Scottish Government was left red-faced this week after it emerged another mistake had been made while issuing farm subsidy payments.
An unknown number of farmers and crofters have been overpaid through the government’s £300million cash advance loan scheme.
The scheme, which sets out to pay producers 80% of their eligible Basic Payment Scheme and greening payments, paid out just under £246million to almost 12,000 farmers and crofters during the first week of November.
It follows a similar £200million scheme launched in spring days before a farmer rally outside Holyrood over late subsidy payments.
Both loan schemes were created after the government’s new £178million farm payments IT system buckled under pressure and struggled to process subsidy applications.
It has now emerged some farmers have been overpaid and government is currently trying to get the money back from them.
The issue was brought to light by agri-consultancy firm Seed and Co.
In a statement on its website, the company said: “It would appear that the payments team have incorrectly applied the exchange rate to some applicants, calculating that they should receive more Sterling than Euros. This has in come cases resulted in significant overpayments.
“Claimants are being told by a telephone call, and informed that an invoice will be issued shortly (six days later for many, no invoice) after which, these claimants will only have seven days to repay the money, or interest will be applied. For those who may have allocated it to pay bills, or are simply away at this quieter time of year, this short demand for a Scottish Government error is completely unacceptable.”
NFU Scotland said the blunder had undermined some of the goodwill built up by the timely delivery of the loan scheme.
The union’s director of policy, Jonnie Hall, said: “Confidence that support delivery systems will ever being fit for purpose have also been dealt another blow.
“We all make mistakes, but it is worth reminding Scottish Government that when farmers and crofters make that sort of simple unintentional mistake, it is taken as final and penalties normally follow. When the Scottish Government make such errors, they simply ask for the money back. A more proportionate approach to unintentional errors for all involved in support schemes is long overdue.”
A Government spokesman confirmed the mistake and said an “administrative error” had resulted in an overpayment of the 2016 basic payment loan to a “very small number of farmers”.
He said: “We are contacting those affected to let them know and we will ask for this money to be re-paid, as it is an administrative error the policy is not to charge interest. Steps have been taken to rectify the cause of this error, which is not related to the IT system, and minimise the risk of it happening again.”
