Agriculture Reform Implementation Oversight Board minutes: 23 January 2026

Attendees and apologies

Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs and Islands - Mairi Gougon

Martin Kennedy - Co Chair

Items and actions

Welcome and introductions: Agenda item 1

Chair addressed recent resignations from the Board, acknowledging points raised in relation to the scale and pace of agricultural reform.

Chair confirmed that she and the Minister had since met with Environmental Non-Governmental Organisations (eNGO) representatives who were formerly members to hear concerns and continue to constructively engage with them. Chair reiterated the value she places in the expertise and insight provided by members and wants to continue to have robust dialogue. The work being carried out by the Agriculture Policy Development Group (PDG) is helping to supplement the work of the ARIOB and drive forward future policy.

Comments from members

• Regardless of perhaps understandable frustration at the pace and scale of change, members agreed the importance of “being in the room”, that the loss of environmental voices will be felt and the process will be more challenging if fragmented;
• If Ministers and/or officials are meeting with eNGOs outwith the ARIOB forum, it is important that engagement is fed back to the Board. Chair agreed, noting the existing engagement with other industry representatives.

Expanded Policy Development Group: Agenda item 2

Officials confirmed to members that there were two meetings of an expanded PDG which looked at how Government could take forward appropriate allocation of funding to the sector as part of the future framework, with a focus on doing that through the Regions model and an additional element of LFASS (Less Favoured Areas Support Scheme) which provides a different way of targeting money to deliver the outcomes. Discussions were positive and collaborative, returning to previous Base tier work and sought to consider how we add Voluntary Coupled Support (VCS) schemes into our thinking in a way that streamlines LFA support. This could provide an opportunity to simplify the structure, as adding complexity also adds delivery cost.

The ARIOB had previously considered different land designations in the context of a joint report titled, ‘Basic Payment Regionalisation Options - Analysis of Spend and Redistribution Implications’[1].

Of the options outlined in the report, the PDG would like further examination and modelling of Option 6, which would reallocate land into three parcels: arable region (incl. temporary grassland), permanent grassland and rough grazing and Option 4 (Region 1 remaining as is and merging existing Region 2 and 3).

To mitigate unintended consequences, modelling will require running through real world scenarios, eligibility will need to be worked out and consideration of ramifications for supplementing schemes, such as the Scottish Upland Sheep Support Scheme (SUSSS). The current system was developed for a different reason and Government have to balance the resource required to deliver short-term change within that system against more significant, long-term progress.

The Group agreed that future support should be on the basis of meeting conditionality while recognising diversity across Scotland. How do you then best tailor conditions to localities – quality of land, size of business, geography. Most farms have a mixture of land types so what is appropriate for the farmer is dependent on getting the land covers right, managing the whole of their land to meet the outcomes with the aid of packages of measures, presented to them in a digestible way. There will inevitably be a technical challenge around white space (land not currently captured on RPID systems) and ineligible features to do this.

PDG participants remarked that both meetings were positive and constructive. The Group is making significant progress towards a framework utilising familiar mechanisms with opportunities for improvement and simplification. Ideally, following the aforementioned modelling, the Group will revert to the ARIOB with a proposal at some point in the near future, subject to the forthcoming election / pre-election period.

There have been internal discussions on sequencing and it will take time to build the necessary capabilities. Government will develop the tools to enable industry to get ready to deliver sustainable measures by 2030 while continuing direct support and making iterative changes throughout that period.

Chair and Minister added that they were pleased with the direction in which the PDG were taking this work, acknowledging that between now and 2030 the farming community need certainty. There are ambitious targets within the Climate Change Plan for agriculture and the post-2030 period is key to achieving those. The next few years requires investment in capabilities to deliver a new system by 2030.

