Question reference: S5W-00554
- Asked by: Rhoda Grant, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
- Date lodged: 9 June 2016
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Current status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 21 June 2016
Question
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will list those circumstances in which grants paid to grazing committees from public funds for agricultural and environmental schemes should be distributed in the first instance to individual shareholders, and what safeguards there are to ensure that public funds allocated in this way are used for the intended purposes.
Answer
Common grazings regulations, which are individual to a specific common grazing, may include provisions on the disbursement of funds. Generally, common grazings regulations are made by the grazings committees themselves and are confirmed, with or without modifications, by the crofting commission.
The crofters (Scotland) Act 1993 does not require the immediate disbursement of funds by a grazings committee.
As regards to the specific safeguards in place, this would depend on the type of funding involved. For Scottish Government administered schemes such as the Agri-Environment Climate Scheme, there are a number of safeguards in place in terms of administrative and inspection checks.
The Scottish Government carries out a range of administrative checks that funding from our support schemes is being used correctly. These checks are in addition to those that are made when an application is submitted and assessed. Some cases may also be subject to further detailed inspection checks.
More information on administrative and inspection checks is available on the rural payments website: https://www.ruralpayments.org