Recommendation 23

In written evidence Cifas, the UK’s largest cross-sector fraud sharing organisation, told us there should be transparency around the businesses that have been in receipt of COVID-19 support scheme funds, and, in its submission to us, the Fraud Advisory Panel agreed that transparency around fraud and error is “imperative” to maintain public trust and confidence.59 The Counter Fraud Function has said it wants to help ensure the UK is the most transparent government globally in how it deals with public sector fraud.60 In December 2020 we recommended that HMRC list details of companies who received support through the CJRS scheme to try and reduce the opportunity for fraud to occur.61 HMRC published details of employers claiming CJRS from December 2020 onwards, but told us there are “limits” as to what details it holds and can publish. HMRC explained that the publication of this information was “really just for public transparency of how 51 Q 69 52 Letter from Mark Cheeseman, page 3 53 Q 77 54 Letter from Mark Cheeseman, page 2 55 Qq 86, 87, 91 56 Fraud Advisory Panel submission, page 6 57 Qq 87,91; Letter from Mark Cheeseman page 3 58 Q 87 59 Cifas submission, page 3; Fraud Advisory Panel submission, page 5 60 C&AG’s Guide, page 4 61 Committee of Public Accounts, Covid-19: Support for jