RPA confirms 2016 payments to 68,200 farmers in England

The Rural Payments Agency (RPA) has announced that over 68,200 farmers in England have now received a 2016 BPS payment.

The payments to some 79% of eligible claimants, worth £1.14 billion, include a range of 2016 BPS claim types and sizes, including young farmer, those inspected and farmers with common land.

The RPA remains focused on paying 90% of eligible claims by the end of December.

BPS payments are made direct to bank accounts via BACS transfer so farmers should make sure RPA has the most up-to-date account details. Once a payment has been made a remittance advice is sent in the post, confirming the amount paid.

In November, a committee of MPs asked whether successive government ministers were right to declare their confidence in Mr Grimshaw's leadership at the end of a year of missed payments targets and inaccurate settlements.

Mark Grimshaw answered questions about his agency’s performance at an Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee hearing, and vowed that the last 1,000 or so of unsettled 2015 Basic Payment Scheme claims would be “closed” by early January at the latest.

More than 1,000 hill farmers could be facing a bleak winter after still not receiving BPS payments for last year, according to the NFU. They said that some of the most vulnerable farm businesses are being put at risk due to the failure of the Rural Payments Agency to make payments owed to them.