Single Payment Scheme

: I will come to the mapping system in a moment. If the hon. Lady is asking about the immediate review by Mark Addison, the new chief executive, he was appointed because the Secretary of State, on the advice of the permanent secretary, thought that he was the best man for the job. In the meetings that I have had with him on the issue, although it is not my area of responsibility, and in the meetings that he has had with the industry, the feedback has been very positive. He is an excellent public servant and the actions that he has already put in place have shown that he is getting to grips with the challenges that he faces. I was about to tell the Chamber that Mr. Addison's figures mean that, under the latest payments, £119 million has been paid out in the past seven days, compared with only £85 million in the first four weeks after payments started on 20 February. That shows significant progress. Mr. Addison, having managed in less than two weeks in the job to visit every RPA office in the country and listen to front-line staff, had a number of further recommendations that he made to Ministers last night that have now been approved. They will address, I hope, some of the concerns raised during the debate. First, RPA processes should be reformed to deliver greater customer focus by dedicating teams of staff to work on individual claims in their entirety. That was the point raised by the hon. Member for Ludlow. That would replace the task-based approach, which meant that bits of paper were being sent round from one office to another. Secondly, as part of that change, processing staff should be allowed to contact applicants directly on the telephone, to work through any outstanding issues. Thirdly, a discrepancy tolerance of 2 hectares, or 3 per cent. of the total area claimed, whichever is lower, should be implemented for the validation of claims. Fourthly, the over-pedantic quality checking processes should be stopped so that staff can concentrate on processing the claims. Fifthly, the people who do the mapping work should be in the same office as those who process the claims so that they can talk to each other when there is a problem. Sixthly, where mapping correspondence is outstanding, payments should be made on the basis of the information that the RPA already has from farmers. There will be further discussion with the industry on the mapping issue next week.