BCMS problems under investigation, says RPA

The Rural Payments Agency has said it is investigating problems experienced by livestock farmers using the British Cattle Movement Service on Bank Holiday Monday (9 April) and parts of Tuesday (10 April).
The agency has confirmed it received a number of calls on Tuesday morning (10 April) from farmers complaining they had been unable to log movements and were instead getting error messages.
A spokesperson from the RPA said the site had been down between midday and 4pm on Sunday because of essential maintenance to the Government Gateway.
However, this was ‘planned downtime’ which had been publicised on the RPA’s website.
The drop-off in service on the Monday may have been connected to this work, she added, but further testing would be required to find out the exact cause.
“The CTS Online service was interrupted yesterday (Monday), but was fully operational again for movement reporting by 10.30am today (Tuesday 10 April).” said a statement.
“The service is however experiencing intermittent issues this afternoon and we are investigating these as a matter of urgency with our supplier. Cattle keepers can find details of the service status on the BCMS page of the RPA website.”