Remaining Single Payments to be paid 'as quickly as possible'

THE Rural Payments Agency (RPA) has told the 20,000 farmers in England still awaiting their Single Payments that they will be paid ‘as quickly as possible’.

The agency managed to pay 86,500 English farmers a total of £1.31 billion within 48 hours of the payment window opening last week, a massive improvement on last year when 21,000 farmers were paid in the first week.

Progress has slowed significantly since then. By Tuesday, only a further 1,164 claimants had been paid, taking the total paid out to £1.33bn, nearly 72 per cent of the total estimated fund of £1.86bn.

With just under 20,000 farmers left to be paid, about 18 per cent of the claimant population, the RPA said it was ‘working hard to finalise checks on the remaining claims and is aiming to pay farmers’.

It said those that have not yet been paid are still having eligibility checks carried out, including inspections, land and entitlement checks as part of the validation process.

In some cases the hold up is due to remote sensing checks carried out on a sample of farmers as part of the EU’s SPS auditing process.

If a remote sensing inspection finds the need for any change, this will need to be applied to the 2009 claim and verified before payment can be made. This problem has been raised by a number of farmers across the country.

The agency said farmers affected could help speed up the work by ‘responding quickly when they receive their remote sensing images’.

More than 84 per dent of Welsh farmers and 75 per cent of Scottish farmers were paid last week.

In a joint statement following a meeting with Defra and the RPA, the NFU, Country Land and Business Association (CLA) and Tenant Farmers Association described the improvement in the RPA’s performance as ‘great news’.

They urged farmers to review and respond as quickly as possible to the Rural Land Register maps that have been issued to ensure 2010 payments are not delayed. .

11 December 2009