A public sector watchdog has identified numerous flaws in the Welsh government's planned agri-environment scheme.

In its review, released on Thursday, the Welsh Audit Office noted that the architects of the reformed Glastir scheme had learned from previous mistakes, but judged that the government had set unrealistic targets for the amount of farmers expected to sign up to the scheme.

Even so, the Auditors did find that "The introduction of Glastir has been managed better than the changeover to other agri-environment schemes."

The Audit Office praised measures to ease the transition over to the new scheme from previous agri-environment programmes.

The Welsh Government announced plans to introduce the Glastir scheme in May 2009; the scheme replaced a number of other agri-environment programmes previously run by the Welsh government. Under Glastir, the government aims to have paid out £119 million in grants by the end of 2015, including £65 million of European Union funding, though by the end of last year only £22m had been spent.

Looking into the scheme's delivery, auditors found that "resource constraints" have impacted on the government's ability to implement aspects of the Glastir scheme and remarked that improvements to computer systems have cost the government £1 million more than originally anticipated.

Although the Auditors' report found that "There remains some risk that Glastir payments will not deliver their intended improvements because landholders do not change their management practices," they acknowledged that this was less of an issue under the current scheme than for previous initiatives.

Andy Philips, National studies manager at the Audit Office commented, "High participation is vital for the success of Glastir, but currently falls well below the Welsh government's targets. Also, the Welsh government has yet to set measures to adjust the success of Glastir in the future."

The watchdog made a series of recommendations to the government. These include:

• Ensuring that landowners receiving grant funding commit to making significant changes to their land management practices that directly support the delivery of Glastir objectives.
• Setting targets for Glastir which are challenging but achievable.
• Clarifying the scale of improvements it expects Glastir to deliver, by when and how these contribute to wider objectives.
• Routinely monitoring the costs of administering Glastir.
• Ensuring a smooth transition to online only applications for Glastir.

NFU Cymru president Stephen James claimed that a complex application process, which farmers believe lacks transparency, has led to poor uptake of the Glastir scheme.

James added, "The administrative burden placed on farmers participating in the scheme with the requirement to complete stocking records and activity diaries is also significant and all too often farmers, who are running commercial enterprises and who view food production as their primary goal, simply do not feel that the scheme offers them sufficient financial reward for their efforts.

"There are many farmers in Wales who wish to undertake actions on their farms that deliver a wide range of environmental benefits.  This is evidenced by levels of uptake of former schemes and also by the high levels of expression of interest for Glastir.  It is, therefore, very regrettable that the complexity and the lack of reward offered by Glastir as it currently stands do not encourage participation."

Wales Audit Office released a video outlining the report's findings on Thursday: