| Other defra.gov.uk sites
 
You are here:

10/07/12 - The Rural Payments Agency’s Annual Report and Accounts published



The Rural Payments Agency (RPA) 2011/12 Annual Report and Accounts was laid before Parliament today.

The agency’s Chief Executive, Mark Grimshaw, said:

    “There is now a growing sense that the agency has turned a corner and is beginning to offer farmers and food producers the fast, accurate and responsive support they need.

    “Throughout the past year we showed steady improvement in performance and real progress on turning RPA into a customer focused agency. Running costs were reduced by £9.5M compared with the previous year, while customer satisfaction scores increased to a ‘highest-ever’ level. Good progress was made in tackling some of the Single Payment Scheme (SPS) legacy issues and we also turned in a record breaking performance on SPS 2011 payments

    “We delivered, as promised, a Five Year Plan showing how we would put an end to short-term fixes and workarounds. This strategy is designed to stabilise the agency while developing specifications and procuring replacement systems to meet the challenges of forthcoming Common Agricultural Policy reforms.

    “Our current Business Plan, which sets out detailed, specific and measurable improvements - including a headline SPS pledge to pay 91% of claimants and 84% of value by the end of December 2012 - clearly demonstrates that there will be no let up in our drive to improve performance for our customers and the taxpayer in the coming year.”

    Page published: 10 July 2012