Select Committee · Public Accounts Committee

Local authority administered COVID grant schemes

Status: Closed Opened: 29 Mar 2023 Closed: 18 Nov 2023 2 recommendations 25 conclusions 1 report

COVID-19 pandemic restrictions varied over time and between different parts of the country, but all had an impact on businesses, many of which were forced to temporarily close or curtail their operations. The government announced in early March 2020 that it would provide grants, administered by local authorities, to support smaller businesses in England. The …

Clear

Reports

1 report
Title HC No. Published Items Response
Sixty-Eighth Report - Local authority administered COVID su… HC 1234 6 Sep 2023 27 Responded

Recommendations & Conclusions

1 item
24 Conclusion Sixty-Eighth Report - Local authority a… Deferred

Early grant schemes proceeded without predicted impact or standard business cases.

The requests made by BEIS officials for Ministerial Directions to proceed with the early grants schemes made reference to the Department’s inability to predict their impact in advance or construct a business case to normal standards. In particular, they referred to the possibility that some funding might be provided to …

Government response. The government will publish the Ipsos evaluation report in late November 2023 and will subsequently write to the Committee to set out its conclusions from the evaluation, deferring the detailing of lessons learned until after the report's release.
HM Treasury

Oral evidence sessions

1 session
Date Witnesses
11 May 2023 Anastasia Osbourne · Department for Business and Trade, David Bickerton · Department for Business and Trade, Gareth Davies CB · Department for Business and Trade, Phil Duffy · HM Treasury View ↗

Correspondence

2 letters
DateDirectionTitle
12 Jun 2023 Correspondence from Gareth Davies, Permanent Secretary, Department for Business…
24 May 2023 Correspondence from Philip Duffy, Director General, Growth and Productivity, HM…