THE Rural Payments Agency paid out a record £1.37bn – 95 per cent – on the opening day of the English Single Payment Scheme (SPS) on December 1 – meeting its end of December target four weeks ahead of schedule.

The payments were made to 96,669 claimants – 95 per cent of the total recipients – and represented 91.4 per cent of the estimated total fund value. The target was for 93 per cent of customers and 86 per cent of the total fund to be paid out by December 31.

Environment Secretary Elizabeth Truss congratulated the Agency in achieving a record-breaking performance in the final year of the SPS. She said: "Over the last four years the Rural Payments Agency has improved beyond recognition and I am delighted that once again almost all farmers received their CAP funding on the first day of the payment window.

"Farming is a powerhouse of our economy and I am determined to do everything I can to help this vital industry to thrive. That is why we are making the new CAP rules as simple and flexible as possible so that farmers can concentrate on continuing to provide high quality British food."

Mark Grimshaw, RPA chief executive, said: "This performance shows just how far we have come in our drive to become a trusted, efficient and effective organisation and I want to thank our people and our industry partners who worked so hard to achieve this outcome."

He urged farmers wanting to be paid as early as possible next year to register on the new rural payments online service as soon as they are invited to do so.

"That’s because for this, the first year of Basic Payment Scheme (BPS), there will be lots to do as we gather new information and ask farmers to check that the details we hold are still correct. Once all their details are correct on our new online service it will be a lot quicker to apply in future years."

As of Monday (December 8), the RPA estimated it had paid 97,549 customers a total of £1,389bn – 95.9 per cent of eligible claims and 92.7 per cent of the estimated fund value.