IT seems a little incongruous that the calamitous failings surrounding the Single Payment Scheme in England should once again be dominating the farming headlines this week.
It was, after all, only a few days ago that the Rural Payments Agency announced it had paid 80 per cent of claimants a total of £1.3 billion within the first two days of the window opening.
With hard evidence that the agency is finally getting on top of the problem, the time would seem to be ripe to move on, four years on from when it all started to go wrong. Certainly, Defra and the RPA would like to think so.
But the two reports on Defra and the RPA's handling of the scheme published this week raised some key points.
The Public Accounts Committee's report alleges that, while the speed of delivery has improved dramatically, all is not well beneath the surface.
Its focus is on value for money for taxpayers and its conclusions are damning. From the RPA's 'cumbersome' and soon to obsolete £350m IT system to the excessive cost of processing claims and the 'poor leadership' of the agency, its story is one of continued mismanagement and maladministration.
Worse are the accusations of complacency, neglect and attempts to obscure the true scale of the problem by Defra, a Department, according to the PAC, in denial.
This impression was only enhanced by Defra's extraordinary refusal to accept the recommendation of the Parliamentary Ombudsman to compensate farmers she found to have suffered personal and financial injustice as a result of the SPS failings.
The small show of accountability in the name of justice she requested would have gone some way to healing old wounds. Defra, however, saw 'no basis' for her suggestions and rejected them.
The progress made by chief executive Tony Cooper since he took over at the RPA has quite rightly been acknowledged by the NFU.
But the lack of accountability for what has gone before - not least the Ministerial choice of the SPS system that lies at the heart of the debacle - and the enormous problems that remain have once again been highlighted this week.
Until there is real progress here, the story will not go away.
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