Nearly £18 million has been spent on a landlord registration scheme which has seen just a tiny fraction of landlords struck off, figures obtained by the Conservative Party have revealed.
Around 100 landlords have had licences refused or revoked in the last five years, just 0.05% of the 200,000 applications since the scheme's inception.
Only 11 landlords have been reported to the procurator fiscal for serious breaches in the last two years.
Landlords have paid £11.2 million in fees, while the start-up Scottish Government grant for the scheme was £5.2 million.
Annual running fees for the website since 2006 are estimated to be just under £300,000.
The Conservatives said the figures demonstrate that the scheme has been a costly failure, but the Scottish Government said it was not designed to prosecute landlords but to provide reassurance for tenants.
Tory housing spokesman Alex Johnstone said: "This farcical programme, introduced with the best of intentions, is failing to deliver at a tremendous cost to the taxpayer.
"And responsible people with aspirations to get into the property business are being hit in the pocket because of this inadequate scheme.
"The private rented sector is playing an increasingly important role in delivering solutions to housing need in Scotland, and we need a robust an efficient mechanism to help achieve that.
"These figures suggest that, at the moment, the Private Landlord Registration Scheme is not it."
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