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

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.

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.

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.

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.