Tories and union demand inquiry into IT system

An inquiry into the processing of the EU farm payments by the £178 million IT system set up to administer them was yesterday demanded by the Scottish Conservatives and NFU Scotland (NFUS).

In the Scottish Parliament, Rural Affairs Secretary Richard Lochhead admitted the situation was “deeply disappointing” and said Ministers would support a future inquiry into what had gone wrong.

Conservative MSP Alex Fergusson accused Mr Lochhead of failing to have a plan B when problems with the IT system first emerged.

He said: “The reality of the failure to have paid the first instalment of the basic payment to the majority of claimants by the end of January, as the Cabinet Secretary had assured the industry would be the case, is a £300 million black hole in the rural economy, which comes against the backdrop of a 15% fall in the 2015 total farm income, which in turn follows an 18% drop in 2014.

“The Cabinet Secretary has successfully bought off the long-term criticism of his grip on the basic payment scheme but the underlying problems that have led to that criticism remain.

“As we now approach the opening of the next single application form window, he needs to make quite certain that this scandalously expensive system is sorted out once and for all or abandoned if necessary.”

Mr Lochhead told MSPs that 59% of the 18,137 eligible claims for basic payments under the scheme had now been paid.