Written evidence submitted by National Farmers’ Union (RPA0008)
Summary
1 The National Farmers’ Union of England and Wales (NFU) is the voice of British farming. We provide professional representation for our 45,000 farming members. In addition we have 32,000 countryside members with an interest in farming and rural affairs. The NFU welcomes the opportunity to make a submission to the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee regarding its new inquiry into the performance of the Rural Payments Agency in winter 2016-17. The NFU also welcomes the Committee’s continuing interest in this Government agency.
2 The NFU’s submission concentrates on the RPA's performance since the summer of 2016 and the delivery of Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) payments. We believe that the cause of the delivery issues seen in recent months originate back to a period before this last winter. From the NFU’s point of view the source of many of the RPA’s past and continuing problems with the administration of BPS has been the lack of resource and decision-making at the top of the organisation. This has also had a negative impact on the delivery of Countryside Stewardship which uses the RPA’s technology to process applications and make payments. In this submission we outline what action DEFRA should have taken to address the concerns we have raised in our feedback.
3 The NFU would like the RPA to focus on four key areas over the next 6 months to get back to acceptable level of performance and service as set out below in the conclusion
Key points and recommendations
4 The NFU is of the conclusion that there are a number of outstanding issues from the BPS 2015 and 2016 claims and associated issues. We are asking the RPA and DEFRA to focus on improving their levels of performance and service over the coming months, in particular, we believe there are four key which need improvement:
Background
5 2016 – A year of change and challenge - As is known, BPS 2016 has been another year of change and challenge for the RPA. RPA described it at the last EFRA hearing in November 2016 as a ‘stepping stone to a better more enduring solution in 2017. We believe at this time there are still some significant stones to cross before RPA can say they have reached its goal. Factors impacting on its performance can be summarised into four key areas, namely:
1) the introduction of an online option to submit a BPS claim;
2) the continuing development of the RPA’s IT solution;
3) the continuing work to complete BPS 2015 claims and the impact that has had on the performance of BPS 2016 and finally;
4) the continuing lack of appropriate information or support to those with BPS issues.
We will cover each one of these issues in turn before we move on to the RPA’s payment performance for BPS 2016.
6 The NFU believes it is encouraging that, despite all the challenges over the first 15 months with the delivery of BPS, c80% of claimants submitted an online claim for 2016. Critically this change in submission approach meant claimants and those that supported them were entering and adjusting data onto the RPA’s SitiAgri BPS operating system themselves, rather than RPA staff completing this task (as happened for the majority of applications in BPS 2015, when paper forms were the default). Further increased online capability has helped the RPA workload in 2016, as farmers and those that supported them were able for the first time to transfer land and entitlements details online, again without the need for paper forms and associated RPA processing time. However it was not all plain sailing as we have set out below.
7 2016 Applications - The origins of many of the issues seen today, can be traced back to a number of factors which emerged earlier last year. As noted earlier, the RPA introduced an online application process for 2016. We believe that this was a step forward, but there were challenges along the way, including farmers getting used to a new application approach; the third different application approach in just three years. On the whole the system worked and the RPA worked hard to sort out issues and provide updated guidance during the application window. The application window also got back on track and closed a month earlier than in 2015 - 16 May 2016 v 15 June 2015. However, our concern during the application window was the ability of farmers to complete a correct application with confidence. A blocker to further aid improvement in RPA service delivery was down to two reasons: 1) adjusting to the new online approach available and support available and; 2) completing the second year’s application in many cases ‘blind’ to the outcome of the 2015 claim. This was because by 15 May 2016, many applicants had either not been paid, or incompletely paid or had little information available to confirm the status of the 2015 claim. Understanding the previous year’s claim has always been critical when claiming BPS or its predecessor SPS.
8 Due to the nature of the BPS operating system used by the RPA (called SitiAgri) and the many challenges that remained from BPS 2015, many more online claimants than would normally be expected when submitting their 2016 application, did so in two parts, namely; 1) an online submission and; 2) paper supplementary information. The reason for the paper information being submitted was because the online application process could not cope with a number of claim situations. There were certain elements of the 2016 claim process that could only be completed via paper – for example young farmer scheme payment. However, in many situations data presented by the RPA to the farmer was not complete or correct and the only way to submit the desired application was using the combination of paper and online formats. Undoubtedly having a two part claim complicates the process and increases the risk that both parts of the claim do not meet up. Furthermore, this also undoubtedly added more hours of staff resource to the processing of claims in 2016. We were also concerned about this situation as for the BPS 2015 claim year, we saw the mismanagement of paper based data by the RPA – misfiled, not correctly transposed into the computer system. This resulted in a number of the erroneous BPS payments issued by the RPA for 2015 and many outstanding issues at this time.
