Supplementary memorandum submitted by
Country Land & Business Association (CLA) (RPA Sub 07a)
1. We were a little alarmed in the CLA at
the turn your inquiry into the RPA debacle has taken, by focusing
so much attention on the choice of system of allocation of the
Single Payment System (SPS) between Historic, Regional Average
Payment (RAP) or a hybrid of the two.
2. We think that this is dangerous as it
suggests that the task was more difficult than it was. Other member
states, notably Germany managed to sufficiently validate claims
to make 80% of payments in December 2005, and the balance in February
before even the first payment was made in England. The German
payment system is more complex than in England as it is a Dynamic
Hybrid with some degree of coupled payments, applied in 13 regions,
compared to three in England. Our information is that the additional
number of customers in Germany was almost identical to that in
England, 38,000. We have not been able to ascertain the additional
area in the new scheme accurately for either country.
3. It is disingenuous to suggest, as DEFRA
and RPA have, that they were surprised by the additional customers
and area in the scheme. DEFRA are the collectors and custodians
of all the relevant data on farm holdings and land areas, and
they were repeatedly warned by many organizations that the Government's
chosen hybrid would attract more customers and land from Autumn
2003 onwards. It is the responsibility of Government correctly
to resource the implementation of the policies it chooses.
4. The problems with the RPA were not created
by the complexity of the mathematics of the hybrid system, or
even by the larger number of additional customers. The new customers
holdings are mostly small and simple, yet they collectively manage
a significant area of land. We do not know how much land as the
RPA have still not been able to disentangle the forage area involved
in specialist dairy and sheep farms (which would have to be included
in any SPS) from the extra area drawn in by the wider, area-based,
SPS chosen. Quite a lot of this new area is near population centers
and it seems sensible to include this within the ambit of the
Good Agricultural and Environmental Conditions. Those who disparage
this do not seem to have caught up with the fact that we are dealing
with a new policy; this is no longer solely a "farmers"
payment but a "land managers" payment.
5. Rather the problem was fundamentally
the inability of the RLR mapping system, to work efficiently and
to talk to the payment system both technically and in management
terms. This would have been just the same in an all historic or
all flat rate system. We do hope your inquiry nails the key point
that the system choice was emphatically NOT the fundamental problem.
WE believe the chaos was caused by under resourcing, technical
specification not fit for purpose, and poor management by DEFRA
and RPA.
6. We therefore have no regrets in arguing
for the static hybrid (HARC). We accepted the arguments to move
from a system that supported farmers by interfering in food markets
to one that protected the rural environment in the absence of
food production (management) but also kept it in good agricultural
condition should the land be needed for growing food again in
future—and that this should apply, in principle, to all
the land. It was also intended to be a transitional payment to
enable those farmers heavily invested in unsustainable farming
systems (often motivated by the subsidies) to a system that would
over time comply with a fairly stiff set of environmental conditions.
An "all historic" system would not have achieved this
as there would, by year 8, have been a mismatch with payments
not related to the desired outputs. Equally an immediate full
Regional Average Payment (RAP) would have made transition extremely
difficult for a large and important section of the farming community
thus knocking the transitional support idea on the head.
7. It is important to nail the precise causes
of the problems because the system choice cannot be changed. Indeed
we predict that other countries will, at the next reform, be asked
to come in line with the RAP approach and not vice versa. Whereas
we are apparently stuck with the current mapping and payments
processing systems and IT. These must be upgraded if we are not
to find the same problems for 2006 and future applications. We
are particularly concerned that the mapping problems are overcome
because the increased emphasis on environment schemes will make
further demands on mapping. The CLA is committed to make these
schemes work. One of the biggest costs of the current RPA debacle
is that it has deeply scarred land managers' trust in Government
schemes—especially anything that involves maps. DEFRA will
have to work very hard to restore trust and confidence.
8. We promised to supply some other information,
the date of the meeting between Mark Hudson my predecessor, myself
and Margaret Beckett was 27 October 2005. We attach a list of
areas where policy decisions by DEFRA were arrived at in a slow
and massively risk averse way holding up RPA processing.
Thank you for the open way you are conducting
this inquiry.
David Fursdon
President
May 2006
IMPLEMENTATIONS OF THE ENGLISH SINGLE PAYMENTS
SYSTEM
EXAMPLES OF
DELAYED OR
TARDY DECISIONS
AND DEFRA/RPA INTERACTIONS
WHERE DECISIONS
WERE TAKEN
SLOWLY OR
CONFUSINGLY
— Details agreed June 2003, main regulation
Council Regulation (EC) No 1782/2003 (dated 29 September 2003)
(published 21/10/2003)—system implementation decision announced
12/2/04.
— No guidance on "10 month land
at the disposal of farmer" rule until DEFRA's "July
2004 SPS update" brochure—published 26 August 2004—first
raised by CLA January/February 2004, in light of grazing difficulties.
— Long delays over the FVP rules—February
2005 update brochure (CLA roadshows solely focusing on FVPs that
Spring in run up to applications in May).
— Huge procrastination and delays over
definition of non-agricultural activities—30 March 2005,
motor sports position finalised on 13 May 2005, two days before
applications had to be in.
— Ditto grazed orchards and woodlands.
— Priority given to ELS mapping rather
than SPS in May to July 2006—"repriority" announced
18 July.
— Crass initial decision on definition
of a farmer making an entitlement transfer in the first year,
and massive delays in finally coming to the obvious solution—only
following the industry's joint letter to the Commission, responded
to over Christmas 2005, finally announced by DEFRA on 27 January
2006.
— Big delays in announcing the set
aside percent—outside the date set by the regulation.
— The Moorland Line appeals. The guidance
they actually used conflicted in part with the guidance they told
farmers they would be using, and it took them the best part of
a year to determine those appeals.
— Prospect of delays in 2006 payments
flagged early when sugar reforms were going through—the
system would not cope.
— Definitive Establishment date is
set by the regulation as 31/12/05 disregarded; likewise the close
of the payments window set by the regulation as 30 June payment
window (for 2005 payments). DEFRA has recently requested permission
from the Commission for extension to October 2006.
— Entitlements statements sent out,
randomly, from 19 February, over 50% of which were unvalidated—no
calls accepted by CSC until after 6 March.
— National Reserve scaleback to 4.2%
only announced on 17 February, confusion as to how decisions for
NR allocations have been calculated, no clarification forthcoming
despite repeated requests.
— The requirement that we had to make
formal Freedom of Information requests, and under FOI timetables,
for things that they knew they would have to supply us with eventually
anyway—Cross Compliance Inspectors Guidance for example.
— Change in transfer notification time
from six weeks, to three weeks, on 30 March, which was so last
minute that it was actually no use to the industry, who had either
busted guts to get to the six week notice deadline (2 April),
or given up and not bothered transferring this year. We were repeatedly
told that the reason the six weeks could not be shortened was
that it required an SI which itself requires 21 days. In fact
the SI was brought in overnight when they finally relented.
— Clarification on cross compliance
responsibilities for graziers/landowners provided very late in
the day, despite early notification in January by CLA, and in
the end, daily chasing, on 30 March 2006, by which time the majority
of grazing agreements for 2006 had been entered into.
— Again, following (in response to?)
a joint industry letter direct to the Commission, penalties for
late applications have been lifted for two weeks (but no derogation
applied for as has applied in Greece) on 5 May, 10 days before
the 15 May deadline.
— Over 20,000 2006 application forms
were sent out blank, with letters saying they were prepopulated.
Insufficient sufficient continuation sheets—blank forms
only made available from RPA (sites and website), and industry
reps from 28 April—the website downloadable form is different
from those received in the post—RPA guidance contradicts
itself—forms being submitted to meet 15-31 May deadline,
but with covering letters saying why can't fill in properly—will
lead to same delays in 2006 payments?
— The latest errors admitted on 8 May
are wrong advice given until 27 April on how farmers should code
insurance set aside areas (ie land farmed according to set aside
rules which is above the required set aside area as an insurance
against being deemed to have too little set aside and thus suffering
penalties).
THE EVIDENCE
OF DEFRA DISINTEREST
IN THE
WHOLE PROCESS
AND PROGRESS
— Cancellation of the Ministerial (Whitty)
contact group quiet early on.
— The withdrawal of senior DEFRA staff—initially
Lebrecht used to come and Hunter, Atkinson and Scrutton, plus
the grade 7s. One by one the senior staff withdrew from the contact
group (which ceased) and then from the stakeholders meetings.
Since the autumn 2005 by which time the rot had truly set in,
no senior DEFRA staffer was present only the technical staff (J
O'Gorman and S Sood). DEFRA appear to have largely disbanded the
SFP implementation unit. Not once did we see the Permanent Secretary,
Brian Bender, throughout the whole process (nor Helen Ghosh).
This seemingly was not a DEFRA top priority until they admitted
it went wrong. It had actually gone wrong months earlier.
— Our best evidence of this is the
absence of processing statistics and the blood we had to spill
(and still are, no statistics circulated this week (17/5)) to
get meaningful data—compared to other parts of the system
(WAG, Scottish Exec and Rural Development Service). Our initial
conclusion was they had the numbers but were not sharing them,
we now wonder that they did not have them at all until we pressed.
It was DEFRA's job to oversee and monitor the progress with payments,
this they patently failed to do. There was continual wishful thinking
exemplified in the way that the political target for making the
payments changed from (Whitty) "We hope to make payments
towards the early part of the payment window", to "the
majority of payments will be made by the end of March". Then
Ministerial statements then went from 96% to "75%ish",
to 51% and then to the sacking of McNeill because it was scarcely
over 20% and is still hardly above 50% on 8/5, one week before
the 2006 application date.
— How much of this failure was due
to the fact that DEFRA's main concern throughout was the "Change
Programme" and meeting Brown's target to sack thousands of
civil servants. And whose job was this? None other that the late
hero, Mark Addison. He, must be amongst the suspects among DEFRA
officers as responsible for the lack of DEFRA oversight. Yet he
is "in danger" of coming up smelling of roses if he
gets partial payment out by the end of May! However, the CLA does
not want to upset this!
May 2006
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