Error on releasing with maven-release-plugin on Jenkins - maven

Question

I got a Jenkins job that builds a java maven project.
Now I tried a release build via Jenkins (Perform Maven Release) but it fails.
[ERROR] Failed to execute goal org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-release-plugin:2.5:prepare (default-cli) on project MyProject: Unable to check for local modifications
[ERROR] Provider message:
[ERROR] The svn command failed.
[ERROR] Command output:
[ERROR] svn: E155036: Please see the 'svn upgrade' command
[ERROR] svn: E155036: The working copy at '/var/lib/hudson/workspace/JobName/MyProject'
[ERROR] is too old (format 8) to work with client version '1.9.5 (r1770682)' (expects format 31). You need to upgrade the working copy first.
[ERROR] -> [Help 1]
[ERROR]
[ERROR] To see the full stack trace of the errors, re-run Maven with the -e switch.
[ERROR] Re-run Maven using the -X switch to enable full debug logging.
[ERROR]
[ERROR] For more information about the errors and possible solutions, please read the following articles:
[ERROR] [Help 1] http://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/MAVEN/MojoFailureException
The plugin configuration in the pom is:
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-release-plugin</artifactId>
<version>2.5</version>
<configuration>
<tagBase>http://svn.example.org/myproject/tags/_modules</tagBase>
</configuration>
</plugin>
I'm not sure now but in the past it was working.
What I don't understand is the maven-release-plugin not using the local svn client?
From the error message it seems so (svn upgrade) and if so why is it failing on the release but not the checkout?
Is there a way to come around this without changing jenkins?
What I tried is adding following as I understand that that should force the plugin to use this provider which should be compatible:
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>com.google.code.maven-scm-provider-svnjava</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-scm-provider-svnjava</artifactId>
<version>2.0.6</version>
<scope>compile</scope>
</dependency>
</dependencies>
But I got following error:
[ERROR] Failed to execute goal org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-release-plugin:2.5:prepare (default-cli) on project MyApp: Unable to commit files
[ERROR] Provider message:
[ERROR] SVN commit failed.
[ERROR] Command output:
[ERROR] svn: E170001: Commit failed (details follow):
[ERROR] svn: E170001: MKACTIVITY of '/products/MyAppsAgregator/!svn/act/24d46a73-6601-0010-864c-7b76c8107c40': 403 Forbidden (http://svn.example.org)
[ERROR] -> [Help 1]
[ERROR]
[ERROR] To see the full stack trace of the errors, re-run Maven with the -e switch.
[ERROR] Re-run Maven using the -X switch to enable full debug logging.