Government must account for what it has spent in response to pandemic and be held accountable for its ‘unacceptable level of mistakes, waste, loss and openings for fraudsters’

Public Accounts Committee says it is 'crucial' that lessons are learned and embedded for when the next big crisis hits

The government must account for what it has spent in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, and be held accountable for its 'unacceptable level of mistakes, waste, loss and openings for fraudsters', the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has said.

In a new report today, Covid-19 cost tracker update, the Committee highlights that the government's response to the pandemic has exposed the taxpayer to substantial financial risks from fraud and error, expected to be at least £15 billion across measures implemented by HMRC, the DWP and the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy.

NB - the Committee points out that the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme alone is estimated to lose £5.3 billion to fraud and error - 8.7 per cent of the funding distributed through the scheme. 

However, while the National Audit Office's Covid-19 cost tracker has increased transparency regarding the cost of the government’s response to the pandemic, the Committee expresses its concern that HM Treasury does not yet know how much money has been lost to fraud and error across the government’s response to Covid-19, and has not set out what lessons it has learnt and how it will apply these in future.

Emphasising that it is 'more vital than ever' that the government maintains accountability for public money and transparency over what is being spent, the Committee recommends that HM Treasury should write to the Committee by the end of the financial year - 

• with its estimate of how much taxpayers’ money has been lost to fraud and error within the schemes introduced in response to the pandemic, and how much it expects will be recovered for each pound it spends doing so; and
• setting out what it has learned from the government’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic, and what action it is taking to identify and collate learning from across government departments.

Chair of the PAC Meg Hillier said today - 

'As the PAC has made clear across a series of reports on the costs of Covid, lack of preparedness and planning, combined with weaknesses in existing systems across Government, have led to an unacceptable level of mistakes, waste, loss and openings for fraudsters which will all end up robbing current and future taxpayers of billions of pounds.

It is essential that for as long as we will be paying the costs of Covid-19, which is at least the next 20 years just in some of the loan repayment terms, the Treasury and all of Government continue to account specifically for what it has spent in response to the pandemic. Government must be held accountable in this way to all the future taxpayers who will be paying for this response. Crucially this must ensure lessons are learned for when the next big crisis hits - be it climate, health or financial.'

For more information, see Government has risked & lost “unacceptable” billions of taxpayers’ money in its Covid response - and must account to the generations that will pay for it from parliament.uk