Comments from members

• welcomed the deadline of 20230 and made a plea for this to be communicated widely, making clear that farmers and crofters will have time to consider what it means for their business and adapt with the necessary support
• terminology has to be right, as well as being clear what’s happening in 2026, 2027, 2028 and 2029
• potential options (such as LFASS into VCS) could result in a fearful reaction from the industry so a clear explanation of the rationale and the safeguards in place for active farming businesses will be key to a smooth transition
• pleased to hear the Group is considering the ‘how’, but one member was struggling with the ‘why’, and would welcome clarity. Others felt that this was laid out in the draft Rural Support Plan
• there was hope that by developing a framework to equitably support active agriculture, it would mean we can move away from a discussion about “winners and losers
• there was some discussion on the background of the Regions model (as a mechanism of distributing direct support)
• the current model doesn’t help because of its design to support the historic EU CAP. Looking forward, how are we going to achieve the aims of the Vision for Agriculture and Rural Support Plan while allocating funding to ensure objectives are met?
• there are three resources on farms and crofts that can help deliver that – land, animals and people – the policy has to interact with these 3 components and will require a good understanding of what’s on the ground to ensure Government gets the right money, to the right place, at the right time
• clarity on Regions is of the utmost importance to allow for progression of reform and to avoid retrofitting solutions
• regions need to be distilled down into something digestible: what is the change and how do businesses adapt?
• a member said that Option 6 provides the ability to focus on the agricultural activity through VCS but that monitoring will be required to ensure conditionality is being met
• the message of change must be about changing our industry and the big adaptations it has to make but doing that successfully will mean focussing payments on activity
• officials may wish to consider whether the fragility marker concept should be revised
• we must aim to better achieve the outcomes without prescribed EU rules and address the inequities of the current system
• we must ensure businesses have flexibility and adaptability to make management changes to avoid replacing one set of prescriptive rules with another and be able to react to changing market pressures and add resilience
• headage payments were discussed and officials confirmed these would require conditions to demonstrate contributing towards delivering the outcomes (not just a payment per animal)
• a dedicated small producer scheme is necessary ahead of 2030 to avoid disproportionate impacts and which is less of an administrative burden
• the Minister agreed that small producers must be supported to ensure local rural resilience and as a vital part of future Scottish system in the future and a cornerstone of building food resilience across the country, noting this may bring in a cohort of currently ineligible small producers and therefore have an impact on the budget
• members warned of the dangers of tweaking the current system ahead of full focus on the “landing zone” in 2030, unless those tweaks will be part of the future framework
• the timescales for introduction of new conditions for PGRS should be reconsidered as part of this work
• as has been previously said, the supply chain are already asking for significant conditionality and climate and nature requirements, including beef sector aligned contracts
• need to understand the totality rather than just government landscape
• how much can we do before 2030? We may continue to lose producers as we’ve seen, in part, through the introduction of the Whole Farm Plan (WFP) where many have paid to help complete paperwork in return for very little and do not feel the benefit of compliance costs
• the Minister replied that we will be clear regarding the transition and smaller producers are getting support towards 2030
• officials also mentioned that there are currently no penalties for failing to complete the WFP but that Government messaging could better remove the fear factor
• crofts, for example, are vital part of the landscape
• to keep them viable they need a certain level of support
• in the context of the aforementioned land, animals and people elements, people are the most important element in crofting
• we also need to better understand and accommodate the complexities around support for managing common grazings
• if no small producer scheme in the immediate future, could there be a derogation for WFP like as with the suckler beef scheme?
• arguably, the Animal Health and Welfare plan is more useful to a small producer than carbon auditing
• an alternative view was offered that this could be viewed as slowing down progress and/or double standards
• officials agreed to take this away and consider, noting that between now and 2030 the aim will be to establish what essential standards look like
• they added that Government’s capacity to deliver in the short-term may jeopardise long-term change and would want to avoid the unintended consequence of bringing more people into the system and what that might mean for the budget quantum
• there was discussion of the history and rationale behind SUSSS, namely as a supplementary payment to Region 3 producers to address the imbalance
• how might that look in the future and can we better utilise data to help producers and reduce burden?
• would we need SUSSS if activity and eligibility are set right?
• one member added that electronic recording is already being done using a stock recorder and that the software has the capability. It all needs to fit into the wider data picture
• we need to bear in mind the just transition principle
• there is an understandable focus on the livestock element but if splitting arable from grassland, this could be a substantial change that needs to be fully considered

Officials summarised that the Board had further developed the PDG outputs, reiterating the need to model the options in terms of implications for industry. We know a lot about Options 4 and 6 but need to specifically assess in the context of LFASS budget and how you might apply that to VCS, as well as 80% / 200ha key components in triggering SUSSS type payment, before getting into LFA.

Given the complexities aired, we must be realistic that every question cannot be answered and have to accept a degree of not knowing it all in order to advance this work. The lynchpin is to align payments with activity and a component of that tied to land. Officials can pull together existing evidence in short order (Spring 2026), but if unanswered questions included, this could take months as models may have to be constructed and then analysed. There is a clear trade-off between pace and granular detail – we can hone detail as we progress but will have to decide which approach on which to hone the detail.

Chair and co-chair discussed next steps, agreeing that the PDG would reconvene when at least that existing evidence had been collated and could be assessed.

