Official Report · Chamber
Portfolio Question Time Rural Affairs, Land Reform and Islands
I remind the chamber of my entry in the register of members’ interests, which states that I am a partner of a small family farm in Morayshire and that, as such, I am entitled to grants for the farming enterprise.
To ask the Scottish Government what percentage of payments under the basic payment scheme had been made to farmers by 15 October 2024. (S6O-03884)
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My answer will go some way towards giving further clarity to Sandesh Gulhane, too.
As of 15 October 2024, 76 per cent of the overall value of the basic payment scheme had been paid out, with 83 per cent of the total number of eligible businesses having received payment.
I am slightly concerned that a disastrous and expensive computer system that was installed to distribute the basic farm payment scheme has caused the delays that we have seen. Can the minister confirm whether that is the case? If that is not the case, were any delays caused by software issues?
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We are delivering in line with our payment strategy. I fully understand the premise of Edward Mountain’s question, given some of the issues that we have had historically, but there was a planned pause in the payment-run processing from 12 September to 2 October 2024 to allow the Scottish Government to incorporate wide upgrades to the Oracle cloud.
The basic payment scheme and greening advance payment runs started again on 2 October, and all claims that progressed to ready-for-payment status during the pause were processed by 15 October. The normal payment run is progressing and payments resume from this point onwards.
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It is vital that we press ahead with work to ensure that we are giving farmers and crofters the support that they need. Can the minister say any more about the total funding that has been provided to support farmers through the basic payment scheme this year?
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It is fair to say that the Scottish Government absolutely recognises the importance of that support to farmers and crofters. As I said, at 4 November 2024 more than £367 million-worth of payments had been processed. That means that 87 per cent of the overall value of the basic payment scheme has been paid out, with 92 per cent of the total number of eligible businesses receiving a payment.
Last month, I wrote to the cabinet secretary on behalf of a Moray farmer who normally gets his basic payment in September and has still not received it. Would it be possible to get a response from the cabinet secretary?
On the point that we have heard about information technology, that farmer has also been told by the department in Inverness that the software upgrade is going to delay future payments. He describes this as
“a pretty stupid time to do an upgrade, and it must be a pretty slow one at that”.
Does the minister agree?
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The upgrade happened across the entire Scottish Government: it was not just to do with the system for rural payments.
As I said in my previous answer, the payment system is back on track. We will have completed the process well before the deadline of June 2025, and I hope that that gives farmers confidence that the payments are coming.
Question 5 has been withdrawn, and question 6 was not lodged.
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