The Rural Payments Agency (RPA) is taking flak from both parliamentary ombudsman Ann Abraham and the National Farmers’ Union (NFU).
Abraham has called on the RPA to apologise and pay compensation for the maladministration of the Single Payments Scheme in a report laid before parliament this week, but DEFRA has so far refused to take on her recommendations in full.
Abraham said: “My report shows that the RPA was unable to keep its timetable for handling the digital mapping of land or for making payments to farmers. But the RPA continued to tell farmers that it would keep their payment timetable, when it knew, or should have known, that the timetable was increasingly unrealistic…
“My view is that an appropriate remedy should be forthcoming where injustice has been suffered as a consequence of maladministration by a public body.”
The RPA is only offering to pay £500 each to the 22 producers affected: less than a fifth of Abraham’s recommended sum.
Meanwhile, the NFU is calling on the RPA to take the decisions necessary to ensure it can release payments due to fruit and vegetable co-operatives in time for Christmas.
The call comes after a recent EU judgement led to the suspension of payments to all UK producer organisations, while DEFRA and the RPA established a new policy to ensure that POs were able to comply with the new EU law.