Outrage as £650k for ‘urgent’ green projects goes on pay rises
IT was supposed to be used to help farmers conserve and protect Scottish wildlife such as the honey bee.
But £650,000 of taxpayers’ cash for ‘urgent’ green farming projects has instead gone towards funding pay rises for quango staff.
A report has revealed more than £950,000 of last year’s budget for Farming With Nature (FWN) – run by the Scottish Government’s wildlife agency NatureScot – was not spent, because of ministerial ‘delays’.
However, the quango was given permission by the Scottish Government to use £650,000 of the underspend to boost employees’ salaries.
Last night Scottish Conservative rural affairs spokesman Rachael Hamilton said: ‘Farmers will be astonished. Crucial funding they were relying on has instead made its way into the pockets of staff at an SNP quango.’
The Farming With Nature scheme aims to promote a return to traditional methods of agriculture, with many food manufacturers and scientists encouraging farmers to implement more sustainable practices.
These include growing cover crops, creating wildlife habitats to boost natural insect predators and pollinators; using cattle to graze and fertilise fields, and planting trees to help soil retain water and carbon.
Vulnerable species such as the honey bee, shrew and lapwing would receive a new lease of life. However, persuading farmers to take on the short-term cost of converting their land is still in its infancy.
The Scottish Government and NatureScot have been running pilot schemes to ‘respond to the urgent need for transformative land use change to… reach net zero by 2045’.
However, now it has emerged that much of the NatureScot budget to support farmers instead subsidised a pay rise for staff, as ministers struggled to find the cash to meet public sector wage demands.
A NatureScot spokesman said: ‘We are aligning our approach with the overall work on an Agricultural Reform Programme.’
Last night Rural Affairs Secretary Mairi Gougeon admitted that government delays had prevented the quango from spending all of its FWN budget. She said: ‘We want to make sure all allocated rural funding is spent, particularly when it is for new and innovative activity that will help us address climate change and test more sustainable farming practices.
‘We will learn from this and change our approach if necessary.’