Section 7: my findings – whether any such maladministration led to an injustice for those who have complained to me
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I will now consider whether the consequences of the maladministration I have found in the handling of Mr W’s and Mr Y’s cases constitute injustice. I have set out in paragraphs 134 to 145 how RPA failed to ‘get it right’ in its handling of the 2005 Single Payment Scheme. The chapters about their individual stories summarise the injustice they each claimed.
Let me say something here about how I have approached ‘getting it right’ in my consideration of the injustice sustained by Mr W and Mr Y, particularly in terms of ‘taking a reasonable decision, based on all relevant considerations’.
I have considered the evidence they gave us about the stress and anxiety they suffered, the costs they incurred and the opportunities they missed. I have considered the connection between what went wrong and the injustice Mr W and Mr Y claimed. I have taken account of how other factors, apart from RPA’s mistakes, may have contributed to the costs the complainants incurred and opportunities they lost. And I have also considered the way incomplete information from a public body can contaminate even decisions that, with hindsight, should still have been straightforward. I decided against attempting to arrive at a precisely calibrated figure for the financial injustice I have identified. Why? Because that would be pretending that these things are more clear-cut than they are. It would also be a difficult and time consuming model for RPA to apply in its consideration of the other complaints listed in Annex B. Instead, I have looked at the injustice in the round, using the evidence from Mr W and Mr Y as my starting point.
I should emphasise that both Mr W and Mr Y suffered a similar injustice – the effect of RPA’s maladministration on their ability to make timely and considered decisions about their businesses. For different reasons, they both needed RPA to give them accurate information. Both lost the opportunity to plan their affairs with adequate information to hand. Both described the effect on their wellbeing and on their own and their families’ attitudes to continuing as farmers. This too was an injustice and a factor that I have taken into account in my recommendations for redress.
Mr W
Mr W’s total payment from the 2005 Single Payment Scheme was over £40,000. This was a significant sum for a business that, without those funds, could not even afford to repair some of its machinery. It is also clear from RPA’s own records of Mr W’s calls to it that doing without those funds caused enormous stress and heartache, despite the efforts of RPA staff to keep him informed.
Mr W has ascribed some costs incurred by the farm to RPA’s maladministration. He has said they had to sell animals early, for less than they would usually have received. He has also explained that, because the farm had been unable to replace a stock bull when they planned, they had culled animals which would otherwise have been in calf. I recognise these costs were significant, but I believe only some were related to the maladministration I have found. I will therefore largely discount them in my consideration of overall redress.
Mr W’s claim for redress also includes lost opportunities – the late start to the farm’s free-range egg business and the lost opportunity to bid for 18 acres of land that they had used for many years. I am unable to link those lost opportunities to the maladministration I have found, although I recognise the effect of uncertain cash flow on any decision making. Again, I have largely discounted those lost opportunities in my consideration of overall redress.
I understand how machinery repairs have to be postponed when there is no money to fund them, although I am unable to make a precise judgment about the actual cost of the work required to make up for the absence of machinery. I consider that part of these costs should be recognised, but in the round as part of the overall redress recommended.
There are links between the maladministration I have found and the costs in time, telephone calls and professional fees that have accumulated for Mr W and his family. Again, I am unable to apportion those costs so that only sums directly linked to maladministration take their place in the calculation of redress. I consider that dealing with this part of Mr W’s claim as part of the overall remedy will provide
a suitable remedy.
I am unable to say, from the evidence I have seen, that the lost early payment discounts and the interest incurred on loans were more than marginally related to the maladministration that I have found, certainly before the end of March 2006. I have largely discounted these costs in my consideration of redress.
Let me explain why I have been unable to make a precise apportionment of the cash costs sustained by Mr W as a consequence of maladministration. The evidence tells us that Mr W took out a bank loan in September 2005 and borrowed a further £5,000 from Mrs W in November 2005. The farm repaid most of the loan and Mrs W’s £5,000 after RPA made the partial payment of £37,000 on 10 May 2006. When Mr W took out those loans, RPA’s message to farmers was that Single Payment Scheme payments would start in February 2006 and 96% of payments would be made by the end of March 2006. What would have happened if RPA had acted without maladministration? If it had established entitlements by the legislative deadline of 31 December 2005 and met its stated commitment of making most payments by the end of March, the farm would still have had those loans. After the end of March, but for the maladministration, Mr W would have been able to repay the loans more quickly. However, decisions about whether or not to replace the stock bull, to sell stock early or to bid for the land that had come on the market would still have been finely balanced until the Single Payment funding was in the bank.
It is more difficult to say what would have happened if RPA had been unable to establish entitlements, but had been ‘open and accountable’ about the problems it faced in making payments. It is possible that, even when Mr W arranged the loans in September and November 2005 he would have known from RPA that his Single Payment might be very late. Or, it could be that RPA would have decided more quickly that it would have to make partial payments. Either way, Mr W would have been better informed when he arranged funding and made decisions about running the farm until the payment came through. But I also recognise that some of his decisions from December to March 2006 were far from clear-cut even before the additional strain of RPA’s maladministration.
