Scotland Rural Development Programme
Agenda item 5 is an update on the work that has been done on the Scotland rural development programme’s effectiveness and consideration of how the committee wishes to proceed. I refer members to paper RACCE/S4/11/10/4, which is before them. Does anyone have comments? The discussions are complex and have been added to by the answers from both ministers in previous evidence sessions.
I will kick off. We know that there are several measures of the SRDP’s effectiveness. Members have been concerned about whether its administration is bureaucratic and whether it can be honed. The Government has told us that, following the Cook review, the mid-term review and evidence that is being taken on the SRDP’s environmental aspects, we will not have full answers on some matters until 2014.
We want to assess how the committee will keep a handle on the programme. Should we follow the suggestion on page 2 of paper 4 of having a report each year on
“details of expenditure ... the numbers of successful, partially successful, and unsuccessful applications ... details of any known problems in terms of delays in applicants receiving funding and any other inefficiencies; and ... what steps have been taken to reduce any such inefficiency”?
Is that the way ahead?
Knowing
“the numbers of successful, partially successful, and unsuccessful applications”
is important. However, I know—I suppose that I should declare an interest—of many people who are put off even thinking of applying. I do not know whether we could expand that point to include the number of potential participants who are put off—that information would be difficult to get. [Interruption.]
We are still in a formal setting, so I will take members in turn.
Jim Hume proposes adding to the suggestion. How would we do that?
I understand where Jim Hume is coming from. The concern is that people think that applying will be bureaucratic, will take so long and will be difficult. I do not know exactly how we gauge a negative—how we estimate the number of people who have been put off applying.
The aim is perhaps more to ascertain what steps have been taken to communicate how the process works in particular areas. That would be in conjunction with asking what steps have been taken to improve processes. Something like a communication report on what the Scottish Government is doing to spread out the programme as far as possible across Scotland might be the way forward.
I wanted to make the point that Annabelle Ewing just made: it is a bit difficult to work out who might have been put off. Is there some way of collecting that data?
Is it possible to find a means of furnishing us with a better understanding of why there are these difficulties? We all know about the difficulties that arise, but from the other side of the fence—the administrative side—why do stakeholders have such terrible problems as they go through the process? I do not know whether the Scottish Parliament information centre could produce a briefing for us. It would be helpful to have something that allows us to see both sides of the argument.
I call Alex Fergusson, to be followed by Jenny Marra.
I think—
Okay. We have covered your point.
Sorry?
Sorry, I thought that you were finished.
No. I had not even started, convener. I obviously was not quick enough.
Jim Hume made an important and relevant point. I suspect that it is almost impossible to identify how many people have been put off applying.
On Graeme Dey’s point, the problem is the sheer complexity of the process, particularly for very small farmers. It is those who are not particularly information technology-cognisant who have a real problem. The result is that most people who apply successfully do so by taking on professionals to help them with the application process. That obviously has a cost implication. It is one of the real sticking points in the whole bureaucratic application process.
I am sure that the cabinet secretary has taken this point on board, but regular updates of how the process is being simplified—or whether it can be—would be very useful for the committee’s future deliberations.
Yes, indeed.
I understand the point that Annabelle Ewing and Alex Fergusson made. Might a solution be to seek information on the number of people who request information about SRDP funding in order to make an application? If the process is web based, perhaps that approach would be less scientific than asking about the number of people who request information on paper. We could ask about the number of people who hit through to the applications sites. That might be one way of trying to ascertain the information that we seek.
Jenny Marra has suggested one approach. If we make the point, though, it is up to the minister to come back to us to say, “We haven’t a clue, but we know that that’s an issue,” or, “Here are some of the facts and figures that we have about people who have shown an interest but decided not to apply.”
Jenny Marra’s point is a fair one, except that people might request the information—even in hard copy—and then decide not to go ahead, without that decision having anything to do with alarm about bureaucracy. It might have nothing to do with action or inaction that the Scottish Government has taken; the individual might just decide for whatever reason that they do not want to make an application.
If there are problems in the process, the key thing is to ensure that we as a committee do what we can to scrutinise the remedying of them and that the Scottish Government communicates the fact that any problems have been remedied so that it is a more attractive option for people to pursue.
Thank you. There is a process issue here. It would be useful to have a session with some of the officials in the department who are handling these things. I certainly raised the issue at the end of an evidence session with the cabinet secretary about the difficulties with certain schemes. I can assure you that once you start to hear the officials’ point of view, you get a much more balanced understanding of what is going on.
There is also the aspect of how we deal with these matters at the moment. First, we are dealing with the SRDP through the budget. The budget process is an annual one, and it is possible for us to raise these things with ministers during their evidence on the budget. Does the committee want to do more than that in each year to get a handle on the process issues by doing what is outlined in paragraph 13 of our paper? That suggestion was slightly augmented by Jim Hume’s suggestion. If the committee agrees to that, we will need to have a lead-up session and some explanation of how the process works before we speak to ministers in the budget process.
The second point is that with the new common agricultural policy, we will be looking at how the SRDP will be organised in future. It is important that we find ways to include that in our future work programme and our scrutiny of the CAP in the next few weeks and months.
Is that the way forward? Are we fairly clear about that?
Members indicated agreement.
Thank you. We will move into private, as agreed under agenda item 1. I thank those in the public gallery for attending. The next meeting will be on 16 November 2011.
12:45
Meeting continued in private until 13:17.