Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
240-259)
DAME HELEN
GHOSH KCB, MS
KATRINA WILLIAMS
AND MR
TONY COOPER
2 DECEMBER 2009
Q240 Patrick Hall: So they have been
treated with equal significance?
Mr Cooper: We are dealing with
both aspects of under and overpayments.
Q241 David Taylor: I am sad to say
that I have been involved in designing and writing up systems
not unlike this for four decades or so and I find it literally
incredible that from day one there was no information kept in
the prime records which would allow an analysis of the sort that
my colleague has been trying to extract from you for sometime.
It is an absolutely fundamental failure of management oversight
of a system like this if you are going to have to go back and
inspect records almost one by one to provide management information.
Dame Helen Ghosh: Yes.
David Taylor: It is utterly futile and
defeats the whole object of the system. It is an observation,
Chairman. We need to move on. I will pass over to you.
Q242 Dan Rogerson: Remapping, which
we have referred to a couple of times already. Before embarking
on the current exercise, you carried out pilots in three areas.
What problems or issues were identified as a result of that and
what changes were made to plans as a result? Was there time in
order to implement all of those, or were there some things that
you just were not able to get changed before the roll-out across
the rest of the country?
Mr Cooper: Could I go back one
stage as well? Before we got to the pilot, we actually conducted
a trial with one of the larger claimants that we have and we spent
some time working through what process would work, what should
the communication be. We then took the results of that trial and
we had a workshop with 40 farmers and explored various options
on how we might best proceed, and they informed that and that
formed the judgment on how we would do the pilot. The pilot included
about a thousand claimants and the results that it provided gave
us estimates of how many maps would need amendment and what the
level of change would be, and, based on that, we then proceeded
into the full roll-out. Where the pilot was really helpful was
in terms of the information we were providing and the guidance
that we were providing to get the language right and to get the
information right. So when we started the roll-out and we came
across a reaction which was, "This does not reflect my current
maps", it came as a bit of a surprise because the pilot did
not actually identify that. So, with hindsight, I can look back
and I can see that the pilot was representative of the types of
farms that exist and the land that exists but was not of sufficient
quantity to give me the assessment. If there was one person in
that situation it did not create the noise, it did not register
with us. The pilots should have been a larger sample than we had
used. When we went out with the full roll-out, the reaction was,
"This does not reflect our maps." We took stock of that,
recognised that, and what we did was we paused the roll-out, and
we paused for probably about three weeks, and then realised that
the solution we were going to apply to help farmers recognise
the maps in the way they would expect was going to take a bit
longer. So we then started to make available the maps that were
in areas that were unaffected by the types of issues that we had,
and then, at the tail end of the roll-out we implemented the—
Q243 Dan Rogerson: The trickier ones.
Mr Cooper: —the trickier
ones, and they were able to respond and certainly recognise how
the maps worked.
Q244 Dan Rogerson: That is the generality,
that farmers were saying, "This is inaccurate." What
sorts of reasons were they giving?
Dame Helen Ghosh: It was things
like soft boundaries, for example, which were not picked up by
the satellite and other tracking that was in the new sets of maps.
They could not see because the system did not see that kind of
thing. It was that kind of issue.
Mr Cooper: It was. If they had
split their field in three and given land to another farmer, say,
there was no permanent feature that you could see, there was no
post that you could see from a satellite. So when we were looking
at the Ordnance Survey map and looking at the aerial photography,
it just looked like one field, and some of the fields were very
large. That is the sort of thing that came back. So we had to
be careful about how we presented these maps back, because under
the regulations it should be mapped to a physical boundary. So
we put in lines that had a star against it to be able to demonstrate
that was a guideline rather than a permanent boundary.
Dame Helen Ghosh: What really
struck me, talking to Tony and the team about this at the time,
was how many changes there are to farmers' land every year. In
the 2009 scheme there were something like 25,000 changes to land
notified as part of the application process, because everybody
is building new slurry pits or putting in fences or giving a bit
of land to somebody else. It is a very constantly changing picture
all the time, but we have now got to a stage where, I think, they
have all gone out, the first phase.
Mr Cooper: All of the maps have
gone out.
