Scottish Enterprise writes off £31.5m

Quango’s ‘reckless’ investments slated

- By John Glover

QUESTIONS have been raised over Scottish Enterprise’s “reckless” £16.1million investment of taxpayer money in a company that was “commercially unviable”.

The SNP quango revealed in its annual report that it had written off £31.5m of bad investments, with the majority going to a struggling paper manufacturer in Aberdeen.

Arjowiggins, a historic papermill in Stoneywood, and Chartham, Kent, fell into administration in September 2022 following years of struggle — with analysis of accounts revealing it was consistently unprofitable since bought out of administration in 2019 by Creative Papers.