CAP Payments to agricultural and rural businesses operating in Scotland
Commission Regulation (EC) No 259/2008 as amended by Commission Regulation (EU) No 410/2011. requires Member States to annually publish on a CAP Payments website, payments made to certain businesses that receive Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) support. CAP payments include the Single Farm Payment Scheme, the Scottish Beef Calf Scheme and all Rural Development schemes. The Scottish Government has consistently supported the provision of information relating to payments under the CAP.
However, following a European Court of Justice ruling in 2010 the amended legislation limits which businesses can now be named on the CAP Payments website to only those deemed ‘legal persons’. Where it has not been possible to clearly ascertain if a business has ‘legal’ status, name and address details relating to that business have not been published. Definitions of ‘Legal persons’ include:
- registered companies (i.e. private companies limited by shares or by guarantee, private unlimited companies and public limited companies)
- other corporations (e.g. bodies incorporated by statute or Royal Charter)
- partnerships with separate legal personality (i.e. Limited Liability Partnerships and partnerships under Scots law)
- trusts/trustees
- groups/associations of legal persons (e.g. a joint venture) without separate legal personality.
The CAP Payments website http://cap-payments.defra.gov.uk/ is operated by Defra and features payment and customer details provided by the Scottish Government. Information about UK CAP payments made to ‘legal persons’ between 16 October 2009 and 15 October 2011 under all CAP schemes is now available on the website. 4901 (around 22%) ‘legal’ agricultural and rural businesses operating in Scotland are identifiable. These payments amount to £240,772,784 – 34% of the total value of all payments made in Scotland.
As in previous years however, personal information relating to ‘natural’ persons (e.g. sole traders and partnerships/other groups without separate legal personality) has not been published. However this year, to highlight the Scottish Government’s continuing commitment to transparency in the use of public funds, it is possible to download anonymised data relating to payments made to ‘natural persons’. Any questions you may have on these payments should be sent to RPID's Payment Enquiries mailbox.
2011 CAP Payment Summary
You may also be interested in the following summary of payments made for the listed Schemes to agricultural and rural businesses operating in Scotland. These figures are accurate at 30 April 2012. SBCS & LFASS payments were ongoing at this date.
| Scheme | Scheme Year | Amount paid (£ or Euros converted to £) | No. of Producers |
| Single Farm Payment Scheme | 2011 | 481,591,102 | 18,879 |
| Scottish Beef Calf Scheme | 2011 | 21,075,324 | 7593 |
| Less Favoured Area Support Scheme | 2011 | 57,909,264 | 10,251 |
For further information about these schemes and others that we administer, please go to the Grants, Subsidies and Services area of our website.