Chamber and committees

As the member is aware, I recently wrote to him and explained that my officials are already looking carefully at what is possible in terms of improving the position on the issue of payments - including the feasibility of combining, or paying in parallel, the SFPS and LFASS payments. This would need to be done in a way that avoids compromising key payment and delivery targets, and without delaying payments to individual farmers under either scheme.

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-19776 on 28 January 2009. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament''s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/Apps2/Business/PQA/Default.aspx.

Provided the EC''s legislative pre-payment conditions are met, and audit requirements observed, there is no need to discuss with the EC what is essentially an operational issue.

Payments of LFASS 2008 were made into bank accounts from 16 January, some three weeks earlier than last year. Over 11,000 payments worth £52 million, or 85% of the budget, had been made by 26 January.

Steps taken to achieve the issue of these payments included:

Prioritisation of inspection field work and redeployment of resource as appropriate, to ensure that the EC legislative requirement to complete the inspection process before starting LFASS payments, was met as quickly as possible.

Liaison with SFPS (Single Farm Payment Scheme) colleagues to ensure that LFASS development work did not adversely impact on the release of SFPS aid.

Detailed testing of the complex IT systems that underpin LFASS payments, by the dedicated LFASS teams and others.

Continual monitoring of essential changes to the IT processes to ensure that decisions were made and resources allocated appropriately.

In addition, I took a keen personal interest in the issue of the LFASS payments and received regular reports on their progress.

I will be making an announcement about our strategy for LFASS and SFPS (Single Farm Payment Scheme) payments and aim to do so in due course.

Officials are looking at the feasibility of making LFASS and SFPS (Single Farm Payment Scheme) payments at the same time. This is an operational issue, although there is a need to ensure that the different legislative requirements are met. We will seek the advice of key stakeholders once we have identified the risks and benefits of such an approach.

Under the existing legislation there is no legal barrier to making LFASS and SFPS (Single Farm Payment Scheme) payments in the same year. However, they each have eligibility criteria that must be met before payments can issue. This is a legal requirement.

There are eight delivery mechanisms within the Scotland Rural Development Programme, five of which are competitive. The competitive elements are:

Rural Priorities

LEADER

Food Processing, Marketing and Cooperation (FPMC)

Skills Development Scheme

Forestry Challenge Funds.

Some of the delivery mechanisms are funded on a national basis, rather than regionally. LEADER is funded by Local Action Group. In these cases information broken down by Area Office is unavailable.

Rural Priorities

Area Office	August 2008 RPAC	October 2008 RPAC	December 2008 RPAC	Total
Argyll	£745,082.25	£1,403,484.04	£3,323,405.20	£5,471,971.49
Ayrshire	£723,109.30	£556,257.21	£1,713,460.45	£2,992,826.96
Borders	£568,041.60	£1,578,882.67	£3,426,346.36	£5,573,270.63
Clyde	£32,500.00	£297,743.04	£974,715.56	£1,304,958.60
Dumfries and Galloway	£472,073.66	£1,549,456.88	£2,012,061.98	£4,033,592.52
Forth	£96,310.35	£838,961.48	£2,584,213.94	£3,519,485.77
Grampian	£1,548,699.47	£10,357,336.57	£6,226,914.43	£18,132,950.47
Highland	£432,863.56	£2,919,013.72	£3,061,732.42	£6,413,609.70
Northern Isles	£234,226.71	£1,130,605.45	£2,290,355.01	£3,655,217.17
Outer Hebrides	£149,556.90	£64,825.30	£92,060.67	£306,442.87
Tayside	£939,282.55	£1,780,253.69	£3,076,108.49	£5,795,644.73
Total	£5,941,746.35	£22,476,820.05	£28,781,374.50	£57,199,970.90

 

LEADER

The information is provided by Local Action Group. These do not necessarily correspond with established area offices. Any more detailed information as to month or project is currently unavailable.

