Landowners have called for “Swift and decisive action” from the Rural Payments Agency (RPA), after landowners’ lobby group the Country Land and Business Association (CLA) received confirmation that RPA had missed its March target for making outstanding 2015 Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) payments.

2015 BPS payments have been severely delayed in many cases, due to ongoing IT issues. Farming and landowners groups have expressed concerns that the ongoing delays will now affect processing of 2016 BPS applications, after the window opened at the beginning of March. The parliamentary Public Accounts and EFRA Committees have also been highly critical of the delays, and the handling of IT issues.

RPA had set some payments targets in previous months, though the Agency came in for criticism for failing to make clear targets after promising to deliver the ‘vast majority’ of payments by the end of January this year. On Tuesday, CLA said the Agency had acknowledge missing its target of paying 95 percent of farmers by the end of March.

CLA President Ross Murray said, “It is a significant concern that the RPA has missed its end of March target, whereby they expected to have paid 95 percent of all 2015 BPS claims. There are some 15,000 [claimants] that are still anxiously awaiting their payment. Communications appear to be an increasing problem. It is particularly disappointing to hear examples of farmers who received letters in March promising payment within three weeks that subsequently did not arrive. The failure to meet these commitments is causing serious issues for businesses that are already facing cash flow challenges in a difficult marketplace.”

According to Mr Murray, CLA has been contacted by farmers who have received payments which differ significantly from the amount expected, without clear explanation as to why.

The CLA president continued, “We are also very concerned about the extent of BPS underpayments. Our fear is that the number of claimants who have been underpaid reaches into the tens of thousands and, in some extreme cases, the error amounts to more than 50%. This is causing serious difficulties for farms affected not only this year, but it will also create difficulty and uncertainty for them in making their 2016 claim within the next six weeks.

“It appears that there are still serious weaknesses in the RPA systems. Many of our members have reported missing or incorrect data in their 2016 applications, which does little to restore confidence in the online system. Also there is very little clarity about what a claimant can do to resolve underpayment or missing data issues.”

On Tuesday, an RPA spokesperson told Farming Online, "We continue to give our best estimates but are dealing with increasingly complex claims. Particularly for commons and some inspections cases it has taken longer to collect and validate all the information needed to make a payment that does not risk disallowance. Our focus remains on making compliant payments.
 
"The Rural Payments service is working and has been used to make all payments to date. It is also enabling customers to make their 2016 claims."