Business leaders have called on George Osborne to offer all companies long-lasting tax cuts to help them hire more staff.

The call comes after The Herald revealed that a major scheme designed to allow tens of thousands of Scottish businesses take on new employees had been a damp squib.

The policy, a national insurance holiday for start-ups hiring workers, had been expected to create up to 300,000 new jobs in Scotland and help around 32,000 firms.

But new figures show it was taken up by only 3200 companies north of the Border and 26,050 in the UK.

The Tory-Lib Dem Coalition government believes helping small and medium-sized businesses to expand is crucial to the UK's economic recovery.

Last night a spokesman for the Institute of Directors said: "Reducing National Insurance contributions across the board would make a real difference to employers, but tinkering with the edges of an already complicated tax system is no substitute for meaningful, long-lasting tax cuts."

Experts have warned that many companies spend their first year ensuring they survive and often do not have the resources needed to hire people.

The Treasury has admitted that the National Insurance contributions holiday did result in a lower than expected take-up but says it did benefit more than 26,000 businesses.