| In what is being seen as an implied rebuke, Scottish Enterprise
Managers are to receive free eye tests. The optical intervention comes in the week when
politicians have been forced to bail out the troubled enterprise agency by allowing them
to draw down on the next year’s budget to the tune of 35m of your earth pounds.
Accounting for the large and embarrassing hole in the agency’s accounts,
pen-pushers for Audit Scotland discovered that bank statements clearly identified the
overdraft, rendering the red-necked figure in red.
It would appear that senior managers at the agency
see the world in black and white, which not only explains the cash-flow snafu but also
goes some way to explaining the choice of ties on display when some hapless PR drone from
the agency gets interviewed on the telly.
Deputy Head Boy, Nichol Stephen is promising to get tough
with the errant economists, sending in an external audit team to look at the agency’s
books. |
Looking tough, he told The JT: "I’m calling for a full
audit of the cash-flow statement, profit and loss account and balance sheet of Scottish
Enterprise. I’ll then spend at least a day pretending to understand the data before
doing what I always do - get a civil servant to come up with a plausible-sounding escape
plan." Prominent critic of the agency, SNP MSP Alex Neil told the JT that he alone
was capable of turning the agency around: "what the agency needs is more flint-eyed
management consultants like me, instead of people who grab the first chance they can of
securing a nice big salary paid for with other people’s money. Er, hang on, I’ve
just thought that one through. Just ignore me."
Artist’s impression of Alex Neil
It is thought that some changes are to
be made at the agency, with less money being spent on enterprise funding for small
businesses, or as the current budget heading reads "Giving money to the scruff." |
Instead, the agency will continue to pump pounds into large scale,
mega projects, so the projected Hanging Gardens of Ballieston should be safe then...
Artist’s impression of The Hanging Gardens of
Ballieston
|
