Recommendation 7

We pressed witnesses about the absence of basic controls in the early schemes, and the level of consideration that had been given to how quickly these controls could have been put in place.9 DBT told us that the level of speed involved was “almost inconceivable”, but accepted that early in the pandemic the Department had not been sufficiently aware of the importance of pre-payment checks. DBT’s comments suggested it recognised that, while ministers can take responsibility for courses of action that do not meet normal tests, officials need to be in a position to advise ministers on the potential impact of any trade- offs and choices they may wish to make. We heard that DBT officials have drawn from the lessons to be learned from this experience, to enable better advice to be provided in future.10 HM Treasury told us it was still considering the question of “what would have been the optimum preparation for this scenario”.11 Recovery of losses