We must end secrecy and excess of our £250m quango

Since their creation in the early 1990s, Scottish Enterprise have been a controversial organisation.

Few could argue that Scotland needs a body who will stimulate growth and investment in the private sector.

In fact, it is probably needed now more than ever.

But the quango’s latest excess is simply inexcusable.

The fact that Scottish Enterprise thought it unremarkable that they should hand almost £500,000 to a company, then sign a confidentiality agreement, says it all.

It says it all about a lack of accountability in our multitudinous quangos and it says it all about an addiction to secrecy for secrecy’s sake in Scottish public life. It happens across the board.

It takes in a national police force who have shown a complete lack of transparency when it comes to telling the public about crime.

Also implicit are a prosecution service who have taken a zealous approach to utilising a Contempt of Court Act which has been rendered ineffective to the point of useless by the advent of the internet.

All the while, the Crown Office have faced persistent criticism from victims of crime over the pace of justice and flow of information.

Then there are the political classes who, almost without exception, appear to proactively seek out new ways to muzzle the free printed press.

So while it should rile every citizen that our national business development agency believe it’s OK to hand over vast sums of cash without telling the paying public who is on the receiving end, it should hardly come as a surprise.

This, though, should be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. It’s much more serious than anything which has gone before and ought to mark the beginning of the end of the Secret Scotland phenomenon.

With the enforced lack of any information to the country, we are going to have to assume that our national investment agency have been taken for a ride.

If the powers that be at Scottish Enterprise – responsible for a public budget of more than £ 250million – wish to disabuse us all of that notion, they could start by filling in the blanks.

If our politicians fail to enforce a rethink here, then they aren’t doing their jobs properly.

This deserves a thorough investigation and, if that doesn’t yield the necessary answers, a public inquiry.

We will have to assume that the national agency have been taken for a ride