STAFF at the jobs and regeneration quango Scottish Enterprise ran up more than 17,000 sick days over a year, it emerged yesterday.
The Conservatives, who obtained the figures, said they substantiated a common complaint from Scots business people that they never met the same person from the publicly funded body twice.
The number of working days lost through absence rose from 1
1,607 in 2003-4 to 17,041 in 2007-8 – working out at 6.4 days a year for each of the 2,647 staff at the time employed by Scottish Enterprise. Disciplinary actions have almost quadrupled to 39 over the last three years.
Since April, a massive reorganisation has seen staffing levels reduced to 1,050, at a cost of more than £26 million in compensation and pension contributions to departing workers. At the same time, Jack Perry, the Scottish Enterprise chief executive, took home a salary package of £225,000 – including £24,000 bonus – while he and three other executives had their pension pots each valued at in excess of £500,000.
The organisation, which has its executive board appointed by ministers, has seen its annual budget slashed from £569 million in the 2007-8 financial year to £327 million from April.
Margaret Mitchell, a Conservative MSP, said: "It must be remembered that taxpayers are footing the bill for an organisation which offers advice to businesses and new start-ups, but which, on this evidence, clearly has had difficulty running its own affairs."
A Scottish Enterprise spokeswoman said: "The average number of days lost per Scottish Enterprise employee is just over six days, compared with a public-sector average of nine and a private-sector average of 5.8."
The full article contains 295 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
