Recommendation 16

As some COVID-19 business support schemes have increasingly become part of business as usual, the Department told us that, for example in relation to grants distributed by local authorities, its systems and methods are now approaching maturity. It considers it has improved its guidance to local authorities and refined its approach to identifying fraud and error in these grant schemes.59 However, lessons learnt seem to have been largely actions in pursuit of reducing shortcomings in existing schemes rather than learning wider lessons that could be applied to limit fraud and error in future schemes. The ICAEW recommends that the government establishes a standard framework for assuring grants delivered through local authorities, providing clarity to the respective reporting roles of central and local government, as well as measures to be used to detect and prevent fraud and error.60