A detailed analysis of how Covid-19 business support funding was distributed during the pandemic is not possible due to gaps in data, according to Audit Scotland.
The Scottish Government provided about £4.4 billion of grants and non-domestic rate reliefs between March 2020 and October 2021, mostly paid out to businesses by councils. The government announced a further £375million of support in December 2021 following the emergence of the Omicron variant.
Steps were taken to improve the management of funding during the pandemic, according to the watchdog.
But it said today that there was not enough focus on gathering detailed data on how money was distributed and how quickly applicants received funding.
This means:
- The Scottish Government does not have an analysis of the total amounts paid out from the more general schemes to different economic sectors
- For sector specific funding administered by national organisations such as Scottish Enterprise, around 20% of payments cannot currently be matched to council areas
- Similarly, information to enable wider analysis of how funding supported specific groups, such as the female owned businesses disproportionately hit by Covid-19, is not available from Scottish Government centrally held data.
Responding to the report, opposition politicians accused ministers of a lack of transparency.
Auditor General Stephen Boyle said: "These business support schemes were administered at pace in exceptional circumstances. But knowing where the money went matters.
"To get future policy development and delivery right, it will be important for the Scottish government to fully understand how funding was used to support specific businesses and groups over the last two years of the pandemic."
Responding to the Audit Scotland report, Economy Secretary Kate Forbes said: “I am pleased that both Audit Scotland and the Accounts Commission have recognised how quickly the Scottish Government was able to establish a wide ranging business support package in order to help safeguard thousands of businesses and jobs.
“We will now carefully consider the findings of this report and of course any lessons will be learned, but fundamentally this report shows the decisions we took ensured lifeline support reached key businesses promptly and our economy continued to grow by 7.1% despite the necessary public health restrictions.”