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The European Union would not impose financial penalties unless CAP Pillar 1 payments are not made by 30 June 2016. CAP Pillar 2 schemes do not have fixed payment windows and therefore the concept of financial penalties in respect of Pillar 2 does not exist.

The £200 million figure was arrived at by taking account of the % age of funding being paid as first instalments payments and the amount already paid to farmers and crofters.

There have not been any general delays to payments for agricultural sheds under the Crofting Agricultural Grant Scheme. While it is possible that individual cases may have taken longer to process than others, without the specific details of the case or cases you refer to, it is impossible to go into more detail. However, if you can provide additional information, further enquiries can be made.

In the circumstance where a farmer of crofter has not received an illustration of entitlement letter, they should not delay in submitting a 2016 single application form. Rural payments and inspections division officials will take the entitlement allocated in to account when assessing eligibility for 2016. This is the same approach as taken in preceding years where clarification of previous entitlement position is outstanding.

Farmers and crofters who thought the Scottish Government’s, rural payments and inspections division’s assessment of the provisional payment region allocated to any of their land parcels could ask for a review to be carried out. Officials were always will to reconsider the our decision based upon any further written evidence provided by the farmer/crofter, such as details of when grassland was improved or the type of vegetation present. The review process does not include a physical inspection of the land in question. It is a desk based exercise which takes into full account the evidence provided by the farmer/crofter.

As explained in the response to S4W-29412, farmers and crofters who thought the Scottish Government’s, rural payments and Inspections division’s assessment of the provisional payment region allocated to any of their land parcels could ask for a review to be carried out. Officials were always will to reconsider the our decision based upon any further written evidence provided by the farmer/crofter, such as details of when grassland was improved or the type of vegetation present. The review process does not include a physical inspection of the land in question. It is a desk based exercise which takes into full account the evidence provided by the farmer/crofter.

The Scottish Government's contract for the new rural payments and services IT system is with CGI. Spectromax, along with other agencies, is a supplier to CGI and the Scottish Government has not made any direct payments to Spectromax.

All Crofting Agricultural Grant applications, regardless of the type of proposal, are made to the applicants local area office in the first instance and there is therefore no need to notify the area offices of the purpose for an application at a later stage.

A total of 36 additional members of staff have been recruited to area offices to deal with payment issues. We have also recruited 35 additional professional staff members.

There has been no transfer of budget form the Crofting Agricultural Grant Scheme to any other budget.