The Welsh Assembly Government has revealed that it is ready to issue single farm payments to 75% of farmers in Wales on 3 December.
It is great news for them (unless you are one of the unlucky 25%), but sadly farmers in England are facing an all too familiar scenario.
For the best that DEFRA and the Rural Payments Agency have so far come up with is to say that it aims to have completed 75% of the value of payments by the end of March 2008.
And instead of making getting payments out a priority, DEFRA seems to be getting sidetracked by issues such as cost-cutting and talking about giving golden handshakes to DEFRA officials of up to £150K.