£10k a day bill for overtime amid IT chaos on farm cash
THE SNP’s shambolic handling of a new IT system to administer EU payments to farmers has cost the taxpayer £10,000 a day in overtime payments, figures show.
The sum was racked up in 2015-16 as a crisis escalated that saw thousands of farmers left waiting for their vital cash.
Shortly after May’s election, long-serving Environment Secretary Richard Lochhead quit the SNP frontbench on the day an independent report savaged his handling of the debacle.
Audit Scotland, the public spending watchdog, revealed how he left farmers out of pocket, an IT system over budget and a department at
‘Breakdown of trust’
risk of being fined tens of millions of pounds by the European Commission.
The IT system introduced to administer Commons Agricultural Policy (CAP) payments has seen costs rise to £178million – 75 per cent higher than promised.
The programme is costing around £4million a month and Audit Scotland has warned it could run out of cash before all the problems are fixed.
Mr Lochhead’s successor, Fergus Ewing, has made a humiliating apology to farmers.
New figures released by the Scottish Government show that £3.75million was spent on overtime in 2015-16 – or around £10,000 a day. Another £376,000 was spent between April and July this year, with an overall total since 2011 of £6.4million.
Scottish Liberal Democrat rural affairs spokesman Mike Rumbles said: ‘Farmers were forced to wait for months to receive crucial farm payments while overtime payments spiralled.
‘These figures are staggering and lay bare the cost of this botched IT project.’
Mr Rumbles added: ‘The legacy of this shambles is businesses out of pocket and a breakdown of trust between farmers and the Scottish Government at a time when there is real uncertainty in the sector over Brexit.
‘This is the time that farmers need to have confidence that ministers will work in their best interests. How can the sector trust the SNP to deliver for them now?’
The Scottish Government originally faced penalties of up to £125million if it did not make the payments to farmers by June 30.
But the European Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development, Phil Hogan, has put the deadline back to October 15, calling it an ‘exceptional measure’.
Mr Ewing has insisted it is ‘essential that we learn lessons’ and has vowed to come back to Holyrood ‘to provide an update in the autumn’.
A hotline is being launched to combat the £1.2billion UK food crime problem in the wake of the horse meat scandal.
Food Standards Scotland (FSS) has joined forces with Crimestoppers to create the free Scottish Food Crime Hotline, which people can call anonymously 24 hours a day on 0800 028 7926.
FSS chief executive Geoff Ogle said: ‘The intelligence we receive will be invaluable in advancing our work with Police Scotland and other agencies.’