Ministers received upbeat reports on the progress of a
£122m IT-based single payments scheme for farmers as the project
headed towards the rocks, according to documents released last week
under the Freedom of Information Act.
The documents - and a separate report published last week by the
National Audit Office on the failed scheme for paying subsidies
worth £1.5bn to farmers - confirm that ministers are not always
given a clear view of the seriousness of problems with an IT-based
project before the failure becomes obvious to MPs and
stakeholders.
Delays in paying farmers by the Rural Payments Agency, part of
the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, had caused
them "stress and anxiety" said the National Audit Office in its
report.
Farmers had to pay up to £22.5m in bank fees and interest when
the agency failed to meet its target to pay 96% of the subsidies by
the end of March 2006. Only 15% had been paid by then. The agency
admits it may struggle to make some payments that are due over the
next year.
At a briefing last week, officials at the National Audit Office
said there was a general "can-do" attitude at the agency, which was
not checked by the necessary scepticism.
When it became clear that the timetable for giving the correct
payments to farmers on time was becoming impossible to meet, no
attempt was then made by the government to ask the European
Commission for an extension.
Phil Gibby, an author of the National Audit Office's report on
delays in administering the scheme, said that Gateway reviews -
checks on the IT element of a project - resulted in three
successive red lights but "the project kept ticking along".
The report said, "An absence of clear metrics against which to
assess progress on implementation led to overoptimistic upward
reporting and hence a failure to show the true state of
progress."
Alongside this failure, in the months before the scheme was
confirmed as failing to meet its deadlines for paying farmers,
ministers received regular briefings on the progress of the
project. Many said the project was making progress and was "still
on track to commence full payment by end-February".
Even by 18 January 2006 the briefing was in part optimistic. It
said, "We continue to work towards full payments starting by the
end of February, although it is clear that not all claims will be
fully validated by that point."
At last week's briefing Gibby said, "This [scheme] has not been
value for money. It has cost more than it should have done. It is
not going to achieve the savings claimed for it, and it has caused
stress and anxiety for some farmers. It is worse than some people
had envisaged."
Another NAO official said, "The big problem with these projects
is implementation. You can draw up schemes which look great on
paper but the problem with the whole of Whitehall is that the
closer you get to delivery the more reds [red light at Gateway
reviews] you get."
www.nao.org.uk