Recommendation 26

We asked HM Treasury and HMRC whether they would establish a “how to” guide for responding to future crises. They told us that for the employment support schemes they had brought together material in a “playbooks” that people can use in the future. We also asked about whether lessons learned would be set out clearly in their final evaluation. They said this was not the purpose of the public evaluation. Instead, they referred to their 42 Qq 87, 94; C&AG’s Report, paras 3.39 43 Qq 87–88, 97–98, 103 44 Q 70 45 Committee of Public Accounts, Initial lessons from the government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, 13th Report of Session 2020–21, HC 175, July 2021, pages 3, 6 46 Committee of Public Accounts, Government preparedness for the COVID-19 pandemic: Lessons for government on risk, 46th Report of Session 2021–22, HC 952, March 2022, pages 3, 7 47 HM Treasury, Treasury Minutes: Government Response to the Committee of Public Accounts on the Forty-Third to the Forty-Eighth report from Session 2021–22, CP 678, May 2022 48 Qq 112–113 16 COVID employment support schemes “playbooks”, which they said they would keep up to date.49 On error and fraud, in October 2022 HMRC updated its published summary of its approach to managing the risks of error and fraud, but this did not capture what lessons it had learnt and what should be done differently in any future crisis intervention.50 However, HMRC had previously told us it would look at drawing together its lessons from the schemes to support other parts of government that are tasked with disbursing funds at pace, such as the Household Support Fund.51 49 Qq 25, 114 50 HMRC, Tackling error and fraud in the Covid-19 support schemes, updated 13 October 2022, https://www.gov. uk/government/publications/hmrc-issue-briefing-tackling-error-and-fraud-in-the-covid-19-support-schemes/ tackling-error-and-fraud-in-the-covid-19-support-schemes (accessed 2 December 2022) 51 Committee of Public Accounts, HMRC performance in 2021–22, Thirty-th