Rural Payments Agency chief: GDS and Defra didn't listen to warnings that CAP project was failing

'I was not in a position to have my opinion prevail,' says RPA's Mark Grimshaw

The chief executive of the Rural Payments Agency (RPA), Mark Grimshaw, has suggested that senior chiefs at the Government Digital Service (GDS) and Defra did not listen to his fears about failings in its Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) programme.

The CAP programme was aimed at developing new systems and processes to support the implementation of the Common Agricultural Policy in England. It was established in 2012 to address previous failings in how CAP payments were delivered by the Agency.

Earlier this month, MPs slammed senior leaders at the RPA, GDS and Defra for what they described as a "childish turf war", which involved "dysfunctional and inappropriate behaviours" that were "inexcusable and deeply damaging" to the £154m programme.

It led Public Accounts Committee chair Meg Hillier to say that it was "frankly embarrassing to learn of senior and highly paid civil servants arguing to the detriment of hard-pressed farmers".

RPA chief Grimshaw gave evidence on the scheme to the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee. He suggested that there was an element of truth in the PAC report, but claimed that the language used had been sensationalised.

"I am certainly not in the position of accusing the committee of being inaccurate and if those are the words I used then I will recant them here and now," he said.

Grimshaw said he regretted being unable "to get over to the programme the requirements of the business from a delivery and functional perspective" - claiming that this was "a concern that will live for me for many years".

"As a personal failing I was not able to communicate, and not able to get senior people to recognise, that the programme was in difficulty," he said. "I was not in a position to have my opinion prevail," he added.

Grimshaw suggested that "all four senior officers" who had been given responsibility for the programme should share the blame for its failings.

He also claimed that "almost all" outstanding 2015 payments will be made by the end of the month.