Prior to Brexit, the RPA delivered the European Union (EU) Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) payments to farmers and traders in England, paying out over £2 billion in subsidies each year.

It also enforces the European Union's regulations on the class, quality, size and shape of vegetables and fruit sold, by warning and advising businesses, and occasionally prosecuting under section 14 of the Agriculture and Horticulture Act 1964 (c.

The House of Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee published on 18 January 2006 a highly critical interim report[10] 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.

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,[15] announced RPA had paid out more than £1.4 billion to 97,000 farmers by the end of December 2012.