Scotland BPS ‘cap’

February 9, 2015 12:00 am

It seems that Scotland are to introduce a ‘full cap’ of the Basic Payment at €600,000. Discussions had previously centred around a cap at €500,000. We have been unable to locate an official announcement by the Scottish Government on this decision, but the EU executive has presented data detailing capping rates across the EU to journalists, this has then been published by Agra Europe .

The mandatory 5% rate will apply on payments from €150,000 to the cap threshold of €600,000. There do not appear to be any intermediate bands as there are in Wales. Remember, capping does not apply to the Greening element of the BPS, therefore it will be those receiving a Basic Payment of around €900,000 will be affected by the full cap.

Overall one nine countries within the EU have chosen to cap direct support. Differing maximum amounts have been set in different Member States – €150,000 (Ireland, Austria, Poland, Greece and Northern Ireland), €300,000 (Wales and Bulgaria), €500,000 in Italy and €600,000 in Scotland.

We have also had a number of queries about the payment rates for Scottish BPS stated on the Rural Payments website. The website indicates that payment Region 1 will receive around €145, Region 2 €25 and Region 3 €7; considerably lower than previous publications stated. However, these figures exclude the Greening Element. In discussions with the Rural Payments Service in Scotland the following rates have been quoted, but should be treated as estimates: