A clash of personalities and ‘childish’ behaviour has been blamed for the failure of the digital Farm Payments System whcih has left Britain facing fines of up to £180m.

A report by the National Audit Office (NAO) accuses a prominent figure of exercising ‘power without responsibility and that the people running the project engaged in ‘dysfunctional and inappropriate behaviour. The report also says that there were ‘deep and persistent personal rifts’ among staff.

Meg Hillier, chair of the Public Accounts Committee hearing, which was held on December 9, said she found the report disturbing.

Mark Grimshaw, chief executive of the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) and Liam Maxwell, Chief Technology officer at the Government Digital Service (GDS) were singled out as being at fault and their behaviour highlighted as ‘frankly childish’

During the hearing Amyas Morse, Comptroller and Auditor General of NAO, stepped in during Maxwell’s testimony, to tell the two men to take the report more seriously. He said, ‘We very rarely indeed write reports that relate to personal behaviour like this.’

The digital service was set up as a way for farmers to apply for payments under the EU Common Agricultural Policy but since its inception it has been beset with problems.

The payment service is run by the GDS, RPA, Defra and went live in 2014, despite failing its readiness assessment. Problems in March 2015 led to it being halted and a return to paper applications. The NAO report said that costs had gone 40 per over the original budget and had increased from £154m to £215m.

Latest figures show that by December 1 the RPA had paid 39 per cent of farmers who had made a claim.