Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 12
12
Accepted
Only 2% of £1.1 billion in COVID scheme losses recovered by May 2023.
Conclusion
DBT told us that by May 2023 £20.9 million of losses had been recovered to date; this is around 2% of the £1.1 billion. We heard that £15 million had been recovered by local authorities and £6 million had been repaid to government voluntarily by large businesses. DBT also said that local authorities have referred a further £6 million of irregular payments to government after being unable to recover them, and authorities are currently pursuing another £7 million.19
Government Response Summary
The government agrees and details actions underway by December 2023 to improve recovery of irregular payments, including re-contacting local authorities, streamlining processes, introducing a pilot digital tool to assess recovery viability, and fast-tracking fraud referrals for litigation.
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Target implementation date: December 2023 2.2 The planned non-executive directors (NED) review reported to the Committee has now been undertaken by the Chair of Department for Business and Trade (the department’s) Audit and Risk Assurance Committee. The review was undertaken during the period June through early September 2023 with findings now presented to the Permanent Secretary. 2.3 The review identified opportunities to improve recovery of irregular payments overall, including fraud payments, and improve value for money, with the following work underway to implement recommendations: • all local authorities have been re-contacted to request engagement, increasing the volume and accelerating the flow of irregular payments cases; • recovery processes have been streamlined with appropriately deployed skills and new resource allocated; • a pilot digital tool has been introduced to help assess viability of recovery from grant recipient businesses, ensuring recovery effort is focused on recoverable debt; and • fast-tracking referrals of actual and suspected fraud payments for litigation is ongoing. 2.4 The department is also working with local authorities to quantify the value of irregular payments that might reasonably be expected to be recovered and the associated cost of recovery.