The Chair of the National Assembly’s Public Accounts Committee, Darren Millar AM, has released the following statement in response to the Auditor General’s report on Glastir.
Whilst recognising that the Welsh Government has learnt some lessons from previous experience of managing argri-enviroment schemes, this report outlines substantial weaknesses in its implementation of Glastir.
The level of take-up, coupled with the apparent lack of realism in some of the Welsh Government’s target setting, is disappointing. In addition, the absence of clear success criteria means that the overall impact of the scheme will be difficult to assess. But more fundamentally, the added-value of Glastir may still be questionable if some landholders are receiving grant funding when the scheme does not require them to make significant changes to their land management practices.
In its September 2008 report on the Tir Gofal agri-environment scheme, the [then] Audit Committee of the National Assembly for Wales made recommendations about both of these issues and it is regrettable that those issues do not appear, as yet, to have been addressed fully by the Welsh Government for the Glastir scheme.
The Committee has maintained a strong interest in the Welsh Government’s grants management arrangements over recent years and will be considering this latest report at its meeting on 16 September 2014.
The full report is available from the Wales Audit Office.