Nine separate government bodies, including Natural England, the Environment Agency and the Rural Payments Agency, made at least 114,000 visits to English farms during 2011 and 2012, costing £47 million, reports Farmers Weekly.

Some 84% of farmers responding to the NAO survey believed oversight bodies should coordinate their activity more. Whilst farm inspections provide assurance that farmers comply with regulations and prevent animal disease and environmental pollution. They are also needed to check that farmers comply with common agricultural policy (CAP) so that they can receive payments from the European Union. The NAO report makes a series of recommendations around avoiding the duplication of effort, need for coordination and information sharing and ensuring cost effectiveness.

The report – ‘streamlining farm oversight’ – can be found here.

“The Rural Payments Agency’s (RPA) Independent Agricultural Appeals Panels will continue to operate, Farming Minister Jim Paice announced today, after a review found they were a valued service for the farming industry.

The body makes recommendations to Ministers on appeals against the RPA’s decisions on Common Agricultural Policy payment claims. As part of the wider Government programme to review public bodies, Defra began a review of it in December.

Following an informal consultation with industry, the review found that farmers liked having their appeals heard by panel members with practical experience of agriculture and considered them the most effective way of providing impartial advice to Ministers.”

My experience is that outside cracking organisations like Farm Cornwall there is not enough support provided to farmers to manage the downsides of their experiences, where such experiences occur, with the RPA. This is increasingly important in areas where farming relies on off farm incomes to subsidise it, which is separately under threat from issues such as job losses amongst farmers and their partners linked to things like the downsizing of the public sector.