farmers. A National Audit Office report published in October 2006, highlighted the key issues. The House of Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee published on 18 January 2006 a highly critical interim report into the agency's IT systems and activity. On 15 March 2006 the Chief Executive Johnson McNeil was sacked when a deadline of 14 February for calculating Single Payment Scheme entitlements was missed. Further, on 12 June 2006 the RPA confirmed that an internal inquiry was under way into "outrageous behaviour" in the agency office in Newcastle. Following a series of senior management changes during the mid to late 2000s, Mark Grimshaw took over as Chief Executive in January 2011 and established a new Executive leadership team. The agency published a new Five Year Plan] in February 2012. For the 2011 Single Payment Scheme, RPA recorded its best ever performance, paying more than 95% of the 2011 fund to 96% of claimants by the first week of March 2012. The agency further continued to improve its performance and in his speech to the Oxford Farming Conference on 3 January 2013, Environment Secretary Owen Paterson, announced RPA had paid out more than £1.4 billion to 97,000 farmers by the end of December 2012. It actually achieved its target for December 2012 on the first banking day of the month. The Single Payment Scheme was replaced with the Basic Payment Scheme in 2015. Offices RPA has six main offices which are all located in England. The head office is in Reading, and its other major offices are in Carlisle, Exeter, Newcastle upon Tyne, York and Workington. References External links Official website 2001 establishments in the United Kingdom Agricultural organisations based in the United Kingdom Executive agencies of the United Kingdom government Government agencies established in 2001 Organisations based in Reading, Berkshire Rural society in the United Kingdom