Auditor sent fresh evidence on Futures

Most people have not been paid, and those yet to receive a payment still do not know when it will arrive.

ALLAN BOWIE

The Auditor General for Scotland has been sent fresh evidence of the failure of the Government’s £178 million IT programme to pay support to farmers, writes Nancy Nicolson.

Almost 10,000 Scottish farmers and crofters have yet to receive any of the support available to them under new CAP schemes, and less than a quarter of Scotland’s £400m budget for the basic scheme has been delivered into the rural economy. That is creating a cash-flow crisis hitting many rural businesses.

NFU Scotland president Allan Bowie yesterday supplied updated evidence as the Auditor General prepared to report on progress to the Scottish Parliament’s Public Audit Committee.

“The Futures Programme has failed to deliver on any considered satisfactory measure,” he said.

“The Auditor General and the Scottish Parliament’s Public Audit Committee need to look at what has gone wrong, and where the money has been wasted.

“Applicants’ experience with their electronic submission of 2015 SAFs was dreadful, which saw deadlines having to be extended, and the eventual delivery of payments has been horrendous.

“In the past, virtually all farmers would have received support payments by now and this money would be circulating in the wider rural economy.

“But even now, as we approach March, most people have not been paid and those yet to receive a payment still do not know when it will arrive.

“With many more payments still due this year, the industry has little confidence that the system which has been put in place will deliver.”

The Auditor General has previously acknowledged the Futures Programme – an IT-enabled change programme installed to implement CAP reforms in Scotland – is costing significantly more and taking longer to implement than planned.

In her last report to the Scottish Parliament’s Public Audit Committee, she said that capital spending on the programme in 2014-15 was £50m, £32m more than budgeted, and the total forecast cost of the programme is now £178m – 74% above the amount included in the original business case.

The largest element of spend relates to the IT delivery partner. At a cost of £45m in 2014-15, this is more than twice the amount forecast.

The union has also written recently to the Scottish Parliament’s Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee about the impact that support payment failures are having on farming and crofting businesses as well as the wider rural economy.

That correspondence was also copied to the Public Audit Committee.