The sector received around 16.8% (£297m) of the £1.8bn funding drawn under the scheme, across 2,417 manufacturing companies, between the EFG’s initiation in January 2009 and January 2013.

This represented the second largest amount of finance drawn after the wholesale and retail trade sector, grouped with vehicle repair businesses, which drew £434.6m across 4,828 companies, over a quarter of the £1.8bn already lent through the scheme.

But the breakdown reveals that in total £341m worth of loans were offered to 2,718 manufacturing companies, almost 15% did not then progress to the money being drawn, possibly due to an upturn in business and less of a reliance on finance from the EFG.

Overall, only £1.8bn of the £2bn offered by banks was actually drawn by applicants to the EFG.

The scheme, set up in January 2009 to replace the Small Firms Loan Guarantee (SFLG), has injected £1.1bn into the UK economy overall since May 2010, according to research by Durham University (commissioned by the BIS).

Lenders through the scheme are backed by the government, which acts as a guarantor for up to 75% of the loan’s value to encourage banks to finance SMEs with a turnover of less than £41m that have insufficient collateral to access loans through traditional lending.

The measure was introduced to combat the "disappointing" level of lending through the scheme, which accounts for no more than 2% of overall lending to SMEs.

The EFG has received criticism due to its low take-up, along with the Funding for Lending scheme (FLS), launched last summer, which was found to have cut lending amongst its users by £1.1bn in its first two months of operating.

In December, the BIS revealed that only £75.5m was granted through EFG-backed lending during Q3 2012 compared to £203m in the same period for 2011. Business minister Michael Fallon said: "I want to see [banks] making more use of the scheme.

"This latest research shows that the EFG is helping precisely those businesses who can’t get finance elsewhere. It is getting money to where it is needed, saving jobs and delivering a huge benefit for the wider economy.

"Clearly the demand is there for this type of financial support so we must start to see an increase in take-up."

In December last year, BIS first published the value of loans granted by UK banks, which identified the Royal Bank of Scotland as the highest lender, handing out over £700m since 2008/09.

Fallon added that he will continue to demand transparency on which banks are granting loans through government-backed lending schemes to ensure that businesses are well-informed when choosing which lender to approach.

The Durham University report added that over 80% of EFG users would not have been able to secure a loan through conventional bank lending and those businesses that have received an EFG loan had grown at similar level firms, claiming "the scheme is not supporting inferior quality businesses".

Meanwhile, the Regional Growth Fund (RGF) was found to have granted over 1,100 loans to SMEs since it began in May 2010 through local enterprise partnerships and bank lending. The £2.6bn five-year fund’s fourth round is soon to close, which is offering £350m to those businesses applying before March 20.