Breaches of cross compliance regulations: EIR release
Information request and response under the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004.
Information requested
1. Please state how many breaches of the cross compliance regulations have occurred in the last five years for which you hold data (ie from 2017-18 to 2020-21).
2. For each breach, or case of non-compliance, please state the specific requirement breached e.g. SMR 6 or SMR 7.
3. For each SMR 7 breach, please state the associated discrepancy code.
4. For each breach, please also state:
- the severity of the breach
- the county in which the breach occurred
- the financial penalty involved
- the name of the entity responsible for the breach
- whether the breach was a first offence or a reoccurrence (and if so whether a 2nd offence, 3rd offence etc).
Response
The following table shows a) the number of beneficiaries (support scheme claimants) that have breached at least one cross compliance requirement and b) the total number of breaches. Each standard (GAEC and SMR) includes several requirements and a beneficiary could breach several requirements within the same standard.
|
Year |
Number of beneficiaries with at least one breach |
Total Number of breaches |
|
2017 |
926 |
2119 |
|
2018 |
933 |
2064 |
|
2019 |
834 |
2045 |
|
2020 |
640 |
1410 |
|
2021 |
544 |
1429 |
The attached spreadsheets, one for each year (2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021), provide the information you requested in relation to 2, 3, 4 a), 4 b), 4 c) and 4 e).
Please note:
- the financial penalty requested under 4 c) is shown both as a percentage and a financial (£) value had that been the only requirement that the beneficiary breached. Where a beneficiary breaches several requirements a series of business rules are applied to calculate the overall penalty to be applied to the beneficiary's business. The business rules are published on the cross compliance pages of Rural Payments and Services. The overall penalty applied to a beneficiary's business is shown on the 'Overall penalty and reduction' worksheet of each spreadsheet.
- In Scotland Counties were abolished in 1975 and replaced by the two-tiered region and district system and three island council areas. In 1996, this system was replaced by the local council areas (Local Authorities). For the information requested under 4 b) the Local Authority area has been provided for each breach.
- The SMR7 deficiency codes for 2017/2018 are shown in a different format compared to 2019/2020/2021, this simply reflects the different way SMR7 breaches were recorded at the time.
An exception under regulation 11(2) of the EIRs (personal information) applies to the information requested under 4 d) "the name of the entity responsible for the breach" because it is personal information of a third party and disclosing it would contravene the data protection principles in Article 5(1) of the General Data Protection Regulation and in section 34(1) of the Data Protection Act 2018. This exception is not subject to the 'public interests test', so we are not required to consider if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in a applying the exception.
In lieu of the business name, beneficiaries are shown with a unique reference number.
About FOI
The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.
Contact
Please quote the FOI reference
Central Enquiry Unit
Email: ceu@gov.scot
Phone: 0300 244 4000
The Scottish Government
St Andrews House
Regent Road
Edinburgh
EH1 3DG
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