Rural Payments Agency
Philip Dunne expresses disbelief that the Secretary of State only met with the chief executive of the Rural Payments Agency twice during the time that the project was failing and calls for more accountability in future projects.
Mr. Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con): Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is little short of astonishing that the chief executive of the Rural Payments Agency had only two meetings with the Secretary of State, one of which was on the day before he was suspended, when the whole debacle came to an end? What accountability is there when, essentially, the Secretary of State washes her hands of the whole business?
Mr. Williams: I agree with the hon. Gentleman. With failure on the horizon and the farming community in desperation about when it would receive the payments, it seems beyond belief that the Secretary of State could not manage to meet the chief executive of the organisation that was attempting to deliver them.
...
Mr. Dunne: Was not one of the Committee's warnings to do with the mapping system and the fact that many mapping errors arose as a result of using a two-dimensional mapping system rather than a three-dimensional one? In many areas, particularly along the Welsh marches which are well known for having three-dimensional fields, that has given rise to many foreseeable errors.
Mr. Drew: I am not sure that I can answer that in practical terms, but it seemed to me that the system was sometimes fifth dimensional, as there were so many errors. It was particularly galling that when it got things right, it subsequently returned to them and got them wrong. There was no consistency in the information; it was a case of garbage in, garbage out. Sadly, even when the information was initially right, it was subsequently screwed up, which was completely unacceptable and led to people having no confidence in what was done. I could go into considerable detail on that matter; in fact, we did so, and the people who briefed us explained what the problems were-but, sadly, the solutions were more difficult to identify.
