THE Rural Payments Agency (RPA) came under further heavy criticism from MPs this week.

The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (EFRA) select committee described delays and confusion over farmers CAP support payments as unacceptable.

Some have waited more than 16 months for what should be an annual payment – causing many to suffer hardship, cash flow and anxiety problems.

The committee said, in future, in complicated cases the RPA must make early or part-payments to avoid such problems.

And it said the RPA must keep its commitment to pay 90 per cent of farmers their full CAP entitlements this December. If not, the committee will hold Mark Grimshaw, RPA chief executive, and Defra to account.

New CAP rules meant the agency's payment performance quickly dropped from 97 per cent in December 2014 to around 51 per cent in December 2015. Around 90 per cent of farmers have now received their payments.

Neil Parish, committee chairman, said: "Farmers face extreme hardship as prices for produce are low. Many producers rely on CAP payments to pay their bills so it is unacceptable that farmers are left uncertain over when their payments will arrive.

"The RPA did decide to make bridging payments to unpaid farmers in April, which were welcome, but it is disappointing that it took so long for them to be issued."

Mr Parish also highlighted confusion over communications from the RPA about payments and the length of delays.

He said: "Many farmers have struggled to work out what their entitlements are under the new CAP system, and it has been difficult for them to clarify their numbers with the RPA.

"As the RPA now has to take applications for next year at the same time as paying the remaining 2015 claims, it needs to make sure that next year's process is set up to provide good customer service, and to minimise the fines that will be charged by the EU for any errors in the payment processing.

"We expect a return to 2014's performance levels of 90 per cent payments made by the end of December this year."

Rishi Sunak, committee member and MP for Richmond, said: "Mr Grimshaw was very confident in evidence that he could pay the vast majority of farmers on the very first banking day after December 1 and the total numbers paid by the end of that month in the high 90 percentage points.

"That commitment was backed by Farming Minster George Eustice and my colleagues and I will hold them to account if there is any sign of slippage."

The committee's report recommended the RPA to:

o consider part-payments or early payments in complicated cases, to avoid hardship

o ensure it has enough trained staff to deal sympathetically with queries and complaints, and set Key Performance Indicators for communications and customer service

o Defra must continue to work with the EU to reduce disallowance penalties that are charged because of payment errors, and within its own processes to minimise disallowance risks. The UK has paid more than £642 million in disallowance over the past 10 years – fines for wrongly applying CAP rules.