"The cost of processing each single farm payment has often exceeded the claim's value"

you don't say. Considering that the EU hasn't been able to balance it's books ever iirc, such a headline is hardly surprising.

Its the UK (mis)-governments job to dole out the money to the rural gentry.

So this is just another example of the governments ability to spend millions on consultants and hardware to do something which could easily be achieved with a couple of spreadsheets.

Funny how there are never any delays in payments to DeLoot, Crapcenture, GreEDS, HighestPrice Wasterhouse, etc. etc.

Whilst I hate to give them credit, I must point out that in dealing with a hopelessly incompetent & corrupt government, our old betes-noirs, the French, did come up with a singularly good process.

It involved the ingenious device of Dr. Guillotin, and several tumbrils.....

Paris - because she has French connections - and many other sorts of connections, too.

What is the smallest limit for farms to claim CAP funds. Does an allotment qualify? Perhaps an allotment would have to be reclassified as a Farmed Urban Community Kept Environmental Rented Smallholding. Many thousands of tiny claims for subsidising F.U.C.K.E.R.S could hardly be refused by the EU - I think that is the core purpose of the organisation.

Having worked for one of the defra family (Environment Agency) for a while now, this is no surprise. They really have little clue. Of course, we're not much better - but what do you expect when there's no real means to measure how effective or efficient we are. Twisting results to fit poorly defined targets is pretty much standard practice I'm afraid.

it creates massive distortions in the market and most of the cash ends up with large global companies anyway so it's effectively corporate welfare.

of course, we need to make the americans stop too otherwise we'll end up with diets consisting solely of corn syrup and soya bean oil.

It costs MORE to administer than the value of the payment?... So why not just post the admin charge to the applicant and see an immediate improvement in both [a] the financial lot of the farmer; and [b] savings from the admin unit.