Ahead of the first BPS payment window, the NFU's Richard Wordsworth reveals the extra information farmers will want to know now.
He writes:
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Who will be paid on time and who will be paid late?
Frustratingly, little more is known at this time other than RPA will ‘make full payments on BPS claims from December and as early as possible in the payment window, with the majority in December and the vast majority by the end of January’. It has, however, become clearer who is most unlikely to receive the payment before the end of January. This will be farmers whose farms were inspected this year, those claiming on common land and those farming in more than one part of the UK, known as cross border claims.
What has the NFU been doing?
Looking at the situation of commons, we raised very early on this year our concerns with government, Defra and the RPA over those members claiming on common land. This year has been tough for a large proportion of our members, but from a BPS perspective, the most challenging time has been for those with common land. It started with delayed claim forms being issued with wrong prepopulated data on them when they did arrive on farm. Plus farmers have had to contend with having to understand the new approach of distributing the land on the common. This is what the NFU has done in recent months for members:
- Raised concerns with ministers and the RPA over a number of months and asked them to look at splitting the commons / non-common BPS payments as a way to get money out to commoners. Disappointingly, while this has currently been ruled out as a way forward for a number of technical reasons, we continue to raise the case for members. Only last week the situation of those with commons as well as cross border claimants was raised with Secretary of State by the NFU. Our pressure has led to the RPA accelerating data capture and resource management as they acknowledge the challenges with this group of claimants. We will continue to push hard for members on this issue.
- We have lobbied for letters to go out to those not likely to be paid in December and January to allow commoners to help manage the situation.
- We continue to provide members with common land (along with other members) regular updates on BPS validation and payment information.
- We are keeping pressure on RPA to deliver BPS payments, plus ensuring RPA have the resources and IT systems and processes in place to help members in stress situations.
- We are continuing to work with RPA and DEFRA on their plans to implement the new approach to common land under BPS. As an example of this, only last week we spent over three hours on the phone with both parties to work through how processing of commons claims can be accelerated to minimise a problem on a single common claim holding up the entire set of claims linked to the same common.
More information on BPS payments and other developments can be found here: http://www.nfuonline.com/business/basic-payment-scheme-bps/