8 Dec

Latest figures published show that as at Friday 3 December 2010, more than 83,000 farmers have received their SPS 2010 payment.

More than £1.1 billion has been paid to 83,306 farmers. This means 79 per cent of valid claimants have been paid.

Compared to last year 86,500 English farmers had received their Single Payment Scheme payments by the same time with the RPA paying out £1.31 billion.

By 8 December 2009, the Rural Payments Agency had made full SPS payments amounting to £1.33 billion to 87,664 customers. This represented nearly 72% of the total estimated fund value of £1.86 billion and 81% of the total estimated claimant number of 107,500 farmers.

Notes

1. 105,500 has been set by RPA as the benchmark number of valid claims for SPS 2010. RPA has set this benchmark number to provide a constant measure of progress towards the end of December payment target as the number of claims will vary during the SPS processing period.

The number of claims submitted is not the same as the number that ends up as due a payment. This can happen when claims are rejected because they have been sent in more than once, or are sent in too late to be accepted.

The benchmark figure excludes claims that have already been rejected or will never be due a payment. As at mid November 2010, the number of valid claims available was 105,495.

2. The payment window for SPS 2010 is 1 December 2010 until 30 June 2011.
RPA is working hard towards meeting its targets to pay 85% of eligible SPS claimants by the 31 December 2010 and 95% by value of valid SPS 2010 scheme claims by 31 March 2011.