Mr W – his injustice summarised
I have identified four types of injustice sustained by Mr W.
- He lost the opportunity to plan his affairs with adequate information to hand (paragraph 148).
- Worry about his Single Payment caused him stress and heartache.
- He incurred costs, for example some bank interest, that he would otherwise have avoided.
- He let go investment opportunities and postponed repairs, because he did not have access to funds when he needed it.
I turn now to my findings about the injustice suffered by Mr Y.
Mr Y
RPA’s maladministration undoubtedly put Mr Y to much unnecessary inconvenience, anxiety, time and expense over a period of several months, and deflected him from the core business of running a farm and camp site. He was unable to plan ahead, which affected him and his staff. He felt he needed to involve my Office; that should not have been necessary. I am not persuaded, however, that all the costs of hiring extra staff, of land agent’s fees, and of making an employee redundant flowed from RPA’s maladministration. I believe that only part of those costs should be subject to redress and that that amount is best addressed overall and in the round.
Mr Y has said that he sold crops early, in order to raise cash because the expected payments from the Stewardship and the Single Payment schemes had not come through, although that meant accepting a lower price for the crops than he would usually have received. I accept the principle that compensation is due for the part of this claim that is attributable to maladministration by RPA, but I am not in a position to apportion that precisely.
Let me explain why in Mr Y’s case, as in Mr W’s, I have been unable to make a precise apportionment of the cash costs he sustained as a consequence of maladministration. As with Mr W, had RPA acted without maladministration, it would either have established Single Payment Scheme entitlements on time and made most payments when it had said it would, or it would at least have been ‘open and accountable’ and taken the appropriate steps to inform farmers and release payments to them sooner than it did. Also, without maladministration, RPA’s planning could have anticipated the scale of the mapping workload it needed to manage – it would have been closer to ‘getting it right’. And if it had done that, it would have been able to mitigate the effect of delays and mistakes.
At the very least, in the absence of maladministration, Mr Y would have been able to take properly informed decisions about his business. I am satisfied that the unexpected delays in receiving the Single Payment and in joining the Stewardship Scheme were significant factors in leading Mr Y, for example, to raise cash by selling crops early and to cut costs by cutting staff. However, I also believe that such decisions are not clear-cut in a business such as Mr Y’s and I cannot rule out the impact of other factors in his decision making.
Mr Y received his Single Payment later than the ‘bulk of payments by the end of March 2006’ message from RPA had suggested and received his first Entry Level Stewardship payment almost 22 months later than he had planned. I fully recognise the worry caused by such late payments. To him, the delayed Stewardship payment felt like an absolute financial loss, even if he would still have the benefit of the full five years of the Entry Level Stewardship Scheme. He then found that he had made his agreement too late to avoid the impact of later changes to the Stewardship Scheme. It seems to me that, had Mr Y been able to make his application by October 2006, it is likely that he would have had an agreement in place by 1 January 2007 and he would have been unaffected by the change in the Stewardship Scheme rules. RPA’s mapping problems were a factor in that delay. But I must also consider the effect of Mr Y’s decision to hold on to his Stewardship Scheme application until the maps were fully correct. That was a reasonable decision in autumn 2005 and early 2006, but I am not persuaded that it remained necessary to keep to that approach throughout 2006. I take the view that Mr Y’s claimed loss in this area is only partly related to RPA’s maladministration and that it should be substantially discounted in my overall consideration of redress.
That may seem harsh. In effect, I am saying that Mr Y had a responsibility to make a claim even if RPA kept making mistakes as it did. Two reasons have led me to that view. First, access to the Stewardship funds requires a person to make a claim. It was open to Mr Y to make a claim based on incomplete mapping information; he took the view that it was better for him to postpone access to Stewardship funding until he could be confident that the maps to support his claim were accurate and complete. Secondly, it was an external factor (paragraph 132) that deprived Mr Y of the chance to benefit from the Stewardship Scheme as he had intended. Had it not been for the change in the terms of the Stewardship Scheme, he would have been able to continue receiving funding based on the claim he made in January 2007. RPA was not responsible for that change in the rules. It follows that Mr Y has suffered a financial loss, but the loss is only partly a consequence of RPA’s maladministration.
Mr Y – his injustice summarised
I have identified four types of injustice sustained by Mr Y.
- He lost the opportunity to plan his affairs with adequate information to hand (paragraph 148).
- Worry about his Stewardship claim and his Single Payment cause him unnecessary anxiety and trouble.
- He incurred, for example, some staff costs and professional fees that he would otherwise have avoided.
- He let go opportunities and sold crops early, accepting a lower price than usual, because he did not have access to funds when he needed it.
