Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 24
24
Deferred
Early grant schemes proceeded without predicted impact or standard business cases.
Conclusion
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 some businesses that did not need it, or be paid to businesses without preventing their closure and consequent job losses. When we asked whether lessons would be learned from how this played out in practice, HM Treasury told us that “we will look very hard at that question”.55 We asked witnesses about businesses that were not served well, or at all, by the business grant schemes. HM Treasury emphasised that it is important to “to look at the entirety of the support that was given, not just this scheme in isolation.”56 HM Treasury played a central role across the entirety of business support during the pandemic, including schemes where DBT did not have significant involvement; for example some schemes were delivered through HM Revenue & Customs.57 HM Treasury has not committed to publishing the results of any reflections on its part in the decision-making process for this support.58 49 Q 106 50 Q 9 51 Q 15; C&AG’s Report, paras 2.4–2.5, 2.23 and 2.30, and footnote 12 52 Qq 79, 106 53 C&AG’s Report, para 2.33 54 Q 24, 99 55 Ministerial Directions – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk); Q 106 56 Qq 103–104,119 57 Committee of Public Accounts, COVID employment support schemes, Fortieth Report of Session 2022–23, HC 810, 8 March 2023 58 C&AG’s Report, para 2.36 Local authority administered COVID support schemes in England 15 Contingency plans
Government Response Summary
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.
Government Response
Deferred
HM Government
Deferred
The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Target implementation date: Winter 2023 5.2 Publication of the Ipsos evaluation is anticipated in late November 2023. The report has been delayed pending Office of National Statistics clearance. 5.3 Further details will be provided in due course. The department will write to the Committee following publication of the report to set out what it has concluded from the evaluation.