asked Her Majesty's Government:
How many appeals have been received under the single farm payment review procedure in 2005 and 2006 respectively; and, of those appeals, (a) how many were dealt with at each stage and what proportion of them was allowed; (b) how many reviews are still outstanding; and (c) what was the average time taken to deal with an appeal. [HL1042]
The figures shown below are as at 3 January 2007 and include only those appeals received in connection with the single payment scheme claims for the 2005-06 scheme year.
Year Stage 1 Success Outstanding Average time to complete (in days) 2005 1 0 94 2006 461 102 168 73
Year Stage 2 Success Outstanding Average time to complete (in days) 2005 0 0 0 0 2006 51 0 29 52
The appeal procedure has two stages:
Stage 1: A review by the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) customer relations unit.
Stage 2: A review by an independent panel. The panel makes a recommendation to Ministers in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs acting on behalf of the Secretary of State, who then decide whether to accept or reject an appeal.
RPA aims to respond to all stage 1 appeals within its published target deadline of 90 days. The figure shown for the average number of days to deal with a stage 1 appeal is based upon the number of days from receipt of the appeal to dispatch of the final response. RPA aims to submit all panel recommendations to Ministers within a published target deadline of 60 days of receiving the stage 2 appeal. The figure shown for the average number of days to deal with a stage 2 appeal is based on the number of days from receipt of the appeal to the date of the Minister's decision.