BPS Payments Update

As at the 8^th the RPA had made 36,083 English BPS payments.  This is some 41.4% of eligible farmers.  The Agency believes it is on track to meet its commitment to pay more than half of eligible claimants in England by the end of December.  The RPA goes on to state that ‘payments ranging from under £500 to £150k have been made to small, medium and large sized enterprises in all geographic areas of England and to all sectors of the industry‘.  This is not quite our experience, with most of the payments seemingly being made to small, simple and non-Greening claims.  The more ‘commercial’ farming businesses appear to being left for later. 

There is an issue with some payments where there have been entitlement transfers.  A number of RLE1s relating to these have been incorrectly identified and therefore not yet processed.  This means that claimants may have been paid out on the wrong number of entitlements.  Anyone who has transferred entitlements but has not yet received confirmation should chase this up with the RPA and also check the payment received (if one has arrived) very carefully.