The Scottish Government has spent over £1.8m on staff overtime working on delivering farm support since 2015.

Responding to a Parliament question by Lib Dem MSP Mike Rumbles, the Scottish Government confirmed the overtime payments were made for activities related to the task of making farm payments, including application processing, inspections and supporting the IT.

“Not every minute of staff overtime will be due to the Scottish Government’s failed IT system. But what is clear is that the incompetent handling of support payments over four years has cost our rural economy millions of pounds in essential trade and investment. Now we find out it has cost the Scottish taxpayer £1.8m in staff overtime as well,” said Rumbles.

“I want to thank the staff that have put in the extra work to deliver the funding that is vital to our rural economy, but this complete blunder never should have happened in the first place.”

This comes after Rural Economy Minister Fergus Ewing told farmers at a recent Brexit meeting that the computer system was “finally totally fixed” and that the original computer system was too complicated.