9 The continuing development of the RPA’s IT solution – BPS 2016 was the second year of the scheme, it was also the first time the RPA’s SitiAgri system had to operate over two scheme years simultaneously – dealing with both BPS 2015 outstanding claim issues and processing 2016 applications – using the same databases for different purposes. Furthermore, in our view a more enduring solution for inspections needed to be introduced as well as a number of other upgrades. Critically, given the overhang of issues from BPS 2015 claims, there was also the need to ensure that the IT could carry out post payment adjustment for BPS 2015 claims that needed to be reviewed and corrected. These continuing developments will have undoubtedly impacted on the delivery performance of 2016 payments. In addition to the development of the technology for BPS, there was the added development of online systems and processes for Natural England’s online application and claim for agreement holders.
10 The continuing work to complete BPS 2015 claims and the impact that has had on the performance of BPS 2016 – The NFU has been particularly concerned with the many loose ends that were generated as the RPA processed the 2015 claims – a stack of work was not always fully completed wth work put to one side to be dealt with at a later unspecified time. This approach came to prominence in late 2015 as a result of the switch of focus of effort from BPS 2015 to 2016 in later 2016. The backdrop to this was when the first 2016 BPS payments started to be issued in December 2015. Many NFU members started to report they had been paid less than expected. It was however not until late June 2016 that the RPA finally (and publically) admitted there was a significant number of 2015 claims that needed to be revisited to assess if there was any further adjustments needed to payments already made or revision of data they held. It was not only the lack of payments for BPS 2015 that impacted on the ability to claim safely and with confidence in 2016, but there were many reports that mapping changes submitted with BPS 2015 claim submissions that had still not been completed and replayed to farmers by spring 2016. There continue to be lingering concerns that the RPA have never fully addressed or correctly addressed mapping issues that farmers had back in 2015.
11 Critically, the RPA did not start looking at reviewing / correcting 2015 cases until July 2016. The initial stack of work was estimated to be around 13,000 claims that needed to be revisited and in many situations additional payments made. The group of affected farmers were told of this activity by mid-July. It was encouraging to hear at the time that the RPA were contacting many more farmers than had at that time initially raised their concerns with them over their 2015 payment or data. Initially we were told that these cases would be cleared by the end of September 2016, then it was 15 October (the last day of the 2015/16 EU financial year), but neither of these ‘deadlines’ were met. Clearly at some point focus had to move off the residual 2015 issues in order to achieve the 31 December payment target of 90% of eligible claim paid in the run up to start of the payment window. At the time NFU raised concerns with the RPA that its staff were telling farmers that they were dealing with BPS 2016 payments and putting 2015 issues to one side, adding to the concern and stress of many farmers where the RPA had not seemingly looked at their 2015 to that point. This caused farmers stress either where there were small amounts of under payment and how that would impact on 2016 payment timing or where large sums were still remaining to be paid and in the ongoing pressures this was causing on farm finances. Prior to the BPS 2016 payment window opening, many farmers with outstanding issues were very worried about the forthcoming payment and the timing of it,. They were concerned as to whether they should raise their outstanding BPS 2015 concerns at that time or sit on them in order to get an incorrect payment in December for 2016? The approach taken by the RPA demonstrated to the NFU that they did not have the resources to complete the work in good time for 2015. The RPA also started the correction process too late in our view and underestimated the work and challenges they needed to deal with.
12 Some of the original 13,000 cases have still not seen any correction to their claims at the time of writing this feedback; some farmers have been waiting for around a year for RPA to address their concerns. This despite the receiving communication from the RPA last July stating the claim would be looked into ‘over the summer’. Disappointingly, despite a number of farmers being paid BPS monies after the end of the 2015 BPS payment window, there has been no provision of interest to farmers paid late, something the NFU finds unacceptable. As a point to note, the RPA did pay interest on late SPS payments.
