Section 6: my findings - whether there was maladministration by the Rural Payments Agency in the implementation of the 2005 Single Payment Scheme
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Maladministration
I turn now to my determinations as to whether, in the light of the findings of fact I have outlined (paragraphs 60 to 89), there was maladministration both in the general administration of the scheme and in RPA’s handling of the specific cases of Mr W and Mr Y. The general administration of the scheme is inextricably linked to their complaints and I will first consider it against the standards that I have set out earlier in this report (paragraphs 24 to 59).
General administration of the scheme
I have said that ‘getting it right’, ‘being customer focused’ and ‘being open and accountable’ were the Principles that I found particularly relevant to these complaints (paragraph 30). Let me recap a little in order to explain why. It strikes me that a public body that ‘gets it right’ will plan ahead for major changes in order to provide computer systems that work and enough adequately trained staff. They will organise themselves to meet their legal obligations. They will take reasonable decisions based on all relevant considerations. ‘Customer focused’ public bodies will tell their customers what they can expect and what customers need to do themselves. They will keep their promises and if they cannot, they will say so. ‘Open and accountable’ public bodies will give people information that is clear, accurate, complete, relevant and timely. They will be open and truthful when they account for their decisions and actions.
RPA failed to ‘get it right’ when it did not determine Single Payment Scheme entitlements by 31 December 2005, in line with its legal obligation under Commission Regulation 795/2004 (paragraph 44). It also failed to be ‘open and accountable’. How much better it would have been if RPA had chosen to take the difficult step of admitting that it was in trouble before the end of 2005, instead of waiting until March 2006? I am not suggesting that being open and truthful would have avoided the criticism that hit RPA and Defra in 2006, but it would have given RPA’s customers a better chance to plan their affairs. Those serious failures were maladministration.
Defra and RPA failed to ‘get it right’ when they failed to heed the warning information generated by their own internal systems and by the Office of Government Commerce about the payment timetable from summer 2005 onwards. In July 2005 a note to RPA’s 2004-05 annual report had noted the problems RPA faced in implementing the Single Payment Scheme by February 2006 and, as my chronology of events in Annex A makes clear, evidence of those problems continued to grow during 2005. It had the opportunity to ‘take reasonable decisions based on all relevant considerations’; it chose instead to believe in its increasingly unrealistic timetable. Overlooking the warning information RPA had to hand was also a serious failure to ‘be customer focused’ because it meant RPA failed to tell farmers the full story about what they could expect. Those two serious failures were maladministration.
RPA’s and Defra’s information to Parliament and the public was a further failure. Their public statements did not reflect the internal concerns they had. They also sought to rebut, with vigour, the Parliamentary Select Committee report of January 2006 that set out concerns about the likely impact of the problems plaguing the Single Payment Scheme. RPA and Defra could have given their customers accurate and complete information, but they did not do so. In both these areas RPA and Defra failed to ‘be open and accountable’ and failed to ‘be customer focused’. Their approach at this stage continued the earlier failures to get it right. Those failures were maladministration.
RPA and Defra failed again to ‘get it right’, or to ‘be open and accountable’ on 30 January 2006. Officials and Ministers considered RPA’s position, and the next action they should take. The existing commitment was to start payments in February 2006. RPA had told officials and Ministers, in setting out the options available, that the ‘best case’ scenario for payments was that it would process 70% by the end of March 2006. The meeting on 30 January 2006 knew, from the previous briefings, the extent of RPA’s problems with the Single Payment Scheme. The Secretary of State was due to address the NFU annual general meeting at the end of February 2006. What was the outcome of officials’ and Ministers’ consideration on 30 January? The Minister told Parliament that RPA would start making full (not partial) payments before the end of February and would make the ‘bulk’ of payments by the end of March 2006, although the process might continue beyond March for a minority of cases.
I recognise that Defra and RPA faced a complex situation: RPA’s immediate problems; the effect of whatever action they took for RPA’s ability to meet EU deadlines for 2005; and the further effect on the 2006 scheme. But, as I have said, good decision making requires public bodies to ‘take account of all relevant considerations, ignore irrelevant ones and balance the evidence appropriately’. ‘Being open and accountable’ entails ‘giving people information that is clear, accurate, complete, relevant and timely, and being open and truthful in accounting for decisions and actions’. In those respects, RPA’s and Defra’s consideration on 30 January 2006 fell far short of what good decision making by a public body should be. It was maladministration.
