Scottish Enterprise publish Annual Report

Scottish Enterprise has published its 2009/10 Annual Report and Accounts, and claim that the documents highlight a strong year of performance.

During the year, around 10,000 companies accessed SE support to make their business stronger and despite tough economic conditions, SE reports that it achieved all of its performance targets for the year.

This included more than 900 companies supported to work overseas, more than 2000 high value jobs created through inward investment and £82 million of private sector investment generated for research and development activity.

SE also continued to invest its £295 million budget in major new projects to help make Scottish companies, sectors and the wider business environment more globally competitive.

Recognising the constraints of public sector funding, Scottish Enterprise continued its drive to reduce costs and increase efficiency across the organisation.  This has helped to generate over £25 million of savings on its management expenditure over the past two years.

This includes an ongoing commitment to reduce its senior leadership team, which has seen the reduction of 35 director posts over the past two years, generating saving of £3.5 million from our salary bill.

Scottish Enterprise will be publicising individual results in more detail when it publishes its video Annual Review on 14 September.  Chairman Crawford Gillies and Chief Executive Lena Wilson will also be participating in an online Q&A forum that day.