Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government Rural Payments and Services website offers extensive guidance on both these schemes. https://www.ruralpayments.org/publicsite/futures/topics/all-schemes/

Information on both of these schemes can be found on the “Scottish Rural Network” website. https://www.ruralnetwork.scot/funding/scottish-rural-development-programme

Scotland’s Farm Advisory Service provides advice on both these schemes https://www.fas.scot/

Up to date information on all rural matters can also be found on the Scottish Government RPID Twitter and Facebook accounts. https://twitter.com/RuralMattersSG

https://en-gb.facebook.com/RuralMattersScotland/

Allied to this, both schemes are discussed at the Crofting Stakeholder Forum, Cross Party Group on Crofting, and during external engagements involving crofting officials.

The Scottish Government has taken a strategic approach to maintaining and protecting the SRDP 2014-2020 budget, ensuring that we maximise the EU funds. The Scottish Government had no choice but to makes changes to the budget due to the expectation that Scotland’s overall discretionary budget, as set by the UK Government, is expected to be 9.2% lower in real terms in 2019-20, compared to 2010-11.

The Scottish Government remains committed to building growth all across rural Scotland.

The annual indicative budget for the Crofting Agricultural Grant Scheme has not been reduced, and remains at £2m per annum. The reduced Programme budget is due to the lower than forecasted uptake from earlier years in the programme.

Similarly, the Small Farms Grant Scheme budget remains at a level which will continue to meet the demands of the scheme.

We will continue to monitor scheme performance and demand, along with the impact of future Spending Reviews, to ensure that the SRDP continues to deliver.

The published budget for the Scottish Government covers 2017-18. There are currently no budgets beyond this. The changes to the SRDP budgets up to 2020 are indicative forecasts to ensure that the EU funds are maximised under the Scottish Rural Development Programme. The Scottish Government had no choice but to amend the SRDP budgets, due to the expectation that Scotland’s overall discretionary budget is expected to be 9.2% lower in real terms in 2019-20 compared to 2010-11.

This has been compounded by the failure of the UK Government to transfer
£160 million of CAP convergence funding which rightly belongs to Scottish farmers and crofters, despite repeated requests to do so, and cross party support from the Scottish Parliament.

The annual indicative budget for the Crofting Agricultural Grant Scheme has not been reduced, and the indicative budget for the Small Farms Grant Scheme remains at a level which will meet the demands of the scheme.

Crofting Agricultural Grant Scheme:

2015 – 478 applications – 228 approved – 24 rejected.

2016 – 700 applications – 614 approved – 48 rejected.

2017 (to 31 August) – 559 applications – 461 approved – 56 rejected – 102 being processed.

The reason that the numbers approved, rejected and being processed in 2017 exceed the number received, is due to a number of the approved applications having been originally received in 2016.

Small Farms Grant Scheme:

2015 – 38 applications – 3 approved - 9 rejected.

2016 – 23 applications – 19 approved - 1 rejected.

2017 (to 31 August) – 13 applications – 7 approved – 4 rejected.

In respect of both schemes, applications are also returned, seeking additional information, and withdrawn by the applicant. There is no right of appeal for rejected applications as applicants are free to submit applications at any time.

The average cost per capita for Foundation Apprenticeships (FA) is £3,424 per person over the 2016-18 duration which is made up FA Framework delivery costs and participant travel costs associated with the delivery of the Foundation Apprenticeship (FA) programme.

As with Modern Apprenticeships, the total cost of delivery per person will vary by Foundation Apprenticeship framework. For example, £2,296 over 2 years for Accounting or Financial Services to £5,103 over 2 years for Engineering. The individual FA framework delivery costs are published on Public Contracts Scotland and provide the basis for contracting with all lead providers.

For 2016 -18 FA delivery contracts there were a total of 354 starts registered by end of September 2016.

The Scottish Government allocates funding to Skills Development Scotland on an annual basis for delivery of training programmes and other activities, including the Employability Fund. In the Budget Bill 2017-18 Skills Development Scotland was allocated Grant in Aid of £179.1 million which will be used to meet its commitments in 2017-18 including the delivery of 9,000 Employability Fund training places.

It is difficult to aggregate a total overall breakdown of spend on Employability Fund since its introduction as liabilities are carried forward from one year to the next and that spend has been split across both Skills Development Scotland and the college sector

Since the launch of the Employability Fund in 2013 until the end of the last contracted year, March 2017, there have been over 63,000 training places delivered.

The Fund provides the flexibility for an employer operating in more than one region to submit their application to the college of their choice.

The Flexible Workforce Development Fund is designed to be responsive to the needs of levy-paying employers in Scotland. An employer is required to demonstrate their eligibility to pay the UK Government Apprenticeship Levy in order to access the Fund. A successful application will be required to identify the skills gaps the employer aims to address and how the funded activity will contribute to increased productivity.

The Scottish Government, working in partnership with the Scottish Funding Council, will commission an independent evaluation of the Fund.

As stated in the Fund guidance, employers have the right to appeal a decision made by the college on their application for training. Appeals should be made to the Scottish Funding Council.