- Location
- Exeter, Devon
Hi folks, first time posting on here, so go gently on me!
We had an inspection in August. All went well, until he compared our last 25 movements to the information he had from ARAMS. We only sell at the local market and direct to a local abattoir. He found that on 2 occasions, his information said that we had sent double the number of lambs to the abattoir than our records showed. I should say at this point that my wife is an IT manager for a local authority, so we had invested in the Shearwell stock recorder, recording system etc. when we took the farm on in 2016.
She also keeps all the paper movement sheets meticulously, so it was easy to demonstrate that our records were accurate. The inspector accepted this, but said that we may still get a BPS penalty, in which case we should appeal.
A couple of weeks later the RPA wrote saying that we'd failed the inspection and could expect a penalty, but could appeal, which my wife immediately did.
We heard nothing until yesterday, when an email told us that due to a medium level cross compliance fail, we would be getting a 5% BPS penalty.
On checking the information held about us by ARAMS, every movement to the abattoir (which we supply most weeks) was double the actual number, apart from 2, which were trippled. We have again appealed, this time telling them that their records continue to be wrong. A very helpful lady at Shearwell told us today that she is aware of a number of farms being penalised due to ARAMS information being incorrect, but the RPA's attitude is that they're always right, hence the need for us to prove our innocence.
2 reasons for posting this: firstly to suggest that anyone who supplies an abattoir directly checks that the information kept by ARAMS is correct, rather than finding out the hard way. Secondly, to ask if anyone else has experienced something similar, and how you dealt with it?
We had an inspection in August. All went well, until he compared our last 25 movements to the information he had from ARAMS. We only sell at the local market and direct to a local abattoir. He found that on 2 occasions, his information said that we had sent double the number of lambs to the abattoir than our records showed. I should say at this point that my wife is an IT manager for a local authority, so we had invested in the Shearwell stock recorder, recording system etc. when we took the farm on in 2016.
She also keeps all the paper movement sheets meticulously, so it was easy to demonstrate that our records were accurate. The inspector accepted this, but said that we may still get a BPS penalty, in which case we should appeal.
A couple of weeks later the RPA wrote saying that we'd failed the inspection and could expect a penalty, but could appeal, which my wife immediately did.
We heard nothing until yesterday, when an email told us that due to a medium level cross compliance fail, we would be getting a 5% BPS penalty.
On checking the information held about us by ARAMS, every movement to the abattoir (which we supply most weeks) was double the actual number, apart from 2, which were trippled. We have again appealed, this time telling them that their records continue to be wrong. A very helpful lady at Shearwell told us today that she is aware of a number of farms being penalised due to ARAMS information being incorrect, but the RPA's attitude is that they're always right, hence the need for us to prove our innocence.
2 reasons for posting this: firstly to suggest that anyone who supplies an abattoir directly checks that the information kept by ARAMS is correct, rather than finding out the hard way. Secondly, to ask if anyone else has experienced something similar, and how you dealt with it?