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On 16 December 2009, the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman Ann Abraham, published a report which calls for farmers to be compensated for losses caused by maladministration at the Rural Payments Agency.
The report sets out the results of the Ombudsman’s investigation of two representative complaints about the administration of the 2005 Single Payment Scheme by the Rural Payments Agency, part of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. It suggests that these two complaints are representative of 22 other complaints made about the 2005 Single Payment Scheme in England.
The report finds that these failures took a direct personal and financial toll on the two farmers whose complaints the Ombudsman investigated.
The RPA was unable to keep its timetable for handling the digital mapping of land or for making payments to farmers. However, RPA continued to tell farmers that it would keep to its payment timetable, when it knew, or should have known, that the set schedule was increasingly unrealistic.
The report details the assorted remedies recommended by the Ombudsman.