No compensation for field owner after Rural Payments Agency (RPA) errors

What happened

Mr P bought a field and wanted to claim SPS the next year. A newcomer to the scheme, he had learnt something about SPS from the farmer who sold him the field. During telephone calls with RPA he registered with RPA and made sure that RPA had registered the field. Mr P said that during an early winter 2009 call, RPA told him he need do nothing more regarding his SPS claim because it would automatically send him the claim form and guidance for 2010. Errors by RPA's IT partner in spring 2010 meant that this did not happen.

Mr P was so busy moving house that he did not think to chase RPA for the 2010 claim form and guidance. Mr P did not contact RPA until late winter 2010 when it told him he would not receive any payment for 2010 because he had not submitted a claim. RPA did not tell Mr P what matters its complaints procedure could examine and so Mr P appealed RPA's decision not to pay him SPS for 2010 as the only way to contest that decision. Mr P lost the appeal. Mr P's case was that RPA's failure to automatically send him the claim form was the sole reason he did not submit a claim and so did not receive payment.

What we found

We partly upheld Mr P's complaint. RPA's IT partner's error was the responsibility of RPA. It failed to do something it had promised its customers it would do. RPA's failure to explain to Mr P what its complaints procedure could and could not do meant that Mr P wasted £100 in appeal fees and associated travel costs in attending an appeal hearing at which he had no chance of success. It also took RPA two years to tell Mr P why it had not automatically sent him a claim form and guidance. That was too long. Together, these shortcomings amounted to maladministration.

However, Mr P knew that he had to complete and submit a claim form to obtain SPS payment. It would have been reasonable for Mr P to telephone RPA to find out when it would send the form. RPA's failure to send the claim form did not directly result in Mr P's failure to claim SPS in 2010.

Putting it right

RPA apologised to Mr P for its maladministration but Mr P declined that offer. RPA paid £250 compensation to Mr P for its poor complaint handling, refunded his £100 appeal fee and reimbursed his reasonable travel costs.