The government'sRural Payments Agencyis still
struggling to recover from the IT problems that affected the Single
Payment Scheme to farmers in England.
The
National Audit Office says The Rural Payments Agency "has made
good progress, but still has more to do to resolve all the problems
it experienced in administering the 2005 EU single-payment
scheme".
The NAO said the agency succeeded in meeting the June 2007
deadline for paying claims under the 2006 scheme. However, the
agency has not yet made up the difference to all those claimants
who were paid too little in the first year, nor recovered the sums
from those farmers who were paid too much, said
the NAO report.
In the first year of the scheme, 2005, the agency had
experienced considerable difficulties in capturing and processing
the information about farmers' land areas, and failed to meet its
own target dates and EU June deadline for making payments to
farmers.
Financial hardship was the result for a significant minority of
farmers and the chief executive of the agency at the time was
removed from their post.