13 Furthermore, the NFU has always believed the figure of 13,000 cases to review was not the full picture and to date, there has been no updated figure of cases that have been or still need to be reviewed. From NFU regular survey work and feedback from our members, there are still many farmers with unfinished BPS 2015 business in their view. Our most recent NFU BPS 2016 survey, which ran for two weeks to 20 January, showed 9.8% of farmers surveyed still had an outstanding payment or issue with BPS 2015. Problems reported to the NFU include: land missing from claims; transfers of land / entitlements not processed; common land wrong; greening penalties or other penalties applied and not fully explained.
14 It is very clear to the NFU that there has been an impact on the ability for the RPA to process the 2016 claim payment as a result of this residual 2015 workload. NFU has raised with the RPA that many claimants have over the last year continued to be confused, concerned and frustrated that their 2015 issues have not been addressed or top up payments received. Concerns have also been raised over the unsatisfactory delays being experienced over a long period of time and how the lack of information has undoubtedly compounded a problem from 2015 scheme year into 2016 and now given continuing delay risks the infecting the 2017 claim year. There have been a number of significant underpayments including in the upland areas where common land payment problems have occurred that have affected many of our members. It was not only the lack of payments for BPS 2015 that impacted on the ability to claim safely and with confidence for BPS 2016. This situation all stems back to the timing and the inability of RPA to deal with 2015 issues in the early part of 2016.
15 Finally, in addition to the post payment issues reported above, the RPA did not complete the validation and verification of all the 2015 BPS claims until after the 2015 payment window had closed (BPS payment window ran to 30 June in the year after submission of the form). There were still a number of 2015 claims not fully validated and top ups to bridging payments issued back in early April not finally settled until the early autumn of 2016. This was undoubtedly as a result of the relaxation in sanctions announced in early June 2016 that allowed paying agencies struggling to deliver BPS payments by the end of the 2015 payment window to apply for a stay of sanctions until after 15 October 2016 (last day of the 2015/16 EU financial year). At the time of the announcement the NFU was still seeking for the RPA to: 1) to deliver remaining full and top up payments; 2) to deliver correction payments and associated data to those who believe they have had wrong full payments issued. All this outstanding 2015 work would have undoubtedly eaten into the RPA’s capability to deliver payments for 2016 later in the year and into 2017, not least as a result of the principle of needing to sort out year 1 claims before moving onto year 2 claims.
16 Lack of appropriate information or support to those with BPS issues – Our final point where we see BPS 2015 impacting on the RPA’s ability to drive through improved service and payment performance for BPS 2016 has been around the significant lack of support, information, communication supplied by the RPA to farmers with BPS 2015 issues. Compared to the previous SPS claim process, for BPS 2015, the RPA did not provide detailed responses when farmers raised concerns about their 2015 claims. Additionally, the RPA did not provide detailed land breakdowns when they released the BPS claim breakdowns in the form of the Claim Statement. Furthermore, the RPA did not issue an entitlement statement for 2015, showing the entitlements held, used, awarded or transferred in or out (the entitlements were critical to allow farmers manage their claims and what they could be paid on). This entitlement information for 2015 only became available in early 2017 (alongside the same information for 2016). Additionally, those with common land did not have any supplementary data provided to them when they were paid on how the new approach to allocating common land and what their respective notional proportion of the common land area was until October 2016. Finally, there were no land based inspection reports issued by the RPA for BPS 2015 for those checked up on, so they could understand their claim situation. RPA did suggest farmers inspected could look at the online mapping available via Rural Payments online, however given that this mapping data was always live, there was no ability view what the data looked like at a point in time from the past – a fundamental flaw in the system RPA are now using.
17 All these significant deficiencies in information provision have hindered farmers understanding of their BPS claim situations, e.g. where a penalty or reduction has been made or a claim not recognised. Many NFU members are still seeking information from the RPA in order to understand if they have made an error, and to understand more about the payment received. In our view the RPA has created a problem that could so easily have been avoided if they had invested in support for at least the first two year of this new scheme. We are also concerned that it is extremely difficult for our members to challenge a decision at this time if they do not have information from the RPA.
18 Furthermore, the NFU has raised concerns that when our members try to call the RPA, they are not given the support or information they require, letters and emails are not responded to. As a result farmers have had to resort to raising concerns via MPs or their advisers. Not only does this add cost and stress to farmers and their businesses, but also it makes it very difficult to manage cash flow and farming decisions due to a lack of communication and certainty.
19 When the RPA did correct or complete the review of the 2015 claim investigations from July 2016 onwards, the ensuing letter or information did not give farmers in many cases the detail they needed to understand or challenge further the RPA position’s considered opinion. The continuing lack of support from the RPA has in our view hindered the ability of all parties to move on from BPS 2015, complete 2016 forms correctly and as we see at this time, combined with unfinished BPS 2015 work, has undoubtedly hindered the delivery of payments for BPS 2016. To illustrate this point, we currently have claims and issues from BPS 2015 that need to be rectified in order to avoid an erroneous 2016 claim payments being issued. We have farmers that need to know their 2015 and 2016 situation to ensure they make a correct claim for 2017 and to know if they have made an error on the 2015 / 2016 claims.
20 Poor communication was not just related to BPS. In September 2016, the RPA repaid to farmers an element of the reduction made from the last SPS payment, under the Financial Discipline Mechanism. The rules required the reimbursement of monies to eligible BPS claimants. The RPA started to issue these sums in September 2016, however there was no communication to farmers about the sums being received. Farmers enquired with the RPA and came to the NFU for clarification. Due to the poor communication, many thought the payment was a top up to their BPS 2015.
21 A number of our farmers have issues with rural broadband. Given much of the communication is now online, we have been further concerned they have been disadvantaged to a greater extent than most.
22 The result of all this poor service has been many more farmers raising complaints formally with the RPA through the RPA’s complaints and appeals process or via MPs. This has in turn taken up more RPA time. We would like to see issues addressed as soon as they are raised so as to avoid further drags on RPA resources. In recent months, the RPA has paused the review of formal complaints to prioritise 2016 payment delivery, adding to the already increased level of frustration. We believe that a single point of contact from the outset of the scheme delivery would have been beneficial to farmers and the RPA.
23 The NFU is extremely concerned that there will be farmers who are financially disadvantaged due to the lack communications and support from the RPA. Many of the financial sanctions have not fully come to light as a result for either 2015 or 2016 scheme years, which puts an unacceptable level of uncertainty on those completing the 2017 for at the moment. The NFU and our members would like to see the RPA step up to an acceptable level of service.
BPS 2016 Payment Delivery
24 Progress is key - The information set out in the aforementioned background section in our view has significantly impacted on what would otherwise be considered a good second year for BPS delivery by the RPA. The NFU has regularly monitored the progress of 2016 BPS claims to ensure the RPA remained on target to deliver its target of 90% of eligible claims by the 31 December 2016, a target announced by the then RPA CEO Mark Grimshaw in the March EFRA Committee hearing. Under regular questioning, the RPA has stated validation of claims was progressing well through the summer months; data was captured into the validation process at an early stage and inspections were said to be further advanced than for BPS 2015. Equally critical has been the prompt completion of the annual cross check that takes place between RPA’s BPS data and Natural England’s agri environmental schemes to allow both sets of payments to be released in a timely manner. Whilst the RPA did achieve its target of 90% payments issued in December, we believe that underlying issues from BPS 2015 payments should have been completed to ensure the BPS 2016 payment approach was as efficient and timely as possible.
25 Not Being Transparent – Key to the NFU in terms of the delivery of 2016 BPS payments is the ability of farmers to have certainty around the receipt of the payments. With a 7 month BPS payment window and continuing pressures on farm businesses over recent years, the timing of BPS monies into farm bank accounts has been critical to them managing their cash flow and associated commitments. Whilst the target of 90% of payments made in March 2016 was welcomed as a first step to giving the industry confidence that the RPA were intending to move back to a payment performance akin to SPS, it still left a considerable level of uncertainty for farmers. No one was guaranteed to be in the 90% paid in December, given that c10% would not receive their payments in December.
