I remind members of my entry in the register of members’ interests as a partner in a farming business that applied to the future farming investment scheme, and as a member of NFU Scotland.

To ask the Scottish Government how decisions on the award of offers of grants for the future farming investment scheme were made. (S6T-02727)

The FFIS was co-designed with the industry and prioritised a number of businesses and business types. As with any support scheme, applications were assessed using a bespoke scoring system and being in a priority group assisted in increasing an applicant’s score but did not guarantee success. Given the level of demand, offers of grant were made to those assessed as delivering the best outcomes against the scheme’s overall objectives.

The scheme was supposed to help priority groups such as young farmers, new entrants to farming, tenants and island businesses, but only about one third of the total funding has gone to those groups. The figures that are available suggest that larger and longer-established farming businesses on the mainland of Scotland were successful, which has left many farmers and crofters struggling to understand what the scoring criteria were—some suggest that selection was just a lucky dip and others say that names were pulled from a hat.

Can the Minister set out the process by which his officials decided who was successful? Was artificial intelligence used at all in the process? Can he explain why many applicants who met four or five of the priorities were unsuccessful while others who met none have been offered grants?

I cannot talk to the specifics that Jamie Halcro Johnston raises, but I say clearly that I absolutely understand the frustration felt by any farmer who put in what they believed to be a very good application but who did not receive funding.

He asked me to set out the process. The FFIS scoring model applied six core objectives: business efficiency, business sustainability, environmental protection, greenhouse gas reduction, climate adaptation and public good. Funding requests were assessed to recognise realistic and proportionate applications, ensuring value for money. Equity adjustments were applied for smaller and lower-capital businesses and a 20 per cent priority multiplier was applied to new entrants, young farmers and small business tenants. Priority status alone did not guarantee funding, because, as I have already said, applicants also had to demonstrate strong alignment with scheme objectives and the ability to deliver measurable outcomes.

Speaking on Radio Orkney this morning, the Minister claimed that the scheme was co-designed with stakeholders and was as good a scheme as the Government could put forward in the time that it had to get that money out of the door as quickly as possible. However, information obtained by the Scottish Conservatives following a freedom of information request reveals that pressure on the timescales was caused by the Cabinet secretary’s demands that the scheme must be ready to go and to be announced at the Royal Highland Show. That was despite Mairi Gougeon’s own concerns, expressed by her office, that

“we haven’t had those meaningful discussions with stakeholders at an early stage and are presenting them with the complete package”,

which is

“not in the spirit of the commitment that was made.”

Is it not the case that the minister rushed out the scheme without proper engagement, which meant that millions of pounds of public money—funding that the farming sector so desperately needs—risks being spent on a scheme that will not meet its objectives and that has left thousands of farmers, crofters and agricultural businesses disappointed?

That is quite simply not the case. The scheme was co-designed and we had numerous discussions with various stakeholders, including the National Farmers Union Scotland. A decision was made that we would make the scheme work for the communities that it was targeted at. The money has not been wasted: it has gone to farmers who have shown a clear appetite and are prepared to put in the time, effort and investment to ensure that they help us on our journey to create biodiversity, reduce emissions and make farming sustainable for the future, which is something that we should be very proud of.

The future farming investment scheme has shown that there is an appetite across Scotland’s agricultural sector to invest in sustainability, productivity and resilience. The Opposition is conveniently overlooking the fact that the Scottish Government provided more than £21 million to assist with that. How will the grant awards that were made benefit Scottish agriculture? Does the Minister agree that the lack of a fair multi-annual funding settlement from the United Kingdom Government represents—[Interruption.]

I want everyone to be able to hear what everyone is saying.

Thank you, Presiding Officer. I will finish my final sentence. Does the Minister agree that the lack of a fair multi-annual funding settlement from the UK Government represents the biggest impediment to our ability to increase our support for and investment in Scottish agriculture?

I absolutely agree with everything that Emma Harper has said.

What a surprise!

The Scottish Government is unequivocal—[ Interruption .]

There is a lot of interest in asking supplementary questions and I would like to get everyone in. Minister, please continue.

I repeat that the Scottish Government’s support for Scotland’s farmers and crofters is unequivocal. We have provided a novel approach through the FFIS to deliver up-front investment to the sector to deliver on Scottish Government objectives.

The UK spending review failed to recognise Scotland’s greater share of the UK landmass and seas and their potential to contribute significantly to the UK’s climate and nature restoration targets. Instead of the long-term funding certainty that was available to us during our European Union membership, we now have an inadequate settlement within the United Kingdom that does not keep pace with the funding that Scotland received before we left the EU.

We have already seen changes introduced by the Government that have a negative impact on our island farmers and crofters, such as the 410-day calving interval and aspects of the whole farm plan. The Minister gave assurances that he would be cognisant of islanders’ needs when bringing forward policies, yet only a tiny fraction—less than 1 per cent—of the funding is going to the Western Isles, as highlighted by Donald MacKinnon, an active crofter and former chair of the Scottish Crofting Federation. We also hear reports of a huge number of rejected applications across the Highlands and Islands.

Why was less than 3 per cent of the funding used to support islanders despite there being no shortage of applications? Was an island communities impact assessment carried out?

Rhoda Grant raises a number of points in that question. There is absolutely no way that what we have done has excluded crofters or islanders. We have the croft house grant scheme and the crofting agricultural grant scheme, so there are funds available—[ Interruption .]

Presiding Officer, I am having real difficulty hearing. I keep getting chuntering from the left side.

I am having difficulty, too. I am keen to bring in everyone who has pressed their request-to-speak buttons, and that would be more straightforward if we could get through the questions and responses.

I would really like to try to give some proper answers to the questions, so I beg your forgiveness for asking members to stop talking.

There is no way that islanders have been downgraded in the scheme. We were very clear that we wanted young farmers, crofters and new entrants to get the funding. However, people were not guaranteed to get funding just because they were in those categories, because applications had to be robust in relation to the objectives in the first place.

We had a total of more than 7,000 claims, but only 4,000 of them were actually eligible. There have been some calls to look into why certain claims in certain areas were not taken forward, but they were not eligible for a range of reasons. I am happy to write to the member to tell her what those reasons are.

The overall picture is that the scheme has demonstrated a huge appetite from the members of the farming and crofting community. They want to get involved in the scheme and we want to make sure that we are delivering on that. We have kept the basic support for farming, the Scottish upland sheep support scheme and the voluntary coupled support. In those schemes, Scottish farmers are absolutely in line with the work of the Scottish Government, because we are doing them by co-design.

There will be winners and losers when any scheme comes to fruition, but I have been taken aback by just how many people have been angry and annoyed that they have been unsuccessful in this case because they are clearly part of the priorities of the scheme—they are young farmers, new entrants, tenants and island businesses.

When the Minister saw the provisional results, did he drill down to see why those priority groups were not successful? He has just told Parliament that 3,000 of the more than 7,000 applicants were not eligible. Did that information go back to the applicants? Most of the people that I have heard from were told just that they were not successful, and not that they were not eligible. Will the minister provide a regional breakdown of the numbers of applications that were submitted and the numbers that were successful so that we can see the success rate in each Constituency and region across the country?

I am absolutely happy to provide the information that Douglas Ross has asked for. On the point about a breakdown, we set out the scoring system and the funding that was available, but the scheme was massively oversubscribed. That goes back to the point that I made to Rhoda Grant. Farmers and crofters are clearly prepared to work with us, which is what we have been asking them to do, in order to meet our demands to reduce emissions, create biodiversity and be more efficient.

Although there is an awful lot of negativity, because people are disappointed—and I absolutely accept that people are disappointed—that demonstrates to me that we are on the right road and are trying to do the right things for our farming communities. I will continue to work as hard as I can to make sure that we continue to deliver for them, so that they can help us on that journey.

We were told that islanders, new entrants, young farmers and tenant farmers would be prioritised in the application of the funding. However, Orkney, which is one of the country’s most agriculture-dependent areas, accounts for just 3.7 per cent of successful applications and 3.5 per cent of the total budget. Shetland and the Western Isles have fared even worse. As Douglas Ross said, there has been no explanation for those decisions, which has left farmers in my community astonished, confused and genuinely angry. I get that demand for the scheme was high, but given the Government’s stated priorities, will the Minister explain why it appears that islanders have fared so badly under the scheme?

We will drill down into all the details of what the applications were. As the member will be aware, to come to the specific answers that he has asked for would involve drilling into a huge amount of information. I am more than happy to share that in writing.

I go back to the point that I have made from the start: the scheme was massively oversubscribed, which demonstrates the willingness of our farmers and crofters to be involved in the journey to reduce our emissions and create biodiversity. We will continue that.

This weekend, my inbox has been full of emails—many from agents who have had less than a good experience. They have submitted multiple applications on behalf of priority applicants such as young farmers, new entrants and environmentally focused business, but with minimal success. In some instances, farmers have gone for exactly the same equipment; one has hit the priorities and got nothing, but others have hit zero priorities and got funding.

It is also concerning that, from what the Minister says, it appears that no farmers have been told whether they were ineligible; rather, they were unsuccessful due to the scheme being oversubscribed. How many farmers were ruled out as a result of the scoring methodology that was used, and why were applicants not given the opportunity to justify their choices? Will the minister commit to publishing the scoring framework and outcomes on each individual application, to ensure transparency, and will he commit to urgently engaging with agents to inform improvements to future schemes?

I will not commit to sharing scoring on every single application. I will not use Government resources to that extent, because that would be a massive effort.

On Finlay Carson’s first question, which was about ineligibility, there were a number of reasons. According to my figures, 3,539 people—47 per cent—were not prioritised for funding because they did not meet one or more of the eligibility and compliance requirements. There is a range of what those were: no active farmer; a failure to meet the minimum activity status; not being registered with or approved by the Scottish Government rural payments and inspections Division; incomplete or missing investment details; unsupported or inconsistent investment; invalid email addresses, which create a notification risk; previous schemes not having been declared; the application having exceeded the minimum grant threshold; and the recovery ratio being below 30 per cent. There are a range of issues as to why some people were not eligible.

However, I reiterate that we will take the learnings. I bear in mind that the scheme was very generous. We were giving 100 per cent grants for equipment, in order to give farmers the best opportunity to get it. Perhaps we need to rethink the 100 per cent grant. We will ensure that the kind of support that we are putting in place—which is working for Scottish farming—is better targeted in the future.