During Fergus Ewing’s CAP announcement on Tuesday, consideration was given to his plans to move the application process for support payments fully online – but not to make it compulsory.

After ScotGov failed once again to meet the EU target requiring that 95% of farming payments be made by June 30 this year, a reassessment of the computer system is underway, with the hope that it can be made more efficient.

Farmers applying under the Single Application Form in 2018 will be offered more support to help them make the move online. This will include online guidance and one-to-one appointments in area offices.

Mr Ewing said: “For SAF 2018 we will be encouraging online take-up by the remaining paper customers and will be offering support to help them apply and manage their land information online. Achieving this will reduce the time spent manually processing claims and checking and correcting errors, ultimately making the payment process more efficient and easier. This in turn will provide farmers with more time to focus on the important business of farming.”

During his official address, despite calling for increased commitment to online applications, he made clear his awareness that some farmers and crofter were still not comfortable with using the internet for this purpose.

"I have weighed on the benefits of a compulsory approach to applications and decided therefore not to make the online SAF mandatory. Instead we will provide all necessary support through our area offices including one on one assistance.”