Current status: Answered by Jim Fairlie on 2 December 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to improve processing times for agricultural support payments.
Streamlining and process improvements have been made across a wide range of activities including application assessments, inspections, land maintenance records, and performance monitoring. These processing improvements allow us to continue to make payments at the earliest opportunity, for example commencing Basic Payment Scheme and Greening advance payments in September and achieving the majority of payments in the autumn, well in advance of the 30 June payment window closing in the following year. For example in 2025, by 30 November, we processed and issued payments to 98.04% of eligible businesses totalling 96.63% by value of the total BPS, Greening and Young Farmer Payment value due. In addition we have processed applications for the first LFASS 2025 payment run in early December 2025 to a total of 96.60% of businesses and 95.17% of the total scheme value due.
Issuing payments at the earliest opportunity for each scheme has been a feature of our payment service over recent years. We will continue to review how we administer payments to enhance customer experience and to meet delivery of our regulatory targets and payment strategy timetable, of which both are on course to be met again this year. Consistent delivery of payments aligned to the payment strategy provides farmers and crofters with financial stability and some assurance over cash flow.