Scottish Rural Development Programme 2014-2020: ex-post evaluation - annex A scheme summary report

1. Agri-Environment Climate Scheme

Scheme description

Scotland has had a scheme to support agri-environment since the early 1990s and has developed a suite of interventions that benefit Scotland’s biodiversity.

Under the Scottish Rural Development Programme (SRDP) 2014-2020 the Agri-Environment Climate Scheme (AECS) aimed to promote land management practices which protect and enhance Scotland’s magnificent natural heritage, improve water quality, manage flood risk, and mitigate and adapt to climate change. It also helped to improve public access and preserve historic sites.

The AECS was delivered jointly by NatureScot and the Scottish Government (SG) Rural Payments and Inspections Division (RPID). The first competitive funding round opened to applications in 2015 and the last year that contracts were awarded was in 2019 as there was no SRDP funding round for AECS in 2020. Rather, for 2020, one-year extensions were offered to those with expiring contracts. All management contracts for AECS were for five years, so the SRDP funding covered the period 2016 to 2024.

Under the SRDP, the scheme was open to farmers, groups of farmers and other land managers with land in Scotland, who were registered with SG Rural Payments and Services and had a Business Reference Number. Applicants had to be able to demonstrate that they had the legal right to carry out the projects to be funded for the length of the contract and any associated monitoring period.

AECS supported a wide range of interventions, some relevant to general habitats and the wider countryside while others had a narrower focus on rarer habitats or vulnerable species. For example, vulnerable species included corncrake, corn bunting, chough, black grouse, hen harrier, and the great yellow bumble bee.

AECS management options were grouped together based on the type of farming system and activity they supported including:

• arable options.
• grassland options.
• upland, peatland, moorland, and heath options.
• farmland habitat and feature options.
• wetland and bog options.
• support for small units including crofting.
• control of invasive non-native species options.
• managing water quality and flood risk options (see answer to CEQ 10).
• organic conversion and maintenance.

AECS also provided support for the management of historic sites and Improving Public Access (see Chapter 8).

Public expenditure

The AECS was programmed to contribute to the European Commission (EC) Rural Development Programme (RDP) Priority 4 (Restoring, preserving, and enhancing ecosystems dependent on agriculture and forestry), and associated Focus Areas (FAs).

Note: all financial and performance data for Priority 4 are presented in the Annual Implementation Report (AIR) 2023 in aggregate form, covering three FAs including:

• FA 4A - Restoring, preserving, and enhancing biodiversity.
• FA 4B - Improving water management.
• FA 4C - Preventing soil erosion and improving soil management.

This is due to how the monitoring data was required by the EC. Monitoring data were not disaggregated because actions were considered relevant to all three FAs under Priority 4.

The AECS also contributed to Priority 5 (Promoting resource efficiency and supporting the shift towards a low carbon and climate resilient economy in agriculture, food and forestry sectors), and to FA 5D.

A summary of the public expenditure realised by the AECS is provided in Table 1.1, with almost all under Priority 4. The AECS was one of four SRDP schemes that made final co-financed payments to beneficiaries in 2023.

Source: Scottish Government, Annual Implementation Report 2023.

Note: The table only includes outputs from projects that were approved under AECS as part of the 2014-2020 Programme. The ongoing agri-environment commitments from the 2007-2013 Programme were paid from the AECS budget. The total AECS spend was €323.0 million.

Performance indicators

A summary of the aggregated outcomes achieved by the AECS is provided in Table 1.2. Table 1.3 then provides details of annual outcomes where figures cannot be aggregated.

Source: Scottish Government, Annual Implementation Report 2023.

Note: The table only includes outputs from projects that were approved under AECS as part of the 2014-2020 Programme. The ongoing agri-environment commitments from the 2007-2013 Programme were paid from the AECS budget. The total AECS spend was €323.0 million.

Source: Scottish Government, Annual Implementation Report 2023.

Note: The table only includes outputs from projects that were approved under AECS as part of the 2014-2020 Programme. The ongoing agri-environment commitments from the 2007-2013 Programme were paid from the AECS budget. The total AECS spend was €323.0 million.

Further, there were six target indicators for Priority 4, three related to agricultural land (the remainder related to forestry, see Chapter 7). The AIR 2023 reports that by the end of 2023:

• 1,855,247 hectares of agricultural land were under management contracts that support biodiversity - this means that 33.39% of agricultural land was under management compared to the target of 22.73%. The target of the area under management contracts that support biodiversity was met, with 146.89% of the original target area now under management.
• the target for the agricultural land under management contracts to improve water management was exceeded (140.21% achieved) - with 27.76% or 1,542,356 hectares of agricultural land under management compared to the target of 19.80%.
• 1,700,649 hectares of agricultural land were under management contacts to improve soil management and/or prevent soil erosion - this represents 30.61% of the total agricultural land, compared to a target of 19.13%. Of the three agricultural land target indicators, the target to improve soil management and/or prevent soil erosion was the over-achieved the most (159.99%).

