We are an organisation committed to world class farming and land management for the environment, food, and rural resilience. We are a voice for farmers and land managers, we encourage sustainable and profitable farming, and are a delivery agency for the 25 Year Environment Plan. We help agricultural and rural communities to create a better place to live, we achieve this through:
• delivering economic growth
• delivering environmental sustainability • supporting agriculture
• enabling innovation
• facilitating community activities
We care about agricultural and rural communities and the environment. We understand our customers and we are best placed to support them.
We are a regional organisation with a presence in 27 counties and many of our people live and work in the communities they serve, giving us a unique perspective of our customers’ needs. We are a resilient and valuable organisation which can be flexible to meet the needs of both our customers and the policy makers.
As part of the Defra Group we advise and support our Secretary of State, our Ministers, and Defra Group colleagues to design and implement policy ensuring the lessons learnt from previous schemes are applied to shape the new offers. We also fully support and engage with our Permanent Secretary in her Accounting Officer responsibilities.
Our customers are at our heart and we will always listen to what they have to say as their views enable our operational delivery success.
We will develop and grow our regional presence to ensure the interests of farmers and rural communities are understood and we stand ready to help our customers through agricultural transition.
Our people are great assets and we support their personal development to meet the needs of our customers.
We have a bright future where sustainability and innovation will be at the centre of what we do to help our agricultural and rural communities create a better place to live.
Elizabeth Passey Chair
Paul Caldwell Chief Executive
Why the Rural Payments Agency is supporting Boardroom Apprentice
This is a brilliant opportunity for mutual learning. We can benefit from their insight and fresh ideas and they can benefit from the experience and learning as to why we take the approach we do.
All Board members are enthusiastically in favour and have reflected on the value similar experiences have provided both to the Board and themselves personally.
Location of Board and Committee Meetings
A mixture of virtual and in person. When in person there are a number of locations used throughout the country.
Frequency and timing of board/committee meetings
Board meetings take place six times per year approximately every two months. These are scheduled during the day from 0930 – 1500.
The Audit and Risk Assurance Committee (ARAC) meetings four times per year in January, April, June and October.
Date of Board Meetings (January 2023 – December 2023)
January, March, May, July, September, November (exact dates TBC).
Committee of the Boards and meeting dates (January 2023 – December 2023)
ARAC meetings – 23 January, 18 April, 20 June and 17 October.
