Supplementary
memorandum submitted by Sir Brian Bender KVC (RPA Sub 18)
1. Q1022—Following an analysis of
the Arable Area Payments Scheme by the NAO, the PAC's report on
15 July 1999 was critical of the variations in efficiency between
MAFF's Regional Service Centres and urged action to improve consistency
and control costs. Around the same time, the European Commission
had signalled it's concerns about the way in which UK paying Agencies
were organised to administer Common Agricultural Payments. The
"Modernising Government" White Paper of March 1999 also
provided real impetus to improve levels of service to farmers
and traders, increase the extent to which government departments
were joined up, increase the volume of information transmitted
electronically and improve risk management.
2. Against this backdrop, in August 1999,
PriceWaterhouse Coopers was commissioned to review MAFF's CAP
Scheme administration. The report was presented to MAFF in January
2000 and recommended that the CAP payment functions of MAFF and
the Intervention Board be brought together within a new CAP Payment
Agency to rationalise and improve the way in which payments were
made. Drawing parallels with the banking and insurance industries
who had implemented similar approaches in dealing with high volumes
of processing activities, the Report's vision for the new organisation
was based on integrating the IT systems to provide a consistent
level of service to the Agency's customers. This involved centralising
the processing of claims, computerising as much of the processing
as possible and separating customer contact from processing work.
The Department agreed with the report's high level recommendation
and the RPA was established in October 2001.
3. Q1055—Further to the Department
replying to a separate access to information request which asked
to see details of the contract between RPA and Accenture, Lord
Rooker wrote to Michael Jack on 18 October to make him and the
Committee aware of the request and offered to share the information
if the Committee required. The Committee accepted the offer and
Defra provided the information on 8 January. As agreed, rather
than repeat this information here, Schedule 2 (the Authority's
requirements) and also Schedule 3 (the contractor's service solution)
details the testing requirements in the Accenture contract.
4. Q1058—Sir Brian Bender held regular
meetings with senior management of Accenture in 2004 and (until
his departure) 2005. The purpose of these meetings (at which RPA
were present) was to discuss the company's performance in meeting
the requirements of the contract and preparing for SPS delivery,
focusing on particular issues such as the timetable for future
releases, the problems with the mapping, the capability of the
Accenture team and the relationships with RPA. On at least two
occasions (March and July 2005) the records show that discussion
covered the RPA's productivity in using the IT.
5. It should also be noted that from the
outset, RPA's productivity was monitored in other forums including
during the regular CAP Reform Implementation (CAPRI) meetings
at which Accenture attended as the senior IT supplier. As an example,
attached is a paper used for analysis at the CAPRI meeting on
May 2004 which shows that RPA was aware of the risks to productivity
and what counter measures the Agency were putting in place to
make improvements (pages 5-8, risks 566, 567 and 163). I would
be grateful if you could treat this document in the same confidential
basis as the Committee has done with the Executive Review Group
papers.
January 2007
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