1 July 2011

MPs have written to Defra secretary Caroline Spelman, urging her to stop bonuses for staff of the Rural Payments Agency until the organisation’s performance improves.

The RPA did meet its EU target of paying 95 per cent of the 2010 Single Payment Scheme (SPS) payments by the June 30 deadline, however, it missed an earlier Defra-set target of paying 95 per cent of the total value by the end of March. The agency fell short of Defra’s target, making only 88 per cent of payments.

The late payment of subsidies causes serious problems for farmers, according to Anne McIntosh, chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee, who wrote the letter.

Miss McIntosh said in her letter to the Environment Secretary that the RPA is responsible for “persistent administrative failures.”She demanded “the department’s undertaking that money will not be available for performance bonuses for RPA staff involved in SPS payments until there is clear and independently audited evidence of the Agency achieving very significant performance improvements.”

Thousands of farmers suffered again this year from late payments, some of whom have still not been paid. The letter comes just days after Mark Grimshaw, head of the RPA, addressed the NFU committee explaining that the outlook for the agency was “optimistic.”

A Defra spokesperson made a statement in response to the Efra letter, “Staff at the RPA have been working hard to improve payments made to farmers, meeting the EU target well in advance of the deadline of the end of June... we know that there are still farmers out there waiting for payments for a variety of reasons and are confident that the RPA is fully committed to getting these cases resolved.”