The incompetent, bungling idiot who headed up the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) when the decision was taken to introduce the computer system that messed up farm subsidies has been given over £1.4m of taxpayers money so far since being sacked and may be in line for some more.

The RPA – part of DEFRA, a byeword for ineptitude in the farming world – decided that it would change the way subsidies were paid in England and introduced a new computer system to handle the payments. It was an unmitigated disaster but neither Johnston McNeill or the Millibeast would pull the plug on the system. Farmers were left destitute with subsidies being paid more than a year late in some cases. Most farmers had to run up crippling debts and incurred substantial financial penalties for unathorised borrowing to stay in business. Others simply went bankrupt, losing their homes and businesses. It was too much for some farmers who were so driven to despair that they committed suicide.

As a result of this shambles, our masters in Brussells fined the British government millions of pounds which will be paid for through cuts in DEFRA’s budget in England.

McNeill was suspended and then sacked but because “proper processes” weren’t followed he went to an employment tribunal, DEFRA were found guilty of unfair dismissal and he was given compensation of over £60k. While he was suspended he received £81k in salary (for eight months – nice work if you can get it) and a £42k lump sum when he was sacked. This is in addition to 6 months salary of £56k and an annual pension of £12,800.

This is, of course, a shocking state of affairs and a criminal waste of taxpayers money but there is the vague scent of “scapegoat” wafting from this story. It’s worth remembering that the Millibeast and Margaret Beckett, who were the Ministers in charge of DEFRA while all this was going on, have both been rewarded with promotions despite their ineptitude which ultimately lead to several deaths.

The cost of “fixing” the RPA is estimated at £55m and it could take another 5 years to get them doing their job properly. In the meantime, the Scottish Executive and Welsh Assembly who are responsible for paying out the subsidies in their own countries, are both managing to pay out on time or early in 100% of cases using the old system that was also previously used in England. Perhaps there’s a lesson to be learnt here? The current system clearly isn’t working – we can either waste £55m “fixing” the RPA and incurring millions of pounds more in fines from the EU for the next 5 years at least or we could simply roll back to the old scheme that everyone – farmers and DEFRA employees alike – were already familiar with and get it right in time for the next lot of payments.