Covid Scotland: Scottish Enterprise calls criticism of pandemic “unfair”

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The Scottish Parliament’s Economics and Fair Work Committee told Scottish Enterprise CFO Douglas Colquhoun on Wednesday that the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) and the Scottish Chamber of Commerce believe the strongest support system Lockdown was not visible enough and still too complex and prone to duplication.

Business groups testified before the committee two weeks ago.

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Mr Colquhoun said he felt the criticism was unfair and the organization had experienced the most extraordinary delivery year of its 34 years there.

The economics committee heard from Scottish Enterprise.

He said: There are always lessons to be learned from a situation like the one we experienced last year, but the criticism is a little unfair.

“I think we have provided record levels of support to businesses, investing 560 million in the Scottish economy last year. We have pivoted very quickly to deploy staff in support of businesses that have been affected by Covid.

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“We have awarded $ 220 million in grants to businesses that provide a vital lifeline to approximately 4,000 businesses and have helped save more than 70,000 jobs.

“On top of all this, we continue to deliver what we call the usual activities of a business, in terms of economic development.

“It has been a pretty amazing year in terms of performance. Personally I have 34 years of experience with Scottish Enterprise and I think I will consider last year to be perhaps the most amazing delivery year we have had. known given our staff working remotely.

Testifying before the committee earlier this month, Barry McCullough, Policy Officer at FSB, said: In some ways, when we were in the midst of the crisis, Scottish Enterprise was not there. It’s important that we think about what we can do about this and what we can do differently because of the massive investment we’re talking about.

An FSB report recently warned that nearly two-thirds of small businesses said their operating costs had increased over the past year, while many exporters also said they continued to struggle with the increased shipping costs and loss of goods in transit.

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