RURAL Affairs Secretary Richard Lochhead has announced that a new Advisory Board will be set up to help the Scottish Government cut farming red tape.
The move is in response to Brian Pack's "Doing Better Initiative to Reduce Red Tape for Farmers and Rural Land Managers Final Report" which was published yesterday.
The report contains 61 separate recommendations, the first of which is the establishment of an overarching advisory board to ensure that regulatory bodies in Scotland are strategically and operationally aligned.
Mr Lochhead said: "The final report and its many recommendations reflect the complexity of the legislation and regulation governing the rural sector and I will need time to consider these in depth.
"The Scottish Government is already taking steps to minimise the bureaucratic burden for farmers - such as the improved online service we are developing to make the new Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) as accessible as possible - but it is clear we need to do more. I agree that there is a great deal of merit in our regulatory bodies having an integrated approach and the overarching Advisory Board will be the key to driving this recommendation forward and helping me implement the other recommendations in the report."
The Doing Better Initiative to Reduce Red Tape in Agriculture Final Report is available from the Scottish Government website.
l Meanwhile, First Milk has confirmed that from September 1 it will cut the price it pays its members for milk destined to its liquid pool by 0.65p per litre (ppl) and by 0.5ppl for supplies to its manufacturing pool.
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