I have also considered RPA’s work on land registration – mapping. The House of Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee report of March 2007 describes the 1,000% increase in the number of changes to land registration that RPA had to manage in preparing for the Single Payment Scheme. It also explains how the Single Payment Scheme meant that, from 2005 onwards, farmers stood to gain from being more diligent in registering their land. I have considered those facts, and the emphasis that Defra and RPA have put on the impact of this increase in workload when they have considered what went wrong. It strikes me that RPA has attributed a large part of its mapping problem to the behaviour of its customers. That attitude is, of course, wholly wrong-headed. Who else but RPA were in a position to foresee the expected level of demand for its services or its customers’ capacity for leaving things as late as possible? No one. In that respect, its planning for the mapping process fell far short of getting it right. That was maladministration.
My chronology also sets out the many ways in which RPA sought to mitigate the effect of the problems with the Single Payment Scheme and the Rural Land Register. I recognise and welcome those efforts, which were in keeping with the Principles. But the shortfall against the Principles in other areas was so large that it outweighed its work to ‘get it right’.
Mr W – maladministration
Individual RPA staff did their best to deal properly with Mr W but they were unable to do so because of the larger organisational failure. In that, RPA failed to ‘get it right’, to ‘be customer focused’ or to ‘be open and accountable’. RPA was unable to keep to its commitments and it failed to inform Mr W about what he could expect. The problems with its systems meant it did not have consistently ‘reliable and usable records’, so it was not able to give Mr W ‘information and advice that was clear, accurate, complete and timely’ about his own claim. The corporate message it gave, about most payments being made by the end of March 2006, was not ‘open and truthful’. There were three points in particular where RPA fell so far short of ‘getting it right’, ‘being customer focused’ and ‘being open and accountable’ with Mr W that it was maladministrative.
- It did not issue his entitlement statement until October 2006, which was ten months after the 31 December 2005 regulatory deadline for determining entitlements and four months after the 30 June 2006 deadline for making 96.14% of payments.
- It mishandled his application, asking for the same information (which he or his son promptly provided on each occasion) several times, making errors in mapping, and not keeping him informed of progress or responding to enquiries in line with RPA service standards.
- RPA misdirected Mr W by telling his son in mid-March 2006 that RPA was on track to make the bulk of payments before the end of the month. At that stage, RPA and Defra knew that very few payments could be made.
Mr Y – maladministration
In Mr Y’s case, as with Mr W’s, individual RPA staff did their best to deal properly with his case. Again they were unable to do so because of the larger organisational failure. There were three particular areas where RPA failed significantly to ‘get it right’ or to ‘be customer focused’ in his case.
- From early 2005 until January 2007 Mr Y had repeated difficulty in resolving errors on the digitised maps of his farm. Errors he corrected continued to appear. Rogue errors crept into maps: among other things, details that had been registered for years and had required no correction were altered by RPA; a neighbour’s field was attributed to Mr Y; and the maps included a reference to an IACS inspection that Mr Y could not trace and did not happen.
- Communication with RPA was confusing for Mr Y. RPA did not co-ordinate its correspondence, so the different officials dealing with Mr Y’s case were not necessarily up to date. It was only by complaining that he persuaded RPA to allocate one officer to look after all the maps for his farm.
- The changes submitted to RPA did not fully read across to the maps prepared for Mr Y’s Entry Level Stewardship application.
I have considered whether or not RPA’s mitigating action did ‘get it right’. I am thinking of the priority list for farmers who had an Environmental Stewardship deadline to meet, the increased number of scheme entry dates, and the relaxation of the requirement to have all land mapped before making an application. Those measures may have been enough in other cases, but they were not enough for the extreme situation of Mr Y’s mapping problems. RPA was maladministrative not simply because it made mistakes, but because it made so many mistakes and was unable to correct them adequately in a reasonable time. In Mr Y’s case, RPA’s shortfall against the Principles of ‘getting it right’ and ‘being customer focused’ was so large that it was maladministration.
