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We have seen some of the issues that you have raised particularly in our agriculture sector, where energy, fuel and feed costs have absolutely spiralled. Against the backdrop of the turbulence that we have experienced, we have tried to provide stability. I talked about the direct cash injection of £650 million that we have been making in agriculture and marine. In the current financial year, as the committee will be aware, we made direct payments at the earliest ever stage. We commenced those payments in September. I think, from the latest figures that I have had, that we have paid more than £411 million to more than 17,000 businesses, so more than 98 per cent of businesses have received that vital cash injection.

What I have set out in the budget shows that we are trying to maintain that stability. We are giving farmers the message about what they will receive, being clear about those figures and trying to maintain them and keep them as consistent as possible. Hopefully, that will help to provide some of that certainty and stability.

I would be happy to provide that to the committee.

The £5 million budget that has been allocated for that is for the sustainable agriculture capital grant scheme. In the current financial year, we have had £5 million available for that, and it has funded slurry store covers as well as slurry spreading equipment. On the utilisation of that fund, we made over 570 offers of grant and pretty much exhausted the fund, so there has been really strong uptake of that funding. Providing that the budget is agreed, of course, we will look to launch another scheme. We will announce the details of that in due course. Of course, we will be happy to keep the committee updated.

Yes. We are undertaking a pilot on that scheme at the moment, because it is the only scheme that we have had that is means tested. Some of the feedback that I have had on the fund suggests that it has been challenging for people to apply, and we want to make sure that there is support for small farmers. We are working with the Scottish Agricultural Organisation Society—SAOS—to provide better support for small farms going forward and to utilise the funding in a way that works for them. Again, I am happy to come back to the committee with more information.

Suspending that fund for the coming year will obviously be disappointing, because it is a well-utilised fund that we run. I know of and have visited a number of businesses that have received funding from the scheme in the past. It provides the vital capital injection that many businesses need to improve their facilities.

We also know that the scheme has not been without its criticisms. One of the key criticisms that I have received about the food processing, marketing and co-operation grant scheme—we touched on this previously—is about the windows for spending the funding. In the current financial year, I announced the outcome of the round in November, and there is then a short window in which the money needs to be spent. Successful applicants have only a very short window in which to spend the funding that they have been awarded. Assessment for the scheme is also quite a long process.

We want to use the coming period to reflect on where improvements can be made to the scheme. I fully intend and hope to bring that scheme back in future years. However, we really want to use this period to reflect on it and see whether there is a way in which we can lengthen the application window to provide more time for the whole process to be run through, to consider questions about whether it is accessible enough for small businesses and to look at the criteria that we use for that fund.

I certainly hear some of that from businesses that I have engaged with that have been awarded funding. Of the criticisms of the scheme that I have talked about, I know that the period of time involved is a particular issue. George Burgess is probably closer to some of the detail on that, but the coming period is important, because it gives us the chance to reflect on the feedback and look at what changes, if any, need to be made to the scheme to ensure that it is fit for purpose and does what we want it to do.

It might not be as long a period as that. As George Burgess touched on in his response, we could be looking to open an application round so that the funding could be spent at an earlier stage.

It is in 2024.

It will be from April 2024.

Do you mean the knowledge transfer and innovation fund and the types of projects that that has been supporting?