Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 2
2
Not Addressed
The Department does not have a good enough assessment of the levels of fraud and...
Recommendation
The Department does not have a good enough assessment of the levels of fraud and error in local authority administered business support grants. During 2020– 21 and 2021–22 the Department has provided funds to local authorities to distribute to local businesses in their areas through nine grant schemes. The Department has so far only attempted to assess the extent of fraud and error in the initial three grant schemes administered in Spring 2020: the Small Business Grant Fund; Retail, Hospitality and Leisure Grant Fund; and the Local Authority Discretionary Grant Fund. The Department’s sample examined only 476 grants, representing 0.05% of grants paid out by number. The Department asserts that it is refining its estimate of fraud and error in this group by expanding its sample to nearly 5,000 grants, and that the second group of local authority administered grants would be an even larger sample of 12,000 grants. However, the Department has not yet started work on the second group and success with these larger samples relies on the capacity and willingness of local authorities to cooperate. We are concerned that local authorities have few incentives to do so given that all recovered funds are to be passed to the Department, and the limitations to the estimates of fraud and error make it challenging for the Department and local authorities to assess the time and resources required to recover these funds. Recommendation: The Department should write to the Committee by September 2022 setting out how it will obtain full cooperation from local authorities to allow it to calculate robust fraud and error estimates for all COVID-19 business support grants, milestones for achieving these calculations, and how this information is being used to focus recovery efforts. 6 Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy Annual Report and Accounts 2020–21
Government Response Summary
The government response discusses Électricité de France’s (EDF) strategies, plans, and the estimated costs of decommissioning, and doesn't address the recommendation to calculate fraud estimates.
Government Response
Not Addressed
HM Government
Not Addressed
2023. This will reflect the revised costs for defueling/deconstruction and uncontracted liabilities. 2.3 As noted to the Committee, Électricité de France’s (EDF) strategies, plans and the estimated costs are scrutinised, challenged, and approved by the Non-NDA liabilities assurance team (NLA) under the terms of the revised funding agreement. EDF’s estimated costs of decommissioning is now to be presented as a range of costed scenarios reflecting risk and uncertainty and this is contractually updated on an annual basis. 2.4 EDF’s liabilities from 2020 onwards have utilised a new methodology based upon “top down” scenario evaluation specifically designed to improve understanding, make external scrutiny easier, and counter optimism bias. This has created a much wider range of costs (recognised in the liabilities numbers). HM Government’s Government Actuary Department (GAD) was involved in assessing this methodology.