26 We were deeply concerned when a second target was published within 2 months of the payment window opening. This target suggested the aspirations of the RPA, DEFRA and Ministers was to achieve by 31 March, just 93% of eligible claims paid. This was only 3 percentage points more than the 31 December target. NFU raised concerns at the time, asking if the RPA had sufficient resources to deliver the final 10% of claims in a swift manner in early 2017. We would have liked to have seen a similar approach as that taken in Scotland and Northern Ireland for BPS 2016 payment, where decisions were taken and publicised by early October 2016 as to how they would deal with BPS 2016 payments – giving financial as well as timing certainty. In Scotland, a nationally-funded loan scheme for BPS to provide cash flow and stimulus into the rural economy was announced, covering funding up to £300m where loans of 80% of the BPS claim valued, up to a maximum of €150,000 could be made in November. In Northern Ireland, it was announced that advance payments would be issued to 80% of eligible farm businesses before the 1 December. Apart from the public statements, in England the RPA issued an Autumn update to farmers, but only in November on their expectations for payments, and then in mid-January, those not paid at that point received a letter stating their claim was not paid (obvious thing to state) and the main reason for the delay. The NFU was urging DEFRA Ministers to plan for bridging payment in the run up to the 2016 payment window opening, but nothing was confirmed until late February.
27 Signs of Positive Progress – What has been positive to see from the NFU’s perspective has been the RPA’s desire to ensure that all segments of the claimant population had the chance to be paid earlier than was the case for BPS 2015. For BPS 2015, those inspected had land in more than one part of the UK (referred to as cross border cases) or had claimed on common land and were purposely put to the end of the payment queue. As such payments for these claimants did not start to flow until after February 2016. For BPS 2016, apart from cross border claims that started to be paid in January 2017, it was encouraging that commoners / some of those who were inspected had a chance of being paid in the first month of the payment window – December 2016. We welcomed the ambition to issue at least 90% of 2016 payments in December. However, we also wanted to ensure the remaining c.10% were paid as soon as possible in 2017.
28 Payment Performance – a continuing tale of two halves – As previously stated, it was encouraging to see a significant increase in BPS payments in the first weeks of the 2016 payment window with eventually 91% of eligible claims paid and the value of claims paid as a percentage of the BPS payment pot not being far behind. However, our concern has always been on the progress of payments issued after December and sadly, since the end of December, there has been a dramatic fall off of payment delivery, for the c8,000 farmers not paid in December 2016.
29 Again, whilst it was encouraging to see the RPA hit its 31 March target of 93% before the end of January, the picture very quickly emerged of who had not been paid at that point. Those seemingly not paid from January onwards included a high proportion of those inspected regarding their land and cropping in 2016. Whilst inspections create more work and man hours for the RPA, it seems clear that this group had been left to the end to receive payment. For those inspected remotely (from aerial photography), they would not have known they had been inspected until they received a letter in January from the RPA stating the reason for the non-payment of their claim at that time. Clearly this message came as a shock to those who had no idea that they had been inspected in 2016 and then more concern over when they would be paid. In addition, as remote inspections where concentrated in certain areas of the country, so high concentrations of claimants close to one another who had not been paid due to inspections came to prominence. Many of this group of claimants will now be receiving payments no earlier than for BPS 2015, with many we suspect being paid later than for BPS 2015, given that the cohort of inspected claims in 2016 will be different to those inspected in 2015. Equally not knowing the outcome of the 2016 inspection at a time when the RPA had opened the 2017 application window added to the stress of those not paid – how would they complete the 2017 claim, not knowing what RPA believed was the position for BPS 2016? From our most recent NFU BPS 2016 survey which ran for two weeks to 20 January, it showed a significant impact of delayed 2016 payments on a number of our members, they had to borrow more money; sell stock or crops early; problems paying bills including: loans, mortgages and rents in order keep operating.
30 Communications and Bridging Payments – A key issue for the NFU and its members has always been around communications to those not paid in December. As previously stated, RPA issued an update on a range of BPS issues in November 2016, to set the scene for payment performance in December and beyond. However, the NFU saw no communication from the RPA giving the level of certainty that the industry needed other than the confirmation the payment would be made on X date. Again as previously stated, the RPA issued letters to those not paid by early January from mid-January giving the impression that most will receive a full payment by the end of March, but there was no guarantee of this and so many recipients of the letter read, rightly or wrongly, as meaning they would get paid in April.