Tier 4: Agenda item 3

Officials provided an overview of Tier 4 work since last presented to the Board in December 2023, posing a number of questions to members including whether Continuing Professional Development (CPD) should be mandatory, what it should entail and how frequently farmers and crofters should have to undertake it. This is ultimately with a view to encouraging as much uptake as possible and confirming that no decisions had yet been taken by Ministers to ensure meaningful co-development.

Comments from members

• one member believed there to be two types of CPD – one for personal learning and the other as an employee as part of an organisational obligation and that distinction should be reflected here
• end year deadline for recording could lead to the system being overrun
• existing CPD should be acknowledged as part of Government requirements otherwise would duplicate effort, discourage uptake and create an unwieldy system to administer
• this should be embraced and will benefit the industry with a view that some elements should be compulsory as part of conditionality
• it remains challenging to reach people who don’t want to engage and/or who are short on time – this is made easier if you include broader activities such as reading, listening to podcasts etc
• alternatively, making compulsory could be viewed as a blunt tool and a failure to acknowledge the many elderly farmers and crofters
• CPD is already compulsory for dairy and inextricably linked to contracts with a mixture of online seminars, on farm meetings and consultants and where the business nominates the right person
• pitching it at the right level is hard, so there will need to be different levels for people to come in at and an assessment of learning from existing CPD as to what’s worked and what’s not
• it needs to be both relevant and practical
• many, if not all, farmers and crofters are learning from professionals whose services they pay for (vets, agronomists, nutritionists) and this must be acknowledged and recorded
• needs to be proportionate to the business and the outcomes Government expects from them
• for example, the submission of a Personal Learning Log and meeting of individual learning targets as proposed on grounds of practicality and proportionality, including age profile of many partners within farm businesses
• there must be capacity to deliver – the tighter we make the requirements, the more difficult it will be. In the short-term, this needs to be about creating a CPD culture which makes clear the benefits for the individual and their business, providing as many skills and knowledge to the industry as possible

Officials thanked members for their feedback and welcomed any further comments in writing. It is likely the topic will return to the Board with further options for consideration later in the year.

Future Operating Model & ARP Data Strategy: Agenda item 4

In February 2025, the ARIOB requested further work to clarify how data supports delivery of Agricultural Reform, including issues of data ownership, baselining, and benchmarking. Officials then set out how land, animal, customer and monitoring data are key enablers for the future capabilities we have identified, how it is critical to delivering future policy intent, and how current activity within ARP is laying the foundations for more effective, evidence-led delivery.

The work of the ARP is aligned to policy thinking – if the policy direction is activity-based payments, for example, then Ministers need to have the data to make that decision. As was mentioned during the CPD item, farmers’ and crofters’ time is valuable and Government wants to reduce the administrative burden. Data should be collected once, used repeatedly and not require re-entering. Particular workstreams around date include:

• area Monitoring Services pilot –including Earth observation data to provide a better idea of Scotland and how we could best support future delivery models
• geospatial aid application pilot work – this is technical, but could offer a different way for farmers and crofters to apply for schemes, so they can see their land by map and classification(s)
• designing the data platform – this will ensure that data is agnostic of the policy direction. Part of current difficulty is the old system is hardwired into CAP and the new system will separate that out so policy choices can be more agile
• LPIS being reviewed so that by 2027 it can build on the AMS and geospatial work

Officials added that the ARP is working hand in hand with policy, RPID and IT to ensure practicality and achievable delivery.

Comments from members

• officials were encouraged to link up with the Hutton Institute as an opportunity to utilise their existing land use data, as well as other research organisations currently developing innovative data solutions
• the current LPIS is EU prescriptive and would hope it can be improved and adapted
• it would be helpful to have an app to show your land interactively. At the moment, the picture provided is at one point in (15 May). If we are moving to land cover related actions, we need to take into account seasonal activities
• this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to create a national baseline for soil in Scotland
• AI should be incorporated into this work and would be a missed opportunity if not
• the new system should have a croft land marker
• data ownership needs to be made clear from the outset, as does the rationale for collecting it
• this work needs to be aligned with monitoring and evaluation to provide a strong evidence base for making policy decisions

AOB: Agenda item 5

In response to a query on Rural Support Plan publication, officials confirmed this would be published as soon as is practicable.

On the subject of the future of the ARIOB, Chair cited the pre-election period. However, it is envisaged that the PDG will drive work in the background until such time as the ARIOB may meet again.

Co-chair took a moment to recognise Chair’s support during her time as Cabinet Secretary and thanked her for providing much needed continuity for rural communities in Scotland as we move through agricultural reform.

Finally, Chair thanked co-chair and assembled members for their dedication to the work of the Board.

[1] basic-payment-regionalisation-options-analysis-spend-redistribution-implications.pdf