Rural Payments Agency IT system to miss performance target

The government's creaking Rural Payments Agency (RPA) IT system is about to miss targets for making crucial subsidy payments to farmers despite numerous modifications.

Agriculture minister Jim Paice admitted to the Commons that despite having struggled with the system since 2005, one in 10 farmers will have to wait months to receive payments that are due by 31 March.

And he told MPs he is wary of authorising manually validated payments to those otherwise unlikely to get their money by the end of June for fear that more inaccuracies will lead to further EU fines. Penalties to date have reached several hundred million pounds and some critics fear a total bill in the billions.

The minister warned: "Given the complexity and inadequacy of the IT systems, speeding up payments is not simply a matter of increasing resources. In the last six months some 140 'fixes' have been made to the IT system which now allows us to be more confident in the accuracy, but does not significantly speed up the process.

"The consequence of that, I regret, is that the RPA will not achieve the target of paying 95 per cent of claims by value by 31 March. The estimated figure will be nearer to 90 per cent."

He promised manual payments in hardship cases but added: "If the RPA is finally to put the legacy of chaos, errors and disallowances behind it we need to ensure that payments made this year are based on accurate data so that we can move forward."

The agency's record of "scant regard for protecting public money since 2005", according to the National Audit Office, has incurred £680m in unforeseen costs on top of £350m for the IT systems.

The main contractor was Accenture. The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs rushed ahead with the system in 2005 because it needed to comply with a new subsidy system introduced by the EU that year.