Farm leaders demand review of ‘failing’ RPA

Farming leaders have launched a scathing attack on Rural Payments Agency chiefs over the agency’s handling of the single farm payment and problems with mapping.

NFU president Peter Kendall, Country Land and Business Association president William Worsely and Greg Bliss, Tenant Farmers Association chairman, branded the RPA a “failing agency” which had lost the confidence of the industry.

At a meeting with RPA chief Tony Cooper and DEFRA minister Lord Davies on Wednesday (29 April), they demanded an urgent and honest review of the agency, with a “willingness to tear up the whole blueprint and start again”.

Slamming the agency’s handling of the latest mapping updates, the three said they had tried to be as supportive as possible of the RPA after the disastrous introduction of the single farm payment in 2006.

“However, over the last year it has become increasingly clear that the RPA is in deep trouble and unable to function effectively,” they said in a joint statement.

They said the agency’s “optimistic spin” on its performance made did not reflect farmers’ complaints about problems such as lack of maps, incorrect data and contradictions between inspection findings and issued maps.

“We have raised our concerns repeatedly,” they said. “Our impression us that they have largely been dismissed as an over-reaction to a few minor delivery issues. We do not believe that to be the case.”

While frontline agency staff were doing their best for frustrated and anxious farmers, RPA chiefs and DEFRA officials responsible for its performance had led them to lose confidence in the agency.

“The RPA is a failing agency with a deeply flawed delivery model,” they said.

They said it needed to look urgently at deferring the 17 May single payment deadline to help farmers who still had not received their mapping details or who had been sent incorrect data.

They also demanded assurances that farmers would not be penalised for mistakes that were not of their doing and produce guidance on the approach it would take in relation to incorrectly declared field areas.

More on the RPA:

• RPA scotches call for SPS deadline move

• Barometer farmers spell out their mapping woes

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