NFU and CLA have written to Defra Secretary of State Liz Truss MP to encourage her to urgently take a “public and proactive role in leading the response to criticisms of the 2015 Basic Payment Scheme” and discuss any potential consequences for the 2016 scheme, the application window for which closes in less than three weeks.
 
On Tuesday, with financial hardship cases mounting, anxiety rising among BPS claimants and farmers expressing growing concerns about the 2016 scheme the farmers’ and landowners’ unions asked whether Defra have put sufficient resources and plans in place to manage the challenges effectively. As well as the payment delays, NFU has raised concerns about the value of payments, claiming a large number of farmers have received smaller payments than they expected.
 
Last week, the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) announced that, with 10 percent of farmers yet to receive their 2015 BPS money, the government would be fast-tracking bridging payments worth half of applicants’ claim value for those who haven’t received their payment by the end of the month.

This week, the two organisations demanded assurance in four key areas:

• When will the 2015 payments round be completed and when can those receiving a 50% bridging payment expect to be paid in full?
• Will the RPA have sufficient staff resource to support and resolve post-payment adjustments before the end of August and will such cases receive interest on outstanding payments?
• What safeguards will Defra give to 2016 BPS applicants that they will not be penalised for RPA’s maladministration, especially given unexplained changes to 2015 application data and payments in the coming months on issues created since the delivery of the BPS in spring 2015?
• Will RPA’s system allow applicants to make timely applications before the window closes on 16 May?

NFU Vice-President Guy Smith, who is still to receive his own BPS payments said, “We need the Secretary of State to now show firm leadership on this issue and give some much needed guarantees to our members.
 
“Last week we received the announcement that the RPA would be making 50% bridging payments to those yet to receive full payments, but ministers should not be surprised that this latest decision by the RPA has created further distrust rather than assurance amongst farmers.”
 
He added, “More widely we still want to know what the problem is with getting payments out and why the RPA failed to meet promises of payment made as recently as March. Our worry is that this is some sort of intrinsic IT problem that the RPA is struggling to fix. If this is the case it may come back to haunt us in the 2016 application year.”