31 The NFU saw the only practical solution for those not paid by early January was to issue them a bridging payment to take financial pressure off farming businesses at the time. Whilst the NFU supported the decision in late February to issue bridging payments of 75% of the known 2016 claim value if a farmer had not been paid by the end of March 2017, the NFU hope at this time is that of those claims remaining to be paid most would now receive a full payment in March. Furthermore, the NFU would have liked to have seen a more coherent strategy to the delivery of communications to farmers to help them manage the situation of uncertain payment delivery, many had already suffered by know with the lack of payment and uncertainty of when it would arrive.
32 The RPA has offered for BPS 2016 ‘Financial Support Payments’ for those in greatest need of money from the RPA if their BPS payment has been delayed. The NFU has supported this function and has sponsored a number of its members needing such payments. The payment released is in the order of 50% of the 2016 expected claim value and we welcome the efforts of the RPA to issue such payments in a timely manner. Equally, the NFU has encouraged the RPA to monitor closely those cases that were raised as a hardship situation for BPS 2015. Of concern to the NFU in recent months has been the impact of not only delayed resolution of 2015 BPS claim and issuing of top up payments and the timing of BPS 2016 payments, but also the delay in agri-environment payments all combining to impact on farmers’ financial situation.
32 Timely rollout of information – Whilst we await data on common land claims and responses to queries around 2016 payments encouragingly, the NFU has seen an improvement in the delivery of a number of elements of BPS information to help farmers for BPS 2016. For example, payment breakdown data has been issued earlier for BPS 2016 than for BPS 2015, this critical information starting to go out in mid-February 2017 compared to mid-March 2016 for BSP 2015. Furthermore, with the aforementioned delivery of online entitlement data, most farmers now have a better level of data that at this time last year especially with more farmers paid at this time compared to last year, the generally that is a positive to report. However, the quality of this information and data is questionable given that some will still have outstanding issues from BPS 2015. For those not paid at this time, or have outstanding 2015 and new 2016 payment / claim issues, then the situation is not as positive. Equally for BPS 2016, we have seen the RPA issue inspection reports for those visited in 2016.
33 What has again impacted on farmers waiting for a BPS 2016 payment has been the difficulty of obtaining meaningful information from the RPA on the status of the processed claim. Again accepting there is a balance in order to make payments, having a single point of contact for those not paid when confidence in the RPA was still very low is again sadly missing this year.
34 Quality of 2016 BPS Payments – We recognise that there has been an improvement in the accuracy of 2016 payments made, but this progress is hindered by the unfinished business from BPS 2015. From our most recent NFU BPS 2016 survey, which ran for two weeks to 20 January, it showed for those that had received a 2016 BPS payment at that time a worrying 5.3% of farmers concerned the payment received was less than expected. These continued concerns and issues impact on the industry’s confidence in the ability to the RPA to sort out its affairs in administrating BPS and as a result the industry is understandably very sceptical of the progress the RPA has made to date. As a step to improve the position post payment, the RPA has recently introduced a payment query form to deal with unreported BPS 2015 / 2016 payment issues. This is welcomed by the NFU to help increase the efficiency of assessing and addressing farmers concerns. However, questions remain as to when such queries will be addressed, they are unlikely to be resolved before the deadline to submit the 2017 application.
35 Sorting out 2015 and 2016 data ahead of 2017 application window opening – The NFU has continued to lobby for the RPA to achieve this goal. Why? Because we want to see farmers finally put in a position where they can all claim BPS in confidence and that the previous year’s claim issues are resolved. However, we suspect the RPA will not be able to achieve this position as there is in the NFU’s view too much work to do. At the time of writing this response, there are a significant number of outstanding issues to tackle, including sorting out 2015 claims issues and there are still nearer 5% of 2016 claim payments not paid. This again puts farmers in an impossible position where many cannot complete this year’s claim with confidence due to unresolved issues from BPS 2015 and 2016. There is a continuing need for assurances from the RPA / Defra that 2016 and 2017 BPS applicants will not be penalised for RPA’s still having a stack of unresolved issues remaining to deal with.
