Tenant farmers have expressed regret at the departure of Rural Payments Agency (RPA) boss Mark Grimshaw.

The agency, which handles farm subsidy payments, came under fire for its initial management of the Basic Payment Scheme, but farmers’ leaders were more positive about it recently. Tenant Farmers Association (TFA) chief executive George Dunn said although the RPA had come in for criticism, not all of the problems were its fault, and Mr Grimshaw latterly led it successfully. It was a “major missed opportunity” that it was not given sole responsibility for managing the successor scheme in 2015, he said. “Instead, responsibility was shared between DEFRA, the RPA and the Government Digital Service and total carnage in 2015 was only avoided when the RPA won the argument to abandon the digital only application route. We are still living with the consequences of that poor project management.”