Today is the first day the European Commission payment window for the Single Payment Scheme (SPS) opens, allowing the bloc’s states to distribute payments to farmers. In Britain, thousands of farmers will begin to receive their Single Payments.

image expired

Speaking earlier in the week, the Welsh government’s Deputy Agriculture Minister, Alun Davies, promised that over 88 per cent of Welsh farmers would receive their payments today, with over 90 per cent receiving theirs by the end of the month.

The 14,596 applications which should have today been processed in Wales amount to £214 million. If the payment is a success, it will be a record of efficiency for the Welsh government.

However, English farmers have received no announcement of when payments will be made. The Rural Payments Agency (RPA) said on Tuesday that farmers would receive their entitlement statements online today, but has not released any information on what percentage of payments it expects to make this month.

Defra has set the RPA the target of paying out 86 per cent of single payments to eligible claimants and 78 per cent of its total single payment budget for this year by the end of the month and made 95 per cent of payments by the end of March 2012.

Addressing parliament last month, Agriculture Minister Jim Paice, who sits on the RPA Oversight Board, said the RPA was performing better than in any previous scheme year even though the agency is operating with a much reduced budget. However, he admitted, "There remains some distance to go before I could be happy that farmers are receiving the service they deserve."

The RPA has been subject to scrutiny since 2006, when a damning report from the Efra committee slammed the agency’s overspend on its IT systems and lack of activity in administering Single Farm Payments.

Tweet