IT WAS once suggested that flying over Scotland chucking fivers out of a plane to the value of Scottish Enterprise’s annual budget would have as much impact as the agency’s work on the economy.

I am not saying for one minute that this is worthy of serious thought — especially as the wind is likely to blow the money to Norway — but given some of the recent madness anything is possible.

As we reveal in our News section today, Scottish Enterprise has been sitting on a report into the impact of the Business Gateway programme for six months.

It reveals that more than half of businesses started under the flagship scheme disappear within three years. The 155-page report recommends better targeting as well as clearer incentives to encourage Gateway contractors to start better and more successful businesses.

It found Gateway created 1,405 jobs generating sales of £19m in 2004-5, but spent £7.6m to get them, which works out at £5,400 for every job created. Value for money? Apart from keeping the details under wraps, SE deserves credit for commissioning the £72,000 report and then acting on it. The clear message is that Gateway is good, people like it, but it needs to be more focused. Just what the business community has been saying. But then along came the enterprise minister, Nicol Stephen, with his ham-fisted efforts to look tough. Stephen told SE to keep Gateway as it is for a year, so the reform work stopped. But get this. Stephen did so without seeing the report. I don’t think he even knew it existed.

It is frankly astonishing that somebody so senior in the executive could make such a big decision without all the evidence.

The £12m spent on Gateway services is chicken feed compared to the agency’s overall budget of £500m, yet Stephen felt compelled to jump in with both feet when the likes of the Chambers of Commerce and West Lothian council complained. Why? Did he realise that some of these bodies are actually contracted to deliver Gateway services? No wonder they were worried about reform.

And one of the report’s findings is that the consistency of delivery is patchy. Who does Stephen blame for that? The low survivability rate isn’t as bad as it seems because Gateway naturally scoops up some of the more borderline cases. But if we want to see more of these start-ups survive, we need to consider this sort of evidence, not the knee-jerk reaction of vested interests.

So a sensible reform partly completed has been stopped because of the sound and fury over a minor budget crisis and an enterprise minister’s cack-handed intervention. Welcome to the wacky world of Scottish government.

Maybe we need to commission a report on Stephen’s value to the Scottish economy. One thing is certain — it won’t run to 155 pages.

Football’s gold

Still no sign of Scotland’s blue-chip companies lining up to sponsor our football. No wonder. Celtic wrapped up the Scottish Premierleague (SPL) title last week before the split, 20 points ahead of Hearts.

Hearts were supposed to make things interesting, but so far the only interesting thing is guessing how long the current manager will stay in a job.Meanwhile, at the bottom, Livingston, despite Pearse Flynn’s money, look doomed.

The good news for the SPL is that it has a year to get a new sponsor. Meanwhile, Celtic must consider how to capitalise on winning the league. The prospect of a £10m European windfall next season may depend on Milan or Barcelona winning the Champions League, as Arsenal and Villareal would take Celtic’s automatic place in the group stage.

Qualification, as Celtic know, is fraught with difficulty. Exiting Europe before the school holidays are over can blow a hole in your budget.

Celtic reported a pretax loss of £960,000 in the first half of this season while turnover fell 15.2% to £33m, a clear sign of the impact of that European loss. Ticket sales were down by 21% and media revenues were down by 50%. Only a 48% increase in merchandising revenue helped bring the figures back. Full-year figures in August are likely to continue that story.

Football is an expensive business, especially when 60,000 fans are on your back. For Rangers, too, the last few games represent its only chance of giving new boss Paul Le Guen some decent European money to play with.

Heard it here

And finally, I told you a few weeks ago that all the best people read this column. I am not suggesting Gordon Brown’s idea of privatising Scottish Water was pilfered from these pages, but you never know.

Last week I suggested it was time for Standard Life and Scottish & Newcastle chairman Sir Brian Stewart to tell us which horse he is going to back once the mutual floats.

As we reveal today, he is staying with S&N. He still has much to offer the brewer. But who will replace him? Well, Sir George Mathewson steps down from RBS this month, but he’s surely planning something quieter with his time?