Rural Payments Agency
The majority of farmers who are eligible for BPS 2015 have now been paid, the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) has announced. This amounts to just under 425 million reaching the bank accounts of 44,400 farmers, almost 51% of all claimants.
Environment Secretary Elizabeth Truss said:
I can confirm the RPA has met its commitment to pay the majority of eligible claims in December and remains on track to pay the vast majority of claims by the end of January.
We understand the importance of these payments to our hard-working farmers and the RPA will continue to work flat out to ensure the agency meets its commitment to pay the remaining claims as quickly as possible.
More complex claims will take longer to process and are therefore likely to take longer to pay, as they did under the Single Payment Scheme.
The RPA will provide an update to those claimants who are unlikely to be paid by the end of January and an estimate as to when they will be paid to help them manage their cash flow.
In addition the Forestry Commission (FC) has also paid out over a third of capital payments, totalling 8million to woodland owners to protect, improve and expand woodlands in England. FC has also paid out 32% of valid annual claims worth just under 3million, and work is ongoing to pay outstanding valid annual claims as soon as possible.
The 2016 version of The guide to cross compliance in England is now available on GOV.UK. This 2016 guidance applies from 1 January and farmers are urged to familiarise themselves with it to make sure they know which rules apply to their holding.
RPA has also sent a to offline farmers, to explain whats changed in the cross compliance guidance since last year.