Audit Scotland published a report on “Supporting Scotland’s economic growth” which reviews the work and performances of SE and Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE).

Tony McKay, from Mackay Consultants, has slated the report writing that “it is a poor report, which might accurately be described as a ‘whitewash’. Some parts of it could well have been written by the PR departments of Scottish Enterprise and HIE. There is virtually no critical analysis in the report and the discussion of the recent performance of the Scottish economy is very superficial and misleading”.

Scottish Enterprise and HIE are the Scottish Government’s two main agencies which promote economic development. Nevertheless, there has been increasing criticism of the performances of both SE and HIE in recent years.

The report further shows that the Scottish economy has underperformed the UK economy in each of the last five years, with an average annual difference of about -0.5 per cent.

Commenting on the report Mr MacKay said: “Most of it is a description of what SE and HIE do and their administrative procedures for monitoring expenditure. The key part is – or should have been – Part 3: Impact of the enterprise bodies’ activity. However, there is virtually no analysis in it. There are references to various case studies but those are also mainly descriptions.”

He added: “There are also references to various evaluations undertaken by SE and HIE. I have read some of them. A few are good and useful, but most are “whitewash” evaluations undertaken by ex-SE and HIE staff, which simply tell their former bosses what they want to hear or read.

“Scottish Enterprise does a lot of good work but its performance has clearly declined in recent years. The AS report suggests that might be partly because of the reduction in the budget from the Scottish Government but I doubt that.

“A good – or bad – example of that is the oil industry. Scottish Enterprise used to have a substantial involvement with the industry and their help was much appreciated, particularly the work of their Aberdeen office. That involvement has declined, however, although given the ongoing problems in the industry it is possible that more assistance is required now than in the boom days.”

The report references the Government’s Scotland’s Economic Strategy which was published in March 2015, a few months after the Independence Referendum. It has been widely criticised, including by many people in the SNP, for the number of forecasts which are wildly inaccurate.

Mr Mackay said: “I expected the Audit Scotland report to comment objectively on these economic policies and make an objective assessment of the work of Scottish Enterprise. That has not happened.”