War of words over report into IT system failings

MSPs have clashed with Rural Economy Secretary Fergus Ewing over a “highly-critical” report into the troubled IT system set up to deliver farming payments.

In an often fractious meeting, members of Holyrood’s Rural Economy Committee pressed Mr Ewing on a confidential review of the £178 million system for making European Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) payments.

Committee members were provided with the executive summary of the independent review of the system, which has been beset by delays and increasing costs, with some payments from 2015 still outstanding.

However, MSPs were not provided with the full report carried out by Fujitsu, were told the document could not be made public and were unable to quote its contents during the meeting.

Convener Edward Mountain said the situation was “unacceptable”, adding he felt the caveats “limit our ability to question the Cabinet Secretary and his team”.

Liberal Democrat MSP Mike Rumbles described the report’s findings as “devastating” while Tory member Jamie Greene said it was an “absolutely damning indictment” of the IT system.

Fellow Conservative MSP Peter Chapman said: “No matter how he tries to spin it, this is a highly-critical report and it is obvious to the most casual observer that this system is a long way off being fit for purpose and needs a lot of work, and needs quite a bit of money to get anywhere near to being compliant.”

The committee was told the report was still in draft form and contained commercially-sensitive information as well as information about vulnerabilities in the system that could leave it open to cyber attack.

Mr Ewing said he would have preferred to provide a complete report but could not do so, and argued the summary shared the main conclusions.

He said: “The report finds the architecture is fundamentally sound but also states that the components are fundamentally sound and it does not recommend that the system be replaced.

“I accept, of course, there are matters that require to be remediated, of course there are, if there weren’t we wouldn’t be having the difficulties that we’re having.

“But bear in mind this report was commissioned by us from a firm of independent experts in the industry to ascertain whether or not we did require to think again with an entirely new approach. It was entirely independent and their fundamental conclusion is that ‘yes, the system is sound but a lot of remediation work is required’.”

Mr Ewing insisted he had confidence in IT contractor CGI, which was making “significant progress” on the system.