FCP: Rural Payments Service Continuity Project

Defra is responsible for responsible for improving and protecting the environment. We aim to grow a green economy and sustain thriving rural communities. We also support our world-leading food, farming and fishing industries. For further information please visit https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-for-environment-food-rural-affairs<br/><br/>The Rural Payments Agency (RPA) is an executive agency, sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs. We pay out over £2 billion each year to support a thriving farming and food sector, supporting agricultural and rural communities to create a better place to live. The Rural Payments service (RPS) is Defra’s online registration system for farmers, animal keepers and rural traders and businesses.<br/><br/>At its core is the payments policy and rules engine application ABACO Agri (previously known as SITI Agri). This has been developed over a number of years and delivers > 80% of the large, complex, reoccurring land-based grants/schemes offered by Defra such as Basic Payment Scheme (BPS), Countryside Stewardship (CS), Combined Offer (CO), Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) among others for more than 90,000 farmers.<br/><br/>As part of Defra’s digital strategy this application will be replaced with a new solution/service as part of the Farming Countryside Programme (FCP) that is also delivering major policy changes over the next few years.<br/><br/>To provide sufficient time to implement, transition and migrate to a new solution/service, the Authority requires a contract for the support, maintenance and development of schemes/grants on Defra’s existing deployment of ABACO Agri for up to 3 years.