Scottish Land Matching Service

SAOS was commissioned by the Scottish Government to lead a development project to explore and identify how best to transition the SLMS from its pilot programme status into a permanent, sustainable service for all of Scottish agriculture and crofting and sustain ‘succession’ within the rural sector. This development project was designed to build upon the findings from The SLMS Progress Review report undertaken by the James Hutton Institute (Sutherland, L-A and Corbett, R. 2023).

Who did we work with?

SAOS facilitated a multi-stakeholder project including close working with existing SLMS Independent advisers, National Farmers Union of Scotland, the Scottish Crofting Federation, Scottish Association of Young Farmers, Women in Agriculture Scotland, Scottish Tenant Farmers Association and Scottish Land and Estates.

What did we do?

This work and our findings resulted in us producing the following three recommendations:

1. increase the awareness and engagement from both landholders and land-seekers to optimise the potential for a greater balance in land accessibility.
2. provide organisational direction over the medium term.
3. update operational delivery and support functionality.

Why?

There are a number of emerging challenges within the rural sector where there is an ageing demographic of farmers and crofters ‘working the land’, a variable approach to succession planning, difficulty for new entrants trying to secure land tenure and general labour recruitment shortages within the sector.

As a result, the Scottish Government funded the inception of the SLMS in 2019 as a key support service for new entrants and the next generation. The mandate for this was to enable joint ventures in farming and crofting. It has operated as a ‘pilot’ programme since then.

How did SAOS help?

SAOS played a pivotal role by:

• chairing the Industry Stakeholder Group and managing project governance.
• facilitating the development of a medium-term organisational strategy with clear objectives and critical success factors.
• creation of a strategic implementation plan including specified resourcing needs, succession planning options and marketing and communication plans.
• reviewing the current operational model and providing recommendations on future
  • administrative support and systems.
  • synergy and engagement with the crofting sector.
  • improved data handling, interrogation and insight gathering to support policy.
• reviewing and recommending future governance options.
• producing detailed business plans and funding requirements.