36 Agri-environment schemes – The RPA’s role extends beyond BPS. RPA are responsible for the technology/ IT that supports the delivery of all CAP schemes, in particular agri-environment schemes. Despite receiving less Countryside Stewardship applications than forecast, Natural England have been unable to issue agreement offers before agreements started on 1 January 2017. It is not clear where the problem lies but the IT requirements are clearly causing delays to the processing of applications. The delays with BPS have had a direct knock on to the timing of agri-environment payments. These payments have been late and payments that should have been made by 31 December 2017 are still outstanding. It is taking RPA much longer to generate agri-environment inspection reports due to the need to digitise their findings before the report is passed to Natural England. In the worst case this means the agreement holder could find out the results and whether penalties apply up to a year after the inspection. This makes it very difficult for the agreement holder to challenge the findings or rectify the issues on the ground.
March 2017
37 The story of BPS delivery continues - Sadly the full story on the RPA’s performance on delivering of BPS in 2015 and 2016 does not stop here. These issues will depressingly impact on BPS 2017, the third year of the scheme. Below we set out an example where there have been particular challenges in the last 2 years to gauge progress of RPA performance.
38 Case Study: Impact of BPS 2015 on BPS 2016 Delivery – Commons - In terms of delivery of BPS payments to those with common land, we have seen significant improvements with the timing and delivery of payments for BPS (started in March 2016 for BPS 2015 and from December 2016 for BPS 2016 – fourth and first months of the seven month payment window respectively). However, the approach taken over the last 2 years with commons claims captures perfectly the approach taken by the RPA and why the problems of 2015 have impacted so much on the delivery of BPS 2016 payments and are set to impact on BPS 2017 in the coming months. As we have stated previously, many commoners found the data supplied with the 2015 payment as not helpful. As a result many once paid from March 2016 onwards started to raise concerns that their payment was wrong, they had seemingly not been paid on the common land element of their claim etc. and had no information to assist them trying to understand why.
39 The NFU lobbied RPA for them to provide more data and support so commoners could understand the basis of their common land, given two fundamental elements had changed from the approach to common land area claims under SPS, these being: 1) commons had been mapped for the first time and would show clear BPS eligible areas which fed into; 2) the new allocation method to divide up eligible common land between active commoners.
40 The critical common land claim information for BPS 2015 to help commoners understand the changes was eventually published by the RPA in mid-October 2016. Whilst this delay was not helpful, the outcome from the publication of the data was not what had been expected. It became very clear by late October that on a number of commons, the eligible area had been incorrectly assessed. If this data had not been published, then commoners would not have been able to interrogate the data and make representations back to the RPA. As a result of the feedback and concerns raised, the RPA undertook additional work from October onwards to address the issues being raised, which the NFU supported.
41 In turn this additional work has led to corrective payments for 2015 and latterly 2016 to be worked out. Furthermore, the RPA set up a route by which commoners could get in contact with the central commons team within the RPA to help sort out remaining issues. These actions by the RPA have been very much welcomed by the NFU and led to significant progress in payment accuracy and timing of payments. The NFU however questions why did it need to happen in the first place, why did the mapping work create such erroneous outcomes and wrong payments and whilst the work was needed, it all took place at very busy time of the year – in the run up to and during the opening months of the 2016 BPS payment window, when resource tied up with this activity equally could have been used to drive out more BPS payments than was eventually achieved in the first two months of the 2016 payment window.
42 Whilst the position for commoners’ BPS claims has greatly improved as a result of the time and effort put in by the RPA, there is still much work to do in the coming months to put the last 2 years behind these claimants, namely: 1) ensuring the commoners data remains correct and robust as the basis of the BPS 2017 claims and; 2) the need for a significant number of commoners to have further adjustments to be made to their common land payments and data as a result of the retrospective action needed as a result of the Minchinhampton & Rodborough challenge to the allocation of common land. On this second point, commoners were originally contacted about applying for retrospective payments / entitlements back in early autumn 2015. They were only re-contacted in October 2016 to give an update on where RPA was in terms of progress, but at the time of writing this feedback, no one has been told if they were successful with these retrospective claims. RPA equally have not finally confirmed when this work will be completed. As a result, commoners have already been disadvantaged in applying for BPS in 2015 and 2016. As a result of the additional work needed to sort of commons claims in recent months, this now means commoners will not know the outcome of this retrospective activity ahead of completing their third BPS application this year. Many of these claimants operate in the most challenging parts of rural England and a greater part of their income is derived from BPS type payments, so the NFU wishes to see this work completed as soon as possible.