Another year, another shambles from the RPA
Well the BPS season is over for another year and disappointingly the Rural Payments Agency have yet again failed to provide a basic, efficient service.
The window for applications was, as has come to be expected, very short and was further exacerbated by mapping changes Proactive Land Change Detection (PLCD) required by the EU.
Despite working with clients over previous years to ensure mapping was accurate, the RPA changed boundaries, land cover and added non-existent features without consultation and all to four decimal places. In addition, hedges were mapped and measured for each parcel for EFA purposes.
Unfortunately, common sense did not prevail. Instead of using hedge information supplied by the landowners in previous years for greening calculations or information gathered as part of agri-environment schemes, this too was digitally mapped, often erroneously.
The result was considerable time spent redoing the work of previous years by providing paper-based maps and amendments. There is a certain irony in that these uninvited digital errors and aids created by the RPA have resulted in a veritable forest of amending documents which will cause a processing delay that will likely impact on 2018 payments.
The recent news that the Natural England delivery team responsible for agri-environment schemes is moving to the RPA is partially to provide a more ‘joined up service’ for customers.
It could fail, to be much worse and may end up compounding widespread inefficiencies. In the final week before the BPS deadline, our office was still receiving inspection reports for agri-environment schemes carried out two years previous.
As this impacts on the areas set aside for EFA, BPS applications had to be redone and resubmitted to ensure claims are accurate. However, deadlines set by Natural England and the RPA are a one-way street.
Our clients are still awaiting new Countryside Stewardship agreements that should have come into effect by January 1, 2018. A delay of six months on a two-year agreement is simply unacceptable and as stewardship applications are technically competitive, landowners should not be expected to incur the expense of implementing an agreement they do not know that they have.
Natural England advise on their website, almost with pride, that they have extended the deadline for annual claims for these missing agreements until June 15,while in the same breath indicating that agreements will be sent out by the end of May.
As usual, deadline dates apply to the rest of us, but apparently not to Natural England and the RPA.
Kat Wolton, BTech (hons), graduate surveyor, Madeleys
