Scottish Rural Development Programme 2014-2020: ex-post evaluation - main report

Executive Summary

Introduction

This executive summary provides an overview of the main findings from an independent ex-post evaluation of the Scottish Rural Development Programme (SRDP) 2014-2020. It was commissioned by the Scottish Government (SG), as Managing Authority (MA) for the Programme.

The evaluation covers the period from 26 May 2015 (the date the Programme was first formally approved^[1]) to 31 December 2023. The co-financed Programme is now closed.

The evaluation is mainly a backwards look at what has been delivered and achieved by the 15 SRDP schemes and to meet the European Commission (EC) requirement for ex-post evaluations. The report is structured in line with the EC’s 30 Common Evaluation Questions (CEQs).

A separate report has been prepared which presents a scheme level summary, including lessons learned, and which outlines the current status of the interventions.

Key findings

During the life of the 2014-2020 Programme there was a total realised expenditure of €1.483 billion. This represents 98% of the final budget of €1.520 billion.^[2]

A majority of the realised expenditure was under the following four Measures:

• Measure 4 - Investments in physical assets.
• Measure 8 - Investments in forest area development and improvement of the viability of forests.
• Measure 10 - Agri-environment climate
• Measure 13 - Payments to areas facing natural or other specific constraints.

This recognised the SG’s continued commitment to provide a range of interventions to support the agricultural sector, including fragile farming businesses in remote and constrained rural and island areas, and improved support for crofters, small farmers, and new entrants. As well as support for other small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), including food and drink businesses which make a significant contribution to remote and island economies.

This also recognised the policy priority at all levels to tackle climate change, and the SRDP has supported a wide range of interventions to help ensure the environment is protected and enhanced, and that action is taken to mitigate and adapt to the impacts of climate change.

Progress against targets was good overall.

There were four targets where the achievement was notably lower than 75% by the end of the 2014-2020 Programme period. This includes:

• Target 4: percentage of agricultural holdings with Rural Development Programme (RDP) support for investments in restructuring or modernisation (Focus Area, FA 2A) - 61.49% achieved. While most of the schemes that contributed to this target were popular there were various issues which affected performance such as initial assumptions for target setting and external factors including the pandemic.
• Target 8: percentage of forest/other wooded area under management contracts supporting biodiversity (FA 4A) – 36.73% achieved.
• Target 11: percentage of forestry land under management contracts to improve water management (FA 4B) – 36.73% achieved.
• Target 13: percentage of forestry land under management contracts to improve soil management and/or prevent soil erosion (FA 4C) – 36.73% achieved.

Forestry targets related to Priority 4 were significantly under-achieved - uptake was not close to what was expected. However, looking at the Programme as a whole, more forestry land ended up under management contracts than originally anticipated.

Most SRDP schemes were subject to an internal or external review, and these provided considerable insights into what was delivered and achieved (as well as wider insights on lessons learned). That being said, many did not explicitly consider the relevant CEQs, and so our ability to fully answer the CEQs was more complete in some areas than others.

Further, wider data issues were encountered. This included: limited or partial project monitoring data; challenges around establishing baseline positions; and the extent to which scheme evaluations provided sufficient evidence on for example, the extent to which support had ultimately changed practices on the ground, and to what extent.

In some cases, it is, however, too early to expect impacts from this programming period to have emerged (for example, for biodiversity and forestry activities). Albeit the existing evidence confirms that the general direction of travel over successive programming periods has been positive, and this is expected to continue.

There was also insufficient evidence to populate all the EC data table requirements, particularly the EC Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) impacts indicators.

There were existing gaps in information within the 2018 enhanced Annual Implementation Report (AIR), and the same data gaps persist at the time of the ex-post evaluation. However, it is recognised that the nature of the data required is technical, would require scientific measurement of the environment and would require a coordinated effort across SG and public bodies. For example, the CAP impact indicators regarding organic soil matter and soil erosion rates were not able to be answered as the data is not available.

Notable achievements of the Programme, however, included:

• the targets relating to the area of agricultural land under management contracts, via the Agri-Environment Climate Scheme (AECS), that supported biodiversity, improved water management and improved soil management and/or prevented soil erosion were all exceeded.
• much more forestry land ended up under management contracts than originally anticipated at the outset of the Programme. Further, the total predicted carbon sequestered by 2045, for woodlands created with Forestry Grant Scheme (FGS) funding up to 2021, is 8,017,083 tonnes.
• the Improving Public Access (IPA) contracts delivered 255 kilometres (km) of pathwork of which 145.3 km was unbound path, 85.7 km was semi-bound path, 21.8 km was upgraded path and 2.2 km was boardwalk, and IPA also achieved a wider range of deliverables.
• most schemes that sought to improve the economic performance of farms and crofts proved to be popular, and in the main did this through increasing their market participation.
• the bottom-up Community Led Local Development (CLLD) approach of LEADER supported a large and diverse range of projects which contributed to community and enterprise-led development in rural areas – many of which would not have been delivered otherwise.
• the Less Favoured Area Support Scheme (LFASS) provided stability and consistency to crofters and farmers who operate in less favoured areas (LFA) ensuring business viability and safeguarding remote and island communities.
• the Knowledge Transfer Innovation Fund (KTIF) provided incentives for farmers and crofters to work in partnership with others to unleash innovation, trial new methods and explore new technology.
• the Farm Advisory Service (FAS) provided comprehensive advice to farmers and crofters on sustainability and productivity – and scheme evaluation findings suggest this service was widely accessed and well received.

While the SRDP interventions have supported additional (young) people into the farming sector, it has not had any real impact on encouraging generational renewal. This is difficult to make significant progress against in isolation – there are many other constraints at play, such as access to land and land availability. A significant amount of support for farmers and crofters within the SRDP was targeted at advice and good practice in key areas - whilst advice was delivered and good practice shared, measuring impact on changed behaviour and practice was more limited.