Dame Helen Ghosh: And we get something
like 55% acceptance straight off and, obviously, about 45, 44%
that require some change. So actually the acceptance rate, given
all the noise and the stuff that is going on on land anyway I
think is pretty good.
Q245 Dan Rogerson: How do you assess
these rights? Your system has said. "That is the situation",
the farmer has said, "No, this is the situation." How
do you adjudicate that and how do you settle it?
Mr Cooper: We aim to reach agreement
with the farmer, obviously, if it is still in dispute. In 2004,
when the Agency got into difficulty with mapping work, the tale
I have heard is that maps were going to and fro, there were 14
maps being exchanged, et cetera, so we have said we are
not going to do that. If we send a map to the farmer, he sends
it back for changes, we send it out to him and he says, "There
is still a problem with it", at that point we want to speak
to that farmer, and that is the commitment we have given, either
to visit or to do it over the telephone and, using technology
nowadays, we can show them the map over the Internet,[14]
if necessary.
Q246 Dan Rogerson: So they can have it
in front of them while you are talking?
Mr Cooper: Indeed.
Q247 Dan Rogerson: As long as they
have access to the internet, of course, or Broadband.
Dame Helen Ghosh: Yes.
Q248 Dan Rogerson: I have recently
visited a farm with Natural England, who cope with the stewardship
schemes, and so on, particularly at the higher level. Have you
talked to them about the process they have with Greenpeace? What
has struck me since I have talked to this farmer, admittedly because
it was arranged by Natural England so it was a farmer who was
happy with Natural England and the relationship he had there,
his major comment was, "God, I wish the RPA were like this
and there was someone I could talk to face-to-face to go through
this." I think it is that faceless side to things which,
of course, comes up against the efficiency schemes you are trying
to realise. Particularly, as you are identifying that these are
the ones that are harder to resolve, are you identifying maybe
we do need a resource there to do that?
Dame Helen Ghosh: Face-to-face.
Q249 Dan Rogerson: Yes.
Dame Helen Ghosh: Since you have
half given the answer to that yourself, clearly in an HLS[15],
where there is an awful lot of money at stake, both sides are
very happy to have lots of face-to-face discussion because that
is just the nature of the game. Again, I think one of the great
things that Tony and the team have done is to do much more targeted
face-to-face, to decide who really does need face-to-face and
do much more of that. You could not afford it across every 106,000
claimants, but you can do it in a very targeted way, which we
also do around completion of forms time, do we not?
Mr Cooper: We do. We have drop-in
centres, and last year, I think, somewhere in the order of about
30,000 claims were submitted face-to-face within the drop-in centre.
On the basis that we try and find the time to have a quick cursory
glance at them, then we do that. We have also introduced now for
agents to be able to come in, and we had one come into the Carlisle
office. He looks after 230 different claims and we were able to
go through all of that with him over a period of time, and he
appreciated that, and it actually moved it forward a lot quicker.
So there is a balance to strike between efficiencies and doing
it face-to-face, but there are occasions where it makes perfect
sense to do that.
Q250 Dan Rogerson: Have you made
any estimates or considered talking to the NFU, for example, or
the CLA, about what cost this is adding to the farmers' side by
them having to dispute these things and employ their own consultants,
or whatever, to support their case?
Mr Cooper: We have regular dialogue
with all of the farmers' representatives, including the National
Farmers' Union. It was actually them that came up with the notion,
where there is an unmarked boundary in a field, of putting in
some posts—it was their idea—and we are very appreciative
of that. I think that everybody recognises about getting their
maps right. We do not want to have a dispute, we have few disputes,
but getting the maps right is in the interests of the farmer because
then their claim is correct and, therefore, they get paid the
right amount of money, and there is no danger of over claiming,
and there is no danger of penalties being applied. So it is in
the interests of the farmer as well and, I think, by and large,
the farmers recognise that.
Q251 Dan Rogerson: In terms of ensuring
that the maps you send out originally are as accurate as they
possibly can be, has that process evolved as well, so that the
system has been improved, or is it just a case of, "That
is as good as we can get them", and then it is down to doing
this negotiation, and so on? Remapping is an exercise with an
end date, but have you been able to improve the accuracy of the
maps as you have gone on through the year, the original maps being
sent out?
Mr Cooper: Absolutely. Quite clearly,
our aim is always to get the map correct. The 55% that have been
accepted are correct. Forty-five per cent, therefore, you could
imply, need amendment and adjustment. A lot of the time, though,
it is because something has changed on the farm that we do not
know about. Twenty-five thousand farmers a year tell us about
these changes that happen every year. To some extent we expected
and anticipated that level of change in the pilot, and it has
turned out to be roughly at about the right level.
Q252 Dan Rogerson: If things do not
quite go to plan, for want of a better word, what contingencies
are there, if everything is resolved in time?
Mr Cooper: Given where we are
at the moment with all the first maps out (and we have now had
96,000 of those first maps back to us, 55,000 completed), we are
well on track with it. We need the maps back to be able to pre-populate
the claim forms for 2010, and pre-population of claim forms in
2010, we normally do it in the latter part of February, early
March, and that is still our intention, and because of that we
can phase this work so that we can continue to receive the updated
maps. Those farmers that have already provided the updated maps
will get their claim forms earlier.
Q253 Dan Rogerson: Finally, there
are various courses for overpayment. How much of an impact do
you think remapping should have on overpayment? How much would
it reduce it by, if there are other reasons in terms of training
and stuff that would help? How much of an impact will this have?
Mr Cooper: It is very difficult
to put an estimate on it. We have looked at a sample of cases
to see what the extent of change is above the de minimis
that we have, and it is about 5%. So there is 5% of change.[16]
Does that mean there is an overpayment? I cannot give you that
answer, but there is a change. Whether it is an under or an over,
I do not know, and whether it actually affects the claim depends
on things like whether the correct area has been claimed or not,
but that is the best indicator I have got. What I am using that
for is to assess the amount of work that we will have to do in
2010 as part of the processing of the claims in 2010.
Q254 Lynne Jones: What has been the total
cost of getting from what the Permanent Secretary called a "not
fit for purpose" computer system to one that at least is
relatively stable?
Mr Cooper: I think it was in February
2007 that I went to the Defra Management Board and asked for an
additional £40 million to invest. Not all of that money went
into the IT, some of it went into introducing change. I cannot
give you an exact figure for the investment that we have made
to what I would call re-engineer the IT, but it is between £30-40
million.
Q255 Lynne Jones: The total cost,
including the original cost and the re-engineering?
Mr Cooper: The total cost for
the IT, including the policy changes and development of the system
originally?
Q256 Lynne Jones: Yes.
Mr Cooper: It is of the order
of £123, £129 million.[17]
Q257 Lynne Jones: A little earlier there
was some discussion about the actual cost per payment, whether
it is £1,700, as the NAO say it is, and you are saying it
is £700. Could you give us a note on what the differences
are, and could you also comment on what proportion of that £700,
£1,700 cost, whatever it is, is attributable to the IT system
per claim?
Dame Helen Ghosh: Yes, we can
certainly do that.
Q258 Lynne Jones: Can you give me
that figure now?
Dame Helen Ghosh: No. We would
need to go back and look again at how the NAO calculated their
£1,700 figure, because, as I say, it involves things like
amortising the IT costs. We will be happy to give you a note comparing
the two figures.
Q259 Lynne Jones: The Scottish system
is something like £290.
Dame Helen Ghosh: £285 is
quoted in the NAO report, yes.[18]
14 Note by witness: Rather than the internet as such,
RPA is using an online conferencing facility that allows the customer
to electronically view maps and interact with RPA using their
home computers. Back
15
Higher Level Stewardship Back
16
Note by witness: In around 5% of cases there is a difference
(above a de-minimis of 0.264ha provided for under EU Regulations)
between the land area included in 2009 SPS claims and maximum
eligible area arising from the updated maps. Entitlement corrections
may be required in a number of these cases. Back
17
Note by witness: In the period from January 2003 to March 2009,
payments were made to Accenture of some £123,968,104 for
IT development plus £6,849,930 for IT maintenance. Back
18
Note by witness: The NAO report "A second progress update
on the administration of the Single Payment Scheme by the Rural
Payments Agency" states "We have not been able to
establish what proportion of the difference between England and
Scotland is due to the additional complexity of the scheme in
England and what proportion is due to the way it was implemented
by the Agency." (para. 2.13) Back
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