Bracken dilemma left farmer out of pocket

What happened

Mr H's land included cliff–top areas with some heavy bracken growth. Generally, his animals grazed on other parts of his land without bracken, which was poisonous. But for part of the year the cliff–top areas were suitable for grazing. Mr H's reading of the Rural Payments Agency's (RPA's) guidance was that he could claim an annual European Union farming subsidy for land where the bracken growth was thin enough for animals to graze. In 2010 an RPA farm inspection decided that the land was ineligible for subsidy. It recovered the subsidy it had paid Mr H in earlier years and imposed a fine that meant he received no subsidy for his 2010 claim. This caused Mr H shock and financial hardship, because he had had no time to prepare for the loss of income. He challenged the inspection decision and said RPA's guidance had misled him. But RPA upheld its decision.

What we found

We partly upheld the complaint. RPA failed to provide adequate written reasons for its decision in response to the challenge Mr H made in his appeal. Full reasons for the decision mattered because of the size of the penalty Mr H had to pay and because his next step in RPA's process would be costly legal action.

It was reasonable for Mr H to believe that bracken 'being grazed' by his animals was eligible and to base his view on the guidance specifically about bracken. RPA had a chance to acknowledge that, for Mr H, the guidance was unclear. Its own officials had acknowledged that it was unclear. But RPA chose not to apologise.

Putting it right

RPA agreed to apologise to Mr H, to give him a complete, written response to all the points he had made in challenging its inspection decision and to consider again whether or not its guidance misdirected Mr H and made him unduly vulnerable to suffering a penalty in relation to the bracken on his land. It agreed that it would compensate Mr H, if it decided it had misdirected him.