The latest Audit Scotland report into the Scottish Government’s troubled farm payments IT system will come as no surprise to farmers and crofters.
Everyone who has dealt with the system, or who has been left waiting months for vital payments, knows fine well that it isn’t fit for purpose.
And news the system is unlikely to be fully functional until 2018 at the earliest leaves everyone in the rural community frustrated and fed up.
How many damning reports need to be published before the Scottish Government takes action?
Why has the Government not held a full enquiry to find out what went wrong and to ensure lessons are learnt?
And why is Government so reluctant to publish in full a study it conducted itself into the state of the system?
Although improvements have been made, Scottish farmers and crofters want someone to be held to account for this fiasco.
Loans are no substitute for the certainty of proper payments.
If farmers are late with their applications or make errors with their paperwork they are held to account – why doesn’t the same apply to Government?
Thousands of rural businesses have suffered financially as a result of this mess, leading to huge emotional strain on producers across the country.
I urge every farmer and crofter to write to their MSP and to Rural Economy Secretary Fergus Ewing to demand a full enquiry.
This cannot be allowed to happen again.
