The Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs has a history of failure when developing systems to support subsidy payments for farmers, and this history means that it is starting with a low level of trust from the sector.30 In 2016, the previous Committee examined the Department’s delivery of new systems and processes to support the implementation of the Common Agricultural Policy, which was itself intended to address past failures. It found that this has been unsuccessful in many respects, and that repeated failures in the delivery of the CAP meant that payments to farmers had been delayed at a time when their cashflow was already stretched.31 The previous Committee examined the programme again in 2017 and found that the extent of the Rural Payments Agency’s (the RPA’s) failure to pay farmers in England on time and in full was clear. The RPA paid only 38% of farmers on 1 December 2015, the first day when payments could be made, compared to 90% in previous years. By the end of March 2016, 16% of farmers still had not received any payment. It concluded that in addition to the RPA being unable to pay farmers the money they were due on time, the Department had not assessed the impact of this on farmers and the rural community.32 The Department recognised that the trust of farmers would be critical to the success of its new schemes.33 Designing the scheme with farmers