Recommendation 18

We reported previously that the Department had no apparent plans to measure the Scheme’s long-term impact, and no agreed performance measures.44 In its Treasury Minute response to our report, the Department gave a high-level summary of the Scheme’s evaluation plans which aimed for an initial assessment by Autumn 2021. However, it did not provide any detail on how it intended to measure performance.45 As a follow-up, we asked the Department for its latest views on the wider impact of the Scheme, and how it was gaining assurance that the Scheme was working. It said that the Scheme had met its initial goals, in terms of the pace of delivery and the diversity of firms supported, which it considered was reassuring. The NAO found that the Scheme delivered 90% of loans to micro-businesses in the first two months. The Department told us that initial signs showed that there had been no “big spike in failures” that might have happened without the Scheme in place.46