Letters have been issued by the Scottish Government outlining payments under the new National Loan scheme, which was set up due to problems with the IT system for delivering CAP payments.
However, the information used to calculate the sums in many cases is wrong. For hundreds of farmers and crofters, not all of the region 3 land they have included in their claim has been included in the loan calculations.
The Scottish Government has acknowledged the error but only after the correspondence was issued.
Now staff will phone each individual farmer or crofter who has been affected to say that they will be granted an extra week for their loan payment to be dealt with.
The latest mistake emerged as an Audit Scotland report showed that the loan system carried a number of risks which could include overpayment and delays to other loans in the Scottish budget.
Scottish Conservative MSP Peter Chapman, Shadow Cabinet Secretary for Rural Economy and Connectivity, said: “You really couldn’t make this up.
“It is an absolutely shocking catalogue of blunders and farmers will be wondering when it is ever going to end.
“The Scottish Government has mishandled this process from the outset. There has been a string of failures that have to be laid at the door of the SNP and the Cabinet Secretary.
“After months of delays costing millions of pounds, farmers have been left completely in the dark about which payments they have received, with no explanation offered for the sums that have been paid out.
“Now we hear that many of the National Loan payments, which were simply a sticking plaster to cover up the SNP’s mistakes, have been calculated wrongly.
“Fergus Ewing told parliament that staff in the area offices have been ‘busting a gut’ to put things right – well, I’m afraid they are going to do so again to call around the many worried families around the country who are simply trying to keep their heads above water.
“The Scottish Government’s handling of this process has been an absolute shambles. If this was the private sector, heads would be rolling.
“But once again, it is our rural communities that are made to suffer because of the SNP's incompetence."