An Audit Scotland report has claimed that the Scottish Government’s disastrous farm payments fiasco won’t be sorted until 2018 “at the earliest.”
Many farmers in Perth and Kinross are still waiting for support payments dating back to 2015 and auditors have warned that “it is likely that the rural payments system will not be functioning as anticipated until 2018 at the earliest.”
The Scottish Government could be in line for EU fines totalling more than £60 million for their handling of the crisis in addition to extra spending to improve and stabilise the system.
From start to finish the Government’s handling of the IT project has been calamitous and Liz Smith has called for Ministers to do more to ensure Perth and Kinross farmers don’t miss out on vital support.
Yesterday new statistics showed that farmers borrowed £32 million more in 2016 to make up for falling income and delayed CAP support.
Commenting Liz Smith MSP said:
“Back in April I highlighted that 60 farmers in Perth and Kinross were still due LFASS CAP payments from 2015 and today’s findings from Audit Scotland highlight how bad things really are.
“Scottish farmers have been shouldering the burden of this Government’s incompetence for far too long and improvements must be made quickly.
“The lack of a disaster recovery solution is alarming. This could be catastrophic if the system was hacked and this was highlighted as a risk a year ago.
“It’s evidence that the SNP simply doesn’t care about rural areas in Perth and Kinross, Fife, Stirling and Clackmannanshire.
“When it should have been sorting this mess out, it was instead obsessing about independence, and rural communities have paid the price.
“It’s time for Ministers to come up with fresh solutions to help farmers across Mid-Scotland and Fife.”