Recommendation 23

HM Treasury acknowledged that it still does not know how well the government’s goals were met and what was achieved for the money spent. It told us it wanted to answer the question of “whether this was the right thing to do”: whether the schemes met their objectives and the total cost was worth it.52 BEIS commissioned an evaluation to examine both the processes by which the grant schemes were created and operated, and to quantify their impact.53 DBT reflected on the importance of ensuring lessons inform the Department’s understanding of, and so future advice to Ministers about, the choices and trade-offs in emergencies. DBT is still awaiting the results but told us it expects to publish “before summer”.54