Chamber and committees

Staff across Rural Payments and Inspections Division area offices have received face to face training, e-learning and desktop guidance to support the launch of the new rural payments and services system in December 2014.

They have also had access to on the job coaching on the system from line managers and trainers to support the processing of applications.

Staff are now able to access online the most up to date training, guidance and communications from one place making it easier to find the information they need when dealing with customer applications.

The Futures project spend to 31 March 2016 is £131 million, of which IT spend is approximately £98,250,000 and non IT spend is £32,750,000. The outstanding spend is estimated at £46.8 million over the remaining year of the project.

The total expected cost remains at approximately £178 million, in line with the latest business case.

The increase from the original estimated cost has been driven almost exclusively by additional IT costs, in addition, the requirements of the system were not fully known when initial estimates were prepared as subsequent delays in European Commission clarification of requirements and significant additional CAP complexity changed the complexity of the IT programme by orders of magnitude.

In the period 15 March 2015 to 31 January 2016 Rural Payments and Inspections Division area offices worked a total of 15,901 hours. The total cost of the extra hours worked amounts to £266,912.00. Overtime will continue to be available to staff until all 2015 payments have been finalised.

In any new IT system there can be unforeseen IT issues which need to be fixed. Although system integration and user acceptance testing takes place before go live the nature of the CAP system is such that it is not possible to use extensive testing in a live environment.

As the issues cannot be foreseen we cannot say what they are, and it would not be prudent to make assumptions around what they are.

As with the introduction of any new IT system, there is a robust process to manage, prioritise and resolve any system issues as quickly as possible.

The new policy is highly complex with two old schemes replaced by six new schemes in Pillar One and the move to three payment regions, a decision taken jointly with the industry. In addition there was limited time available between the agreement of the new CAP by the EU and the need for a system to be developed and implemented to deliver this complex policy and associated payments to farmers. The payment window runs from December to June, with the vast majority of payments made in early December during a routine year.

The desire was to make as many payments as early in the payment window as possible, set against the complexities of the implementation. This was informed by the planned delivery dates for key enabling IT functionality to process applications and associated payments, together with estimates on the processing capacity of Rural Payments and Inspections Division area offices. 40% of payments were made by the end of January 2016. The estimate was based and continues to be based on advice from the delivery team.

The new policy is highly complex with two old schemes replaced by six new schemes in Pillar One. The decision to move to three payment regions was a decision that was taken jointly with industry. Following a consultation exercise, in which Scottish Government originally proposed a two region approach, government and industry both felt it important to focus on meeting Scotland’s needs in full knowledge that it would make delivery more challenging, including moving to three payment regions and initiating new rules to prevent paying inactive farmers. We knew that there was a high risk to the payment timetable due to the move away from historic payments. During the negotiations with the National Farmers’ Union and other stakeholders, we jointly decided to be outcome focused, even though that may have an impact on timing.

Presently I am unable to provide this information as not all payments have been made as single applications forms are still being processed.

The total payments made at 2 March 2016 is 9,755 (54%), as reported to the Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee and industry stakeholders.

The Scottish Government undertook extensive consultation with stakeholders during the policy development phase of the new CAP. The decision to adopt a three region model was taken in June 2014 and answered to Parliament.

The Futures Programme which includes the new IT system began in 2012. The Scottish Government made it clear that the absence of EU and domestic policy decisions at the start of the IT programme was one of the difficulties.

The Futures Programme team were kept in constant touch with the policy development process.

The new CAP reform policy in England in 2005 saw similar changes to those being undertaken in Scotland in 2015 Basic Payments. In 2005 England moved to payment regions with different payment rates.

In England in 2005, 120,000 applications were received against a projection of 80,000. Industry promised payments would happen in February 2006 but only 2,400 payments were actually made. By March, only 4,500 payments were made. By April 2006, 56,400 payments were made (24% of claim value).

As a result of the serious problems experienced, contingent liabilities were established to cover disallowance in 2005-06 of £13 million and £305 million in 2006-07.

The Rural Payments and Inspections Division customer helpline has answered the following calls from 4 December 2015 to 11 February 2016:

The customer helpline opening hours are from 08:30am to 16:30pm Monday to Thursday and until 16:00pm on a Friday. If the lines are busy, customers are able to leave a message to receive a call-back and have their enquiry handled.