Swinney confirms he will scrutinise enterprise companies’ gifts costs

During this afternoon's question time, Margaret Mitchell MSP, quizzed John Swinney, Cabinet Secretary for Finance, Employment and Sustainable Growth, about the amount of money spent on gifts by Scotland's enterprise agencies over the last five years.

Commenting on his response, Scottish Conservative MSP, Margaret Mitchell said:

"My FOI request into the amount spent on gifts by both Scottish Enterprise and Highlands and Islands Enterprise revealed that combined, they had spent £1,328,800 over the last five years on gifts including promotional baseball caps, calendars, umbrellas, pens and USB sticks.

"I appreciate that some of this expenditure on gifts is justified as part of these bodies' respective marketing strategies and that hopefully they will have generated business interests and income for Scotland. Nevertheless, these are staggering sums.

"Given the current economic climate I wanted the Cabinet Secretary's view of whether this was money well spent.

"In his response, he agreed with me that some expenditure was necessary and productive but that he would look at the figures to ensure that this was the case."

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