A detailed analysis of where almost £5bn of Covid business funding went is not possible due to gaps in data, a spending watchdog has found.
The Scottish government provided £4.4bn in grants and business rates relief between the start of the pandemic and October last year.
A further £375m was announced following the emergence of Omicron last winter.
The government said the speed and scale of the roll out helped to safeguard thousands of job and businesses.
But Audit Scotland was unable to determine where all the money ended up.
…Scottish Conservative finance spokeswoman Liz Smith acknowledged the speed with which the money had to be released but said the report highlighted a “shocking lack of data” meant “enormous sums of public money were paid out” but “we don’t properly know where it went”.
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