The Farmers Mart Dec/Jan 2016 - Issue 43 | Page 14

Farm News

CAP DELIVERY
PROGRAMME FAILS
TO DELIVER

Truss Outlines
Ambitious
Plan at OFC
Red tape will be axed, £2.7bn will be
invested into Defra in the next five
years and farmers should be able to
maintain ditches from April, Secretary
of State Liz Truss said as she an
outlined an ambitious plan for the
future of British food and farming.
»»Speaking at the
Oxford Farming Conference,
Mrs Truss also promised
she would end European
Commission plans to force
farmers to put up posters
advertising the fact they
receive EU subsidies,
increase exports to new
markets such as China and
launch a new 25-year plan
within months.
While she praised the
work of the RPA during
what she called challenging
times, she said that the
RPA would continue to
improve and that she would
provide Mark Grimshaw
and his team with as many
resources to ensure all BPS
payments would go out as
soon as possible.
Mrs Truss said that she was
also determined to rollout
the badger cull programme
further with England due to
be 50 per cent TB-free by
2020.
“I am absolutely committed
to eradicating bovine TB. We
are making good progress
against what is the gravest

animal disease threat facing
Britain, with half of England
due to be declared TB free by
2020,” she added.
“Our approach to tackling
the disease is based on cattle
and wildlife. This approached
has worked in Australia and
it is working in Ireland and
New Zealand. And thanks to
the dedication and efforts of
local farmers, all three areas
– Somerset, Gloucestershire
and Dorset – hit their targets
in 2015.
Other announcements
included that the previously
announced Great British Food
Unit had started work and that
Defra would be working with
the levy boards to deliver a
new marketing campaign to
promote British produce.
Shadow secretary Kerry
McCarthy also spoke during
the session in which she
recognised that many farmers,
including dairy and pig
producers, were running at
a loss in a ‘broken market’
and would want to boost the
powers of the Groceries Code
Adjudicator (GCA).

14 Dec/Jan 2016 www.farmers-mart.co.uk

»»Ineffective
collaboration between the
bodies responsible for the
CAP Delivery Programme
undermined their ability to
deliver a successful rural
payments service, according to
a report from the National Audit
Office.
The original vision and
design of the Programme was
narrow, according to the NAO.
It focused largely on procuring
IT systems and did not set
out the wider organisational
transformation required. In
2013, the Cabinet Office
applied spending controls
which introduced innovation,
but also increased the risk that
the Programme would fail to
deliver.
Amyas Morse, NAO head,
commented:
“The Department, the
Rural Payments Agency and
Government Digital Service
have not worked together
effectively to deliver the CAP
Delivery Programme. There are
serious lessons in this episode
for all three.”
The report found that the
Programme has been set
back by numerous changes in
leadership. There were four
senior responsible owners
within the space of a year,
each bringing their own style
and priorities. Repeated
changes were disruptive to
the Programme and caused
uncertainty and confusion for
its staff. The Department failed
to prevent counter-productive
behaviours, with deep rifts
in working relationships and
inappropriate behaviour at the
senior leadership level at many
stages of the Programme’s
three-year history.

GDS did not provide the
support the Department
believed it needed to adapt
to the changes during the
spend control process. While
GDS committed to reducing
the overall programme
costs, improving the delivery
confidence of the programme
and building the Department’s
digital capability, its support was
reported to be patchy and with
limited continuity in personnel.
The Department expected
applicants to be able to register
using the government’s identity
assurance system, Verify, from
October 2014. Although the
Verify team had advised the
Department that they would
need to make alternative means
available to access the service,
Verify was not sufficiently ready
for widespread use by farmers in
October 2014 and no alternative
was initially put in place. Most
customers, therefore, registered
using the RPA’s existing process,
supported by drop-in centres
and the RPA’s telephone
helpline.
In March 2015, in response to
serious failings of the system,
the online application system
was withdrawn and replaced
by “paper-assisted digital”
applications for the 2015 scheme.
This increased the likelihood that
most farmers would receive their
basic payment scheme (BPS)
payments in December 2015.
But the NAO found that the
focus on resolving immediate
issues diverted attention from
long-term goals of improving
the service, minimising future
EC penalties and achieving
other intended benefits such
as addressing the land data
issues that are causing current
penalties.