Single Payment Scheme delays examined
Summary
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and
the Rural Payments Agency spent £122m implementing the European Union Single
Payment Scheme which replaced Common Agricultural Policy subsidies.
This Report
‘The
Delays in Administering the 2005 Single Payment Scheme in England’ (HC 893)
examines the problems encountered in administering the payments.
The aim was that 96% of the £1,515m due to farmers claiming the grants would
be paid out by the end of March 2006. However, only 15% of payments had been
made by that date and some 3,000 claimants were still unpaid at the end of
October 2006, causing stress, anxiety and financial hardship in the farming
sector.
The House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts reviewed the
impact of the payment delays, why implementation failed, the Department’s role,
and the changes being put in place to rectify the mistakes made.
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This is a House of
Commons Paper (HC 1633-I): it is a report from the House of Commons Committee
of Public Accounts.
Find out more about House of Commons Papers.
How does it affect me?
If you work in
the agricultural sector, this affects you.
Edward Leigh MP, Chairman of
the Committee, said:
“The Single Payment Scheme is relatively small, but
its implementation last year to a near-impossible timetable was a master class
in bad decision-making, poor planning, incomplete testing of IT systems,
confused lines of responsibility, scant objective management information and a
failure by the management team to face up to the unfolding crisis.”
See more on
agricultural policy on the Department
for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs website.
Read more about the
work of the Rural Payments
Agency.
Find out more about the
Single
Payment Scheme on the European Commission website.