Change in Scotland’s support schemes has been very slow in arriving. It seems increasingly likely that meaningful reform is slipping even further into the future. Given the issues with the Agricultural Transition in England, Scottish farmers may well be pleased to hang on to the BPS for as long as possible.
There has been no ‘big announcement’ from the Scottish Government changing policy or timescales. It is still publicly committed to introducing the new Four-tier support structure, starting in 2026. However, a careful reading of recent publications seems to indicate that any reform in 2026 (or even 2027) will largely be a cosmetic re-branding excercise with the BPS continuing to play a key role in farm support.
This analysis comes from reading the latest Routemap document from June (https://www.ruralpayments.org/topics/agricultural-reform-programme/arp-route-map/ ) plus recent announcements on Greening changes. The Routemap states –
‘Tier One will provide direct payments to support active farming. We will start off using the current Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) and add new conditions over time.‘ Whilst we probably knew this to some extent, it seems the emphasis has changed a bit to indicate any major changes are some way off.
For Tier 2, the Scottish Government is putting Greening under this heading – ‘Tier 2 will support farmers and crofters to do even more for climate and nature. The first change will be asking more arable farmers to manage Ecological Focus Areas. The details of this change will be published in summer 2025‘. We had always assumed that Tier 2 would look a bit like the Sustainable Farming Incentive in England – payments for doing specific actions. This is what the ‘Measures’ previously published looked like – but it has all gone quiet on these. In the short-term at least, Tier 2 just looks like a rebranding of Greening. The note does state ‘This scheme [AECS] is expected to continue until at least 2026 to deliver elements of Tiers 3 and 4 until new Elective and Complementary Support mechanisms are introduced. Some of the options currently available through AECS are being considered for inclusion in Tier 2 over time so that more people can implement them.’ So, Tier 2 might become more SFI-like over time, but it doesn’t seem very imminent.
Then there is the whole paragraph about the ‘Future Operating Model’. This is the computer system that runs schemes in Scotland. In short, this will not be changed until 2027 at the earliest. Whilst this is about administrative systems rather than the schemes themselves, it seems difficult to introduce anything very radical unless you have the IT to run it. Given there is going to be no change in the system until after the end of 2026, this seems to reinforce the ‘no-change’ message for 2026.
So, it seems BPS will continue in 2026 (possibly rebranded as Tier 1 or some other name) as will Greening (under Tier 2).
In terms of payments, the Scottish Government has made the following commitments;
• 70% of funding will be allocated to Tiers 1 and 2
• we will apply a funding split of 70 / 30 between Tiers 1 and 2
Looking at the agricultural budget (https://www.gov.scot/publications/scottish-budget-2025-2026/pages/11/ ) current BPS, Greening and Coupled spending comes to around 70% of total spend (this includes administration). And Greening has always been around 30% of Pillar 1 support. Thus, carrying-on as now would be completely consistent with these promises.
Therefore, we foresee no ‘big bang’ of reform for 2026 and possibly 2027 as well. For those wanting to budget support payments for next year it seems pretty safe rolling-over the BPS/Greening payment rates from 2025.
With regards to BPS payments, the Scottish Government is due to start issuing advance payments on the 2025 BPS at the start of September. Advances will be at the usual 90% of the estimated total amount. Ahead of payments commencing, payment rates for 2025 have been announced. These are shown in the table below. Rates are slightly lower than in 2024 due to some funds shifting to the Young Farmer Top-up and New Entrants from the National Reserve. Full details can be found at – https://www.ruralpayments.org/news-events/payment-rates-set-for-basic-payment-scheme-and-greening-2025.html .
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