Holyrood under attack for support payments record

A former NFUS president has this week launched a stinging attack on the Scottish Government and what he said was its woeful record on farm support payments.

Jim Walker who is renowned for his forthright views described the malfunctioning computer as “the biggest IT scandal in the public sector in Scotland’s history.”

He claimed that sources close to Scot Gov now estimate the cost of installing the faulty computer as nearer £250 million than £200 million.

The trigger for his ire was a statement from the Scottish Government late last month indicating that farm support payments were now flowing into farmers’ bank accounts.

He described that statement as the final straw because it was utterly false with many farmers still waiting for a lot more than 10% of their Basic Payment Scheme (BPS). Meanwhile, he said, farm bills in this late and difficult spring had kept mounting.

The net result for many farmers in that situation was what Walker described as a “liquidity time bomb waiting to explode.”

He believed the full seriousness of the situation

0 The Beast from the East resulted in extra costs wasnotbeingseenbecause many industries allied to farming were cushioning the financial hardship.

“Banks, feed suppliers, seed merchants, fertiliser suppliers, auction marts, cattle dealers, agricultural contractors, machinery dealers in fact the whole rural supply chain are currently carrying the additional costs associated with rain, hail sleet and the Beast from the East that’s lasted since August 2017.”

Walker attacked the lack of progress in sorting the computer out following its installation saying most of the information supplied by farmers had been given months ago.

“Why has this time not been spent preparing the information for this useless IT system to upload it to allow payments to be issued on time? Especially when the industry and the wider Scottish economy could do with the liquidity?”

Answering his own question, Walker said there could only be two possible answers.

“They (the government) either does not care despite the hardship quietly festering under the radar on farms across Scotland or they aren’t up to the job and are totally incompetent. Enough is enough it is time to call a halt to this pantomime.”

Rejecting Walker’s point of view, Rural Secretary Fergus Ewing said the IT system was working and was supporting the processing and payment of claims.