The Rural Payments Agency has taken down its SPS Online service due to technical issues, just days ahead of the SPS deadline (15 May).

After the Easter Bank Holiday, RPA said that it had monitored the service, having been contacted by concerned users, but assured that "more than 2,000 applications were made successfully." However, since then it has become clear that users are continuing to experience glitches.

On Tuesday, the Agency said "Some users have reported difficulties accessing SPS Online over the last week. Today, we've decided to take the system down for a few hours to try and fix the problem. It should be available again later this afternoon."

RPA said it would post details of any developments on its website