Scottish Government was last night unable to confirm when farmers and crofters will receive their final batch of 2015 subsidy payments.
A spokeswoman said that as of yesterday almost 80% of all eligible claimants had received their first instalments, while more than 5,100 producers had been given their first batch of monies through the government’s cash advance scheme.
She was unable to provide an exact date for when final instalments would be made, but said: “The Scottish Government is doing everything in its power to make as many farm payments to eligible farmers and crofters as quickly as possible within the EU payment window which runs until June 30”.
Providing an update on applications for this year’s scheme, which had its deadline extended earlier this week to June 15, the spokeswoman said: “Our online application system is working well for the majority of farmers, and we continue to urge farmers and crofters to submit their 2016 Single Application Forms (SAF) as soon as they can. As of Thursday May 12, we have received 11,277 SAFs – 2,495 paper and 8,782 online – which is over 50% of the expected total.”
Government’s handling of farm subsidy payments has been in the spotlight with the Liberal Democrats this week demanding that farm minister Richard Lochhead is not re-appointed to his ministerial post.
In previous years the majority of producers have received their direct subsidy support payments in December, however problems with a new £178million IT system to handle farm payments has resulted in lengthy delays.
