SFP costs ‘a frivolous waste of money’ – LibDems

Lib Dem MP Tim Farron has called for an overhaul of the single farm payment system after it emerged that each claim – irrespective of its value – costs the Rural Payments Agency £742 to process.

The RPA has confirmed that a significant number of SFP claims are worth around half of what it costs to process them. There were 14,645 payments under £400 in 2007 and 636 under £50. There were five payments made under £5.

A spokesman for Mr Farron described the system as “frivolous with taxpayers money” and said a restructuring of the SFP system was urgently needed.

“It’s ridiculous and wasteful for small SFP claims to cost so much to process. We believe SFP claims of, say, under £250-£300, should not be made and are confident that farm businesses could re-coup this sum through other farm and environment schemes.

“The introduction of a base minimum payment would enable big savings to be made and allow that cash to be diverted to sectors of the industry such as hill farming that are desperately in need of all the support they can get,” said the spokesman.

The issue emerged after Mr Farron put a parliamentary question to junior DEFRA secretary Jane Kennedy.

In her reply Ms Kennedy said that the £742 figure was obtained by considering the direct processing costs and the total number of claims received.