Catalogue description Records of the Intervention Board for Agricultural Produce, and its successor agencies

Intervention Board for Agricultural Produce

The Intervention Board for Agricultural Produce was established under the European Communities Act, 1972 (s.6).

It is responsible to the Ministers of Agriculture for the administration in the United Kingdom of the various grants and subsidies available to farmers and growers under the European Union's market regulation and production support arrangements of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). This is the European Union legislation which regulates markets in foodstuffs, and in the United Kingdom the Intervention Board works in close co-operation with the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, the Welsh, Scottish and Northern Ireland Departments of Agriculture and HM Customs and Excise.

Some schemes are administered directly by the Board, which is also responsible for funding and accounting those schemes administered by the Agriculture Departments. The work of implementing CAP measures involves the issuing and monitoring of foodstuff import and export licences; the payment of export refunds when applicable; the intervention purchase, storage and sale of beef, butter, skimmed milk powder, cereals and other products as appropriate; and the provision of support for the production, processing and consumption of a range of agricultural products; and the administration of milk quotas.

Initially, the Board's work was distributed between a secretariat, which supported both the Board and also the United Kingdom Seeds Executive (a statutory committee of the Board with responsibility for the United Kingdom's obligations under the EEC's seeds regime from 1973 to 1991); a Commodity Division which handled buying, storage and sale of foodstuffs, food aid matters and the consumer subsidy on butter; an Import and Export Division which dealt with licences, the payment of trade refunds and the collection of export levies; and an Establishment and Finance Division providing accounting facilities for the various schemes and general common services. The same basic functions have been carried out by a succession of divisional arrangements to this day. The Board's headquarters were in London (later Reading), but there were national offices in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, and there was also a regional organisation of verification teams who monitored compliance with scheme regulations by farmers and traders. The national offices closed in 1984 (Wales and Northern Ireland) and 1990 (Scotland).

The Board became an executive agency (known as the Intervention Board) of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food in 1990.

Rural Payments Agency

On 16 October 2001, the Board merged with the Defra Paying Agency to establish the Rural Payments Agency (the RPA), which is an Executive Agency of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). As an accredited paying agency under European Commission regulations, the RPA makes support payments to farmers in England and to traders throughout the United Kingdom (UK). The RPA manages reimbursement submissions to the European Commission on behalf of Natural England in respect of rural development and on behalf of the Forestry Commission. The RPA provides a range of services in support of Defra's objectives of encouraging a thriving farming and food sector and strong rural communities, and also manages a wide range of Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) schemes, including the Single Payment Scheme.