The NFU Vice President Guy Smith will be meeting the Rural Payments Agency on Friday to discuss if the agency is still on target to make full BPS payments in December.
The Rural Payments Agency (RPA) has begun to send out a Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) update to all 88,000 farmers and agents who submitted a BPS 2015 application. The leaflet called ‘Basic Payment Scheme 2015: What happens next?’ is being sent to farmers so they know what to expect in the coming months.
Smith said there were still too many questions regarding progress.
“We acknowledge the RPA has to date given us a view on the progress of data capture. At NFU October Council Mark Grimshaw stated that getting handwritten data off BP5 forms and back online had reached 93 per cent completion and work around entitlement transfer data capture was an initial focus going forward.
“However, with less than a month to go to the start of the BPS payment window, there are still far too many unknowns around the progress of BPS claims and we need to understand more about the next phases of claim progress.
“While we appreciate the RPA is working seven days a week to process claims, we have concerns around the next phases of work on claims. The RPA is using a new IT system with a number of software releases still to be made and should now be in the middle of the post-data capture phases work – which is the validation and verification of claims. Added to this it also needs to tie in information received via the RLE1 forms for land changes. There is still a lot to do.
“We need the RPA to continue to be transparent on progress and I re-iterate our message - if delivery of payments is going to be delayed, we need to know about it sooner rather than later so that farm businesses are able to plan. We also still believe that it is only right that the RPA has an evolving plan B in place that we hope will not be needed, but can be brought in quickly to make payments if the original plan falls down.
“Of particular concern to the NFU is over the ability of the RPA to deliver payments to those farmers who are also commoners, many of which are situated in upland areas, given the different approach to the allocation of common land this year. Again the RPA needs to look at a contingency plan to make sure that cash gets to those farmers who need it in this situation.”
RPA Customer Director Justin Chamberlain said: "We understand how hard-pressed farmers are and how important prompt payments are to them. We’ve input the vast majority of all claim data into the Rural Payments system and we’re now working on land and entitlement transfers.
"We are on track to start making payments from December with the majority before the end of December and the vast majority by the end of January 2016."
