Angry tenant farmers ask: ‘Where’s our BPS money?’

A furious tenant-farming couple have accused the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) of unfair treatment after being left waiting for subsidies dating back to 2014.

Julie and Joseph Richardson, who farm an 80ha (200 acres) beef enterprise near Cannock, Staffordshire, said they still have not received outstanding payments from their 2014 and 2015 single farm payment claims.

The couple are also among the 10% of farmers who have not still been paid their 2016 Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) payment.

See also: Farmer stages one-man protest at RPA’s office over BPS

Mrs Richardson said she had planned to stage a protest at the RPA’s stand at the Lamma Show in Peterborough on Wednesday (18 January) to highlight their plight.

But she called it off at the last minute after senior RPA staff promised her that her 2016 BPS payment would be processed on Thursday (19 January) and the money would be in her bank account on Monday (23 January).

However, Mrs Richardson said she phoned the RPA helpline on Thursday and was told her payment would not be processed until next week at the very earliest.

“This is the third time in three consecutive years that we have been made to wait for our single farm payment,” she told Farmers Weekly.

“My husband Joseph and I have farmed in our own right since 1983. We never even had an issue with the RPA until 2014.

“We have done everything by the book. We feel like the RPA is singling us out – and we cannot understand why.”

Greening inspection

Mrs Richardson has estimated that her farm business is still owed £1,590.60 from their 2014 Single Payment Scheme (SPS) claim, which totalled between £7,000 and £8,000.

The couple said they were expecting to receive all their 2015 BPS payment on 1 December 2015, the first day of the payment window.

But their farm was suddenly chosen for an inspection on 28 November 2015.

Accordingly, they say they are still owed about £2,300 from the 2015 payment year.

The Richardsons had hoped to receive their 2016 BPS payment on 1 December last year. However, their farm was subject to a greening inspection in May, 2016.

“The inspector came out on the farm out of the blue in the third week in May,” said Mrs Richardson. “I told him that we are a beef farm and our claim was the same in 2015, so why would we need a greening inspection?

“He said he knew we were exempt but our farm had been ‘pulled out’ for an inspection.”

NFU: Thousands waiting for payments

NFU vice-president Guy Smith said he was not surprised the Richardsons said they were still owed 2015 BPS money as thousands of its members have reported that they were in a similar position.

“We can never comment as to whether people have been correctly or incorrectly paid as this information is not coming out from the RPA,” added Mr Smith.

“All we can say is we are hearing that about 10% of farmers believe they are still owed outstanding BPS 2015 payments.

“The RPA were in such a flying hurry to get money out of the door by the end of December to hit their 90% payments target for BPS 2016 that they suspended work on 2015 BPS payments.

“This is simply adding to the RPA’s workload for the RPA as they still have thousands of people unpaid out there.”

An RPA spokesman said the agency was reviewing the Richardsons’ case and would respond later.