The Scottish Government was last night unable to provide up-to-date figures on how many farmers and crofters are still waiting for vital Common Agricultural Policy (Cap) subsidy payments.
When asked for a progress update on the number of payments made, government said the most up-to-date data available was information on payments processed or approved as of Wednesday April 6.
A spokeswoman said government officials were still in the process of confirming figures and once calculations were complete new figures would be published today.
The data, which was published on the Rural Payments and Services website a week ago, states that the number of payments “committed to at close of business on April 6” was 12,071.
This represents 67% of the 18,137 eligible applications.
This is an increase of 2% on the week before when 11,750 payments had been approved.
Scottish Government’s handling of farm subsidy payments has come under fire from farmers, crofters and opposition politicians.
Problems with a new IT system to process and administer payments, which is estimated to be costing around £178million to create, have been blamed for payment delays.
In previous years farmers and crofters have received their subsidy monies in December, however thousands are still waiting and those that have been paid have only received partial payment.
To tackle the crisis government launched a £200million cash advance scheme – the National Basic Payments Support Scheme – to administer cash advances to anyone who did not receive their first instsalment of subsidy support by the end of last month.
It is unclear how many farmers, if any, have been paid from the scheme however government said the scheme would ensure all farmers got their first payment in April.
The cash advance scheme was initially welcomed by industry however it quickly came under fire after it emerged farmers would be charged interest on any overpayments through the scheme if the money was not returned within seven days.
To honour its pledge of getting all first instalments out by the end of April, government now has to issue 6,066 payments within the next 14 days.
