{"id":4994,"date":"2023-05-12T10:26:38","date_gmt":"2023-05-12T09:26:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.gov.scot\/public-procurement\/?p=4994"},"modified":"2023-05-12T10:26:38","modified_gmt":"2023-05-12T09:26:38","slug":"supplier-opportunity-provision-of-digital-support-services-for-rural-payments-and-support","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.gov.scot\/public-procurement\/2023\/05\/12\/supplier-opportunity-provision-of-digital-support-services-for-rural-payments-and-support\/","title":{"rendered":"Supplier opportunity – Provision of Digital Support Services for Rural Payments and Support"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Scottish Government\u2019s Directorate for Agriculture and the Rural Economy (ARE)<\/a> promotes sustainable economic growth in agriculture, the food industry and in rural areas.<\/p>\n

In order to deliver the vision for Scotland as a leader in sustainable and regenerative farming, ARE has published its Agricultural Reform Route Map<\/a>. ARE has established a major Agriculture Reform Programme (ARP) to deliver the transformation via this Route Map, and digital enablement is at its heart.<\/p>\n

ARE delivers a broad range of essential payments and support services to rural customers across Scotland. These are almost totally dependent on digital services and technologies to ensure that claims for payments and support under several schemes are delivered in a timely and accurate way. This ensures farmers, crofters and land managers across Scotland receive the payments which they are entitled to and, overall, The Scottish Government fulfils its legal obligations and delivers its policy intentions.<\/p>\n

The main Rural Payments and Services (RP&S) Digital Platform is highly complex. It was specifically designed to apply the EU CAP regulations, often in great detail, based on a technical architecture that was defined in 2012. Other technologies and services that predate the main Platform are still a vital part of the overall solution, and there have been some newer services introduced that are based on the latest technologies and approaches available. At the heart of the platform is a sophisticated Land Parcel Information System (LPIS) that manages over 700,000 land parcels within 4 million hectares of land. It spatially manages 1.7 million internal features down to the size of about half a tennis court. The platform has to maintain the history of land and other changes for at least seven years and sometimes significantly longer (reflecting the timeframe of some of the schemes). This information is the basis for calculating a customer\u2019s entitlement to support payments and some grants.<\/p>\n

There is a triple imperative:<\/p>\n