BPS Payments Begin

The RPA has announced that it will be paying around 30,000 English farmers thier 2015 Basic Payment on 1^st December.  This equates to around 35% of the total number of applications made this year.  It seems likely that the smaller/simpler claims will be paid first.  However, this is a very good start by the RPA and it should be commended for its efforts.  Many in the industry (us included) believed the Agency would struggle with the new scheme, and payments would be delayed some months.  It is interesting that the figures suggest the total number of BPS claims are under 86,000.  It seems that the increase in the minimum claim size (and perhaps the Active Farmer test) has seen a number of people withdraw.  Claims under the old SPS were in excess of 100,000.