency was sacked (16th March 2006) but our local farmers are no further forward. It's vital that farmers get the money they're already owed. If payments are going to be further delayed, the Government must consider either making interim payments or paying interest on the money."April 2 -9 2006 ~ "You have stated that if payments are completed by the end of June interest does not arise. That may be the legal situation but it is certainly not the moral one."
James Paice has written to Mrs Beckett today. Extract:"... if the majority of payments are not going to be completed by the end of April you really must make an interim payment, or even just offer one for those who wish to apply..... the question of interest.... the focus of the RPA must be on making this year's payments rather than sorting out next years forms; secondly, how can the tens of thousand of farmers with non-validated claims be expected to submit a claim for 2006 if they do not know if they got the last one right?...." Read in full
April 2 -9 2006 ~ "...situation is nothing short of scandalous. The worst of it is that it was entirely predictable."
Lords Hansard for March 30th. The Lords spoke out with courtesy - but with devastating reproach. Lord Bach, however, remained unmoved. Extract:
"The Earl of Arran: ......the sad fact is that, until the supermarkets are prepared to pay a fair price for beef, lamb and milk, the single payment will make the difference between profit and loss, and survival and extinction, and it will be what keeps the rural world going round. The disgraceful fiasco over the single payment is not only putting farmers' businesses at risk; in the north of Devon alone, it is also damaging hundreds of other small businesses that supply feed, fertiliser, machinery and 101 other goods or services to the farming community. They have not been paid because, without the single payment, farmers do not have the means to pay them.
Read in full
That situation is nothing short of scandalous. The worst of it is that it was entirely predictable. The Government chose the most complicated model of single payments that it was possible to devise. They then asked the staff of the Rural Payments Agency to implement it at the same time as threatening large numbers of them with redundancy. Finally, they relied on assurances from people at the top of the RPA, whose record has been shown to be rather less successful at delivering projects on time than the constructors of the Wembley Stadium and rather less forthcoming in their communications than the old Soviet politburo. This is probably the most incompetent piece of government administration ever known in a government department. It certainly rivals that of foot-and-mouth disease. It is utterly deplorable.
Humility still counts for an awful lot. Perhaps the word "regret" as used by the Minister could be changed to the simple words: "We are very sorry. We got it wrong". However, I suspect that, as happens all too often, the Government could not give a toss for the plight of the rural economy. One day, they will deeply regret that. In the mean time, farmers the length and breadth of the country are furious and fuming. ..."April 2 - 9 2006 ~ " Margaret Beckett declared: "I take full responsibility." She meant she had just sacked one of her officials..."
Sir Simon Jenkins on the RPA fiasco
"....Only 20% of cheques have been signed, partly because a £37m government computer has declared more than 95% of claims "unvalidated". As a result some £3 billion cannot be released from the exchequer. Ministry phones g