Scheme evaluation

NatureScot carried out and commissioned two separate but inter-related pieces of research on the AECS.

First, an in-house report that examined scheme data and which provided an overview and assessment on scheme uptake and potential impact – Agri-Environment Climate Scheme heat maps report 2015-2018 (2021). The heat maps related to support for agri-environment management, which formed the largest element of AECS, and to organic management, but did not include, improving public access and slurry stores. The research report looked at scheme uptake in terms of geographic distribution, numbers of hectares, and funding allocated for specific AECS management options and other key elements.

The report was not fully comprehensive of agri-environmental activity supported by the SRDP 2014-2020 (as the scheme was still ongoing at the time), however, it provides an insightful overview and understanding of scheme uptake and impact.^[1] The report found that AECS represents Scotland’s most important investment for securing environmental benefits from the land.

It contributes to delivery of national and international targets relating to biodiversity, climate change, water quality and flooding, and to support for organic farming, the historic environment and improving public access. The work also gives an understanding of the geographic distribution of key options. Options with more significant uptake included the main arable and grassland options, water margins, organic, and moorland management. The scheme has also made an important contribution to the management of designated sites.

Second, an externally commissioned report which looked at the biodiversity outcomes and other benefits of the AECS - Evaluation of the biodiversity outcomes of the 2014-20 SRDP Agri-Environment Climate Scheme through a selection of case studies (James Hutton Institute, 2021). The qualitative assessment was based on three case study areas covering about 30-40 farms. The work involved three strands, including: a field survey of in-scheme and out-scheme farms, an analysis of case files of those in-scheme farms and a telephone questionnaire for the surveyed farms and an additional sample of in-scheme and out-scheme farms. The research concluded that:

• the AECS has benefits for biodiversity. While the sample size was low, overall results were indicative that options supported the maintenance of habitats of environmental value.
• findings from the survey, the analysis of case studies and the questionnaire indicated that some parts of the scheme could be considered further. Specifically, there is scope for widening the geographic coverage of Creation of Hedgerows so that opportunities to create cover for birds and provide structure in the landscape are more widely available. Other issues to consider further included how context (on the farm and outside of it) could influence the success of options aimed at farmland birds, water margins and how to assess widely dispersed farming operation.
• monitoring could be made much more effective if it started at the same time as the scheme and then followed farms through time. The sample sizes monitored would need increasing to achieve sufficient power to assess realistic changes for some groups of species. The monitoring should cover the species targeted by each option; so, it should cover farmland and wading birds as well as plants, pollinators and, potentially, other targeted species groups.

What worked well and/or less well

Aspects of the AECS which worked well included:

• the joint delivery of the scheme by the two delivery partners.
• the ability of funding for capital items/investment is a key enabler for supporting a range of agri-environment activities, for instance, funding for fencing so that grazing could take place at the appropriate level for that habitat.
• support was geographically targeted to maximise environmental outcomes and to ensure value for money.
• the AECS targeting tool – applicants used the online tool to explore which options and items were available on their holding prior to applying.
• the use of standard payment rates for management activities and for capital items meant that the reasonableness of costs were already determined, and the applicants had a suite of items and management actions and their payment rates to select from when drawing up their applications.

Aspects of the AECS which worked less well included:

• standard payment rates costs were not reviewed to ensure that the costs are still reasonable, and as the payment rates become increasingly outdated, this is now acting as a constraint on the available scheme budget on uptake.
• scheme monitoring and evaluation – while some research was undertaken in-house and externally commissioned there are inherent difficulties in establishing a baseline position from which to measure change in relation to agri-environmental activities.
• few applications were submitted (and contracts agreed) for the Control of Invasive Non-native Species.

A lesson learned from the SRDP domestic programme 2021-2024 period for AECS relates to annual budgets for the scheme - multi-annual funding allocations are better for providing security and stability for planning, staffing and delivery.

Lessons learned

The main lessons learned include that:

• capital projects often take longer to complete than envisaged by applicants at the outset, for example, due to poor weather conditions, delays in securing contractors and materials, delays in securing planning consent, etc. – this can have implications if funders set out a specific timeframe for projects to be completed (and for funding to be claimed), as well as for total project costs.
• standard payment rates should be reviewed regularly to ensure they remain relevant and appropriate.
• for any scheme that involves multiple delivery partners there needs to be clear and open lines of communication and data sharing arrangements.
• a monitoring and evaluation framework should be built into scheme design from the outset – it also needs to be relevant and meaningful.

Current status of the scheme

The AECS continues to be funded by SG as part of the SRDP domestic programme 2021-2024. The sub-scheme - IPA - was funded in 2021 and 2022 and at the present time remains closed to new applications.