MSPS grill Ewing over missed payments fiasco

While it was admitted that it now looks almost certain that the Scottish Government will fail to complete the required 95.24 per cent of farm support payments by the end of June deadline, this target will only be missed by “a few percentage points”.

Undergoing another grilling at the hands of the Scottish Parliament’s rural economy and connectivity committee, Cabinet Secretary Fergus Ewing yesterday said that with 15,115 basic and greening payments valued at £311 million – around 82 per cent of 2016’s likely total payments – confirmed as completed by Tuesday night, he expected around 90 per cent to be paid by the tomorrow’s cut-off date.

“And, while the deadline is of great importance for the EU, getting the balance of their payments is probably more important to farmers and we will keep the pressure on with the aim of getting the vast bulk finalised shortly after 30 June and all eligible payments completed by the end of August,” he pledged.

MSPS questioned him on the details of exactly when the Scottish Government had applied to the European Commission for an extension of the payment window until 15 October – and who knew about it – with North-east MSP Peter Chapman claiming several “clear opportunities” had been missed to inform parliament and the farming industry of the move.

Claiming that the application had been a “prudent contingency”, Ewing dismissed the possible £60m of fines mentioned by the parliament’s audit committee which had conducted a review of the IT system’s operations as “speculative”. He said that due to the complicated nature of how fines and disallowances were calculated, there was still no clear indication even of the situation on 2015 payment.

“The audit committee suggested that 2015 fines could be between £45m and £125m – but while we can’t even make anything as strong as an estimate yet, indicative figures would suggest that any fine for that year could be closer to £5m than the figures mentioned.”

Ewing also grasped the morning’s news of further cyber attacks to defend his decision not to release the details of the Fujitsu report conducted into the £180m IT system.

“As the recent plethora of cyber attacks confirm, it would have been foolish of me to release not only the details of the vulnerabilities but even to release details of the systems used which security experts warned me could be used by hackers,” he said.

Asked by committee chairman Edward Mountain if a loan scheme would be required for the 2017 payments, Ewing said that the over-riding aim would be to have the system working fast enough that one wouldn’t be needed, but added: “If that isn’t possible then there will be a loan scheme if one is needed.”

He said that a decision on this would be made soon – and if there was any threat that payments would not be completed within the EU’S time-frame, then another loan scheme would ensure that farmer’s cash flow was not jeopardised.

Speaking later, NFU Scotland’s chief executive, Scott Walker, said farmers were still smarting from not being informed about the extension application at the Highland Show, adding: “Complete trust and confidence in the IT system will only be achieved when the Scottish Government outlines a clear monthly timetable for payment delivery and that timetable is met without exception.”