Over £1.57 billion in Basic Payment Scheme money has been paid out so far to farmers in England, the Rural Payments Agency has confirmed.
The Rural Payments Agency (RPA) paid 93.4% of Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) claims during December – the best performance in the first month of the payment window since the scheme started in 2015.
Payments during December were made to 78,787 of eligible claimants and included a range of 2018 BPS claim types and sizes.
RPA chief executive Paul Caldwell said: “We fully appreciate how critical BPS payments are to farmers and their businesses. We have increased efforts to pay more people as early as possible and RPA teams have now landed more than £1.5 billion into farmers’ bank accounts. I’m very grateful to them for all their work so far.
“We know there is more to do and that some farmers are still waiting for payments. We have written to everyone we were not able to pay in December and will continue to keep people up-to-date.”
Progress
All farmers should make sure the RPA has their up-to-date bank account details. Once a payment has been made a remittance advice statement is sent in the post, confirming the amount paid.
A claim statement will also be sent to explain how the payments have been worked out.
A spokesman for RPA said the agency is on track to complete payments significantly ahead of the June 2019 deadline.
Those claimants who have not been paid by the end of March will receive a bridging payment worth 75% of the value of their claim.
