Letter to Chair from Rt Hon Hilary Benn
MP, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Further to my letter of 23 February,1 I am now
writing to provide a substantive response to your letter of 4
February asking me personally to take another look at the Parliamentary
Ombudsman's report Cold Comfort: the administration of the
2005 Single Payment Scheme by the Rural Payments Agency and
consider Defra's response to it.
I have followed the progress of the Ombudsman's
investigation on this subject over the past couple of years and
have now had the opportunity to reflect on the discussions both
at your committee and subsequently between Dame Helen Ghosh and
Ann Abraham. I believe these have helped to address our concerns
on the need to protect taxpayers interests and, consequently,
to be clear about the basis on which any compensation payments
are made. I am pleased, therefore, to confirm that we will now
accept the recommendations in full.
The additional compensation recommended to Mr
W and Mr Y will be paid as soon as possible and we will work with
the Ombudsman's office on the remaining 22 complaints to assess
what are the most appropriate and cost-effective remedies to their
particular circumstances. With this collaborative effort, we should
aim to complete this work within three months. As you pointed
out, given the Ombudsman's comments about the statutory time bar
affecting her work and the difficulty she would find in investigating
any further cases from the 2005-06 period at this stage, there
should not be more than 24 cases.
I should add for completeness that the Department
also intends to work further with the Ombudsman's office to ensure
that customer service principles are fully reflected in the Agency's
work going forward.
I will now write separately to Mr W and Mr Y
to inform them of our revised position and will continue to do
so as the investigations into the remaining 22 complaints are
completed.
2 March 2010
1 Not printed.
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