Implementation of the Single Payment Scheme
examined
Summary
The EU Single Payment Scheme replaced 11 previous subsidies
to farmers based on agricultural production with one payment for land
management. The European Commission gave some discretion to Member States over
how to implement the scheme, and the Rural Payments Agency (RPA), which is
responsible for administering the scheme in England, opted for the dynamic
hybrid model which incorporates elements of previous entitlement and new
regionalised area payments based on a flat rate per hectare.
This Report
from the House of Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee
'The
Rural Payments Agency and the Implementation of the Single Payment Scheme' (HC
107) examines the way in which the scheme has been implemented.
A NAO Report
'The
Delays in Administering the 2005 Single Payment Scheme in England' (HC 1631
2005-06), published in October 2006, found that the RPA underestimated the
risks and complexities involved in implementing the hybrid model, and the IT
system was never tested as a whole before the scheme was introduced. It failed
to adequately pilot land registration, and underestimated the amount of work
involved in both mapping the land and processing each claim, having to rely on
often inexperienced temporary and agency staff to clear the backlog.
The
difficulties were not picked up early enough, neither by the RPA nor the
Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), for corrective
action to be taken in time, resulting in the RPA's failure to meet its own
payment targets.
Delayed payments have cost farmers money in additional
interest and bank charges, and caused distress to a significant minority of
farmers, particularly hill farmers. The cost of implementing the scheme was
budgeted at £76 million but rose to £122 million by March 2006, with further
cost increases likely.
Following on from a previous Committee Report on
the RPA (published in April 2003) and in light of the NAO findings, this Report
focuses on aspects of policy decision-making and political accountability
raised by the problems with the Single Payment Scheme.
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How does
it affect me?
If you are a farmer receiving EU subsidies, this affects
you.
The Committee concludes the Scheme has been a catastrophe for some
farmers and a serious and embarrassing failure for Defra and the RPA, and
Defra's fundamental failure to carry out one of its core tasks (that is to pay
farmers their financial entitlements on time) differentiates this issue from
the myriad of botched Government IT projects.
There is a need for
greater expertise within government in the delivery of such complex IT
projects, and the report also criticises the quality of advice given by the
Office of Government Commerce and the IT system designed by Accenture as the
principal IT contractor. Defra determined the policies which it required the
RPA to implement and Defra leadership was at fault for accepting RPA statements
that implementing the complex hybrid model to deadline was "do-able".
The Committee argues that responsibility for this failure goes wider than
the dismissal of the RPA chief executive, and ministers and senior Defra
officials should also be held to account, particularly Margaret Beckett (the
then Defra Secretary of State), Sir Brian Bender, (the former Defra Permanent
Secretary) and Andy Lebrecht (the Director General for Sustainable Farming,
Food and Fisheries).
It concludes that a departmental failure as serious
as this should result in the removal from office of those responsible for
faulty policy design and implementation, and it recommends that new guidance on
Ministerial accountability is needed in the event of such serious departmental
failure.
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Environment,
Food and Rural Affairs Committee.
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