Recommendation 11

Although the Department set eligibility criteria for grant schemes administered by local authorities, it delegated most grant decisions to them. The Department told us that it provided clear guidance to local authorities on recordkeeping requirements and the need to be able to reconcile payments for the purposes of audit.43 However, it also told us that administering these grants had put real pressure on local authorities, despite the Department not always requiring them to conduct pre-payment eligibility checks before making grant payments to businesses. As with other schemes set up during the pandemic that we have reported on, the Department told us that it launched schemes with ‘consciously insufficient levels of upfront control’, and with ministers prioritising delivery of grants to businesses over doing (post-payment assurance) sampling faster.44 34 Q 67 35 Q 69 36 ICAEW, paras 24–25 37 68–70 38 Qq 12, 68–71, 77, 97, 103 39 Qq 63, 97–99, 103 40 Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, Annual report and accounts 2020–21, 25 November 2021, Accountability report, page 122 41 Qq 9–10, 13 42 Q 17 43 Q 67 44 Qq 15, 63 12 Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy Annual Report and Accounts 2020–21