LAG	Award £ Million
	LEADER	Convergence	Total
Aberdeenshire	3.36		3.36
Argyll and Bute	2.8	5.12	7.92
Ayr	3.38		3.38
Cairngorms	1	1.17	2.17
Dumfries and Galloway	2.85		2.85
East Renfrewshire	0.34		0.34
Fife	1.33		1.33
Forth and Lomond	2.77		2.77
Highland	6.76	7.5	14.26
Kelvin Valley	0.56		0.56
Orkney	0.57	1.54	2.11
Outer Hebrides	0.95	1.98	2.93
Moray	1.44	0.4	1.84
Rural Tayside	2		2
Scottish Borders	2.42		2.42
Shetland	0.65	1.49	2.14
South Lanarkshire	1.47		1.47
Tyne- Esk	2.34		2.34
West Lothian	1.05		1.05
	38.03	19.2	57.24

 

FPMC

This scheme is funded nationally. Two rounds have been announced so far, with one pending

Round/Month	Total Amount of Funding Approved (£ Million)
1/ August 2008	6
2/ November 2008	5.7
3/Pending	1.3
Total	13

 

Skills Development

Information is unavailable broken down by area office in the most part as the majority of approvals are national projects. Where projects are clearly defined as covering a particular geographical area, these have been indicated.

Area Covered	Total Grant Amount	Approval Month
National (Community Woodlands)	£50,000	September 2008
Forth Valley (Stirling Ent.)	£18,450	September 2008
Orkney (NFU)	£10,676	November 2008
Grampian, Tayside and Forth Valley (Lantra)	£47,937	December 2008
National (Soil Assoc.)	£151,645	December 2008
Grampian, Tayside and Dumfries (Lantra)	£45,693	December 2008
National (QMS)	£362,480	January 2009
Total	£686,881

 

Challenge Funds

(1) The Forestry Challenge Funds are administered at a national level (i.e. single Scotland wide judging / selection panel)

(2) There has been a single round of application judging/selection on 7 November 2008.

(3) In the following table the value of awards to specific projects is detailed.

Scheme Name	Project Type	Judges Decision	Total FC Contribution
Tayfield WIAT	WIAT	Approved	£23,258.00
Dedridge Burn	WIAT	Conditional	£55,815.00
Uphall Community Woodland	WIAT	Conditional	£66,022.47
Fife Council (active schools)	F4P	Approved	£9,983.67
Breich Valley Wood	WIAT	Approved	£5,500.00
Castlemilk Environmental Trust	Combined	Approved	£41,943.00
GCC - Dawsholm Phase 2	WIAT	Conditional	£121,200.58
GCC - Darnley & Ward 3	WIAT	Conditional	£22,513.55
GCC - Heathcote Avenue	F4P	Approved	£3,700.00
Drumchapel Woodland Group	F4P	Approved	£11,354.77
NLC - greenlink	F4P	Conditional	£59,039.00
Drumplier Avenue	WIAT	Approved	£30,528.00
Cairnhill Wood	WIAT	Approved	£113,170.00
Mid Lothian Council	WIAT	Approved	£1,725.04
Harmony Wood	WIAT	Approved	£17,270.25
Scottish wildlife Trust	WIAT	Approved	£71,333.50
Scottish Borders Forest School	F4P	Approved	£14,880.00
Cluny Hill, Muiry Wood & Sanquhar Woods	Combined	Conditional	£23,822.80
Sanquhar & New Forres Woodlands	Combined	Conditional	£120,405.00
Aberdeen City Council	WIAT	Approved	£14,681.00
Walktown Huntly	F4P	Conditional	£20,000.00
Duneland Ltd	F4P	Approved	£7,500.00
Raasay house Woodlands	F4P	Approved	£3,468.30
FEI Highland	F4P	Approved	£15,125.00
Total			£874,238.93

 

The Scottish Government has had no discussions with the UK Government or Food Standards Agency on this subject.

However, the Food Standards Agency Scotland has been contributing to on-going discussions with the Association of Public Analysts and other relevant stakeholders on the development of a long term strategy to ensure there is adequate provision of the necessary analytical services for the monitoring of food safety and standards across the UK.

We consider analytical facilities to be an important component in the monitoring of the safety and standards of the public''s food, water and other consumer products. Public analysts are a statutory requirement under the Local Government etc (Scotland) Act 1994 and adequate provision of these services enables local authorities to protect public health and to carry out their statutory responsibilities across a wide range of activities.

There is also recognition by the European Union of the role of such facilities. As central competent authority for food safety and standards, the Food Standards Agency has a UK-wide responsibility under European legislation (Regulation 882/2004 on Official Food and Feed controls) to ensure that there is adequate laboratory capacity for the testing of food; a sufficient number of suitably qualified and experienced staff; and appropriate facilities and equipment to undertake official controls.