Hogan's red tape hack

Inevitably what is being delivered is not a perfect solution, or indeed an instant one, but it does underline that the farm commissioner, Phil Hogan, is serious when he says he wants to drive CAP simplification as a central policy of his time in the job.

In broad terms, good behaviour will be rewarded and more flexibility will be introduced to checks and inspections. The key concession is that if a member state has had an audit within the past three years, and its error rate is below 2% for direct pillar one payments - which is the EU average - then compliance inspections can be reduced from 5% to 1%.

This should cut red tape, and at the same time speed up payments from 2016 onwards. More science will also be applied to the inspection process, so that on-the-spot inspection can tick more boxes.

As part of new flexibility, farmers and member states will be given 35 days from the deadline for submitting claims to make amendments, which Hogan believes will reduce error rates and penalties.

This is certainly good news, but if there is a 'but' qualifying the good news, it is the fact that greening does not fall within the initial phase of simplification. Hogan is not an enthusiast for greening, having made clear it is something he inherited from Dacian Ciolos, rather than a policy he would have come up with. He wants to introduce more flexibility here too, but is limited by the fact that while he can change the implementing rules, he cannot change the legislation agreed between the Commission, European parliament and national ministers.

However he has hinted that he is prepared to look at this by making the mid-term review of the CAP in 2017 more ambitious. This would clear the way to tackle some of the problems with greening, but Hogan is not a free agent. Change will not be easy to deliver in the face of inevitable opposition from green pressure groups and some MEPs. They already see greening as weak, and if change is coming they will want it made tougher and more ambitious rather than more practical for farmers.

However while he may not be able to deliver as much as people would want on greening, the fact remains that more than any previous farm commissioner, Hogan is demonstrating that he is serious about CAP simplification.

As well as the changes to inspections he is also tackling some of the obscure detail of the CAP that controls market and other regulations. He is also planning more flexibility for member states to amend their approved rural development plans. This makes sense, since it is difficult to draw up a five year plan and then ignore how circumstances change. He is also planning more flexibility for the young farmers' top up scheme and for coupled payments - all adding up, hopefully, to a lighter touch CAP.

Ironically if some of the inspection burden of the CAP is set to be reduced it is not the only problem when it comes to red tape. Indeed it may not be the worst, and now be the only part where there is a drive to reduce bureaucracy. Inspections, in farming and elsewhere, have become an industry in their own right. Just this week there were reports of an inspection body for hospitals spending amazing sums to put inspectors up in hotels most people could only dream of staying in. When forced to cut their budget, the response was that they would increase charges for doctors and hospitals, meaning we pay one way or the other, since they have a monopoly over statutory inspections.

In agriculture, farmers face farm quality inspections, environmental audits, organic standards if they have gone down that route and in some cases inspections by retailers - and the list goes well beyond those.

Now for the Red Tractor scheme farmers are going to be forced into lifetime assurance, adding to cost and bureaucracy for change that is unnecessary and of no financial benefit to farmers. The European Commission is showing that this expansionist approach can change for the CAP, and farmers should insist that others follow Hogan's positive lead on cutting back red tape.