NFU Council hears from BPS boss

Here’s a summary of his presentation to delegates:

2015 BPS applications

Mark gave a brief presentation reviewing where the RPA was in terms of the application window and claims received during the past two months. He said it had been a challenging period for all concerned and the collective working that has been a feature of the run-up to the June 15 initial deadline was appreciated. 

Since the new approach on 19 March, only thirteen-and-a-half weeks ago, the RPA had delivered blank and pre-populated forms, map packs, a full range of guidance, a seven-day-a-week call centre, 50 drop in centres and ten mobile units. A summary of RPA activity can be seen in the diagram below.

The NFU has been involved in weekly BPS technical meetings since March and fortnightly higher-level stakeholder meetings have also taken place. Through this close working, Mark set out examples of changes introduced to smooth the process - an extension of the RLE1 deadline to notify the RPA of unmapped ineligible areas, the ability to use an RLE1 form to express land changes and entitlements transfers, better organisation of information online, guidance on how to complete the forms, easier ways to obtain a pre-populated form and extended opening hours.

Some 85,178 claims were received by midnight on 15 June, with some being received in the dying moments. A further 183 claims have been received up to 21 June; these will have late application penalties applied to them.

Mark reiterated that farmers could still submit a claim form up to midnight on 10 July and said there was support there for those that needed it. Luckily all NFU Council delegates present had submitted their forms in May or before the 15 June deadline.

What next?

NFU Council members most wanter to hear about the work ahead for the RPA, and the prospects for prompt payment. Mark set out the eight stages shown above. The first two have largely been completed – registration and submission of claims. The next stage of validation will start at the end of June, after the RPA has inputted new data from the paper claim forms received. Inspections had started, with reports of good compliance of greening rules seen to-date, and all inspections should be completed by the end of November.

Most of this process will be similar to SPS, but there are additional checks this year for greening.

The RPA boss said he had sufficient resources to process claims, with170 RPA staff plus a further 144 ‘full time equivalents’ from wider government secured until the end of the year. The processes and training material to help RPA staff were in place, he said. 

He urged farmers to keep their details up-to-date to help avoid payment delays. The RPA is focused on making payments fully to the majority of farmers in December with the vast majority paid by the end of January. Mark said they had the system, capability and resources to deliver this.

BPS 2016

On 15 May, Mark became the senior civil servant responsible for BPS and IT delivery. The RPA is now working up a number of options for ministers on the approach to claim submission for 2016. It was confirmed that this would include a both paper options and an ‘enhanced online capability’.

A resolution from NFU Council and further questions

The council’s general feeling was one of concern about the need for timely payments from early December. 

This included the presentation of a resolution which covered the need to address the severe cashflow problems being experienced in virtually all sectors of the industry. 

It called for the RPA to have a transparent and effective contingency plan ready to activate, should it become clear that its own payment expectations will not be met. And there need to be milestones set for BPS progress. 

Mark agreed to share updates with the NFU. He added that the best time to assess progress of BPS 2015 will be at the end of August, when the RPA is planning an end-to-end test of the payment system with straightforward claims. He expected to be a strong position in September to deliver payment ahead of the payment window.