Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 24
24
The pandemic has highlighted the importance of carrying out robust risk planning and being clear...
Conclusion
The pandemic has highlighted the importance of carrying out robust risk planning and being clear about risk appetite and risk tolerance. Our previous work, including on support for children’s education during the pandemic and on the Bounce Bank Loans Scheme, has found that the government lacked pre-existing plans for many aspects of its response such as employment support schemes, support for people shielding and disruption to schooling.51 In the interests of speed, government took decisions at the start of the pandemic which it recognised would lead to a “massive increase in scale” of fraud, including relaxing some controls and streamlined spending approvals. HM Revenue & Customs’ planning assumptions were that between 5% and 10% of payments from the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) and between 1% and 2% of payments from the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS) were due to fraud and error. In September 2020, this amounted to between £2 billion and £3.9 billion for the CJRS and between £130 million and £270 million for the SEISS. The Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, in conjunction with the British Business Bank, has estimated that between 35% and 60% of loans from the Bounce Back Loans Scheme may not be repaid. In March 2021, the estimated value of these loans was between £16 billion and £27 billion based on loans to date.52
Government Response
Not Addressed
HM Government
Not Addressed
5: PAC conclusion: Government has yet to improve its approach to managing risk or set out which trade-offs it intends to make in future emergencies. 5: PAC recommendation: The Cabinet Office should, by 31 October 2021, write to us detailing how, and when, it will implement the Boardman review’s recommendation to establish a risk management profession and training programme and provide us with a quarterly progress update until this has been fully implemented. 5.1 The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Recommendation implemented 5.2 The Civil Service Chief Operating Officer and the Director General, Public Spending, HM Treasury wrote to the Committee on 23 June 2021. Developments will be progressed by the Government Finance Function, working with Civil Service Human Resources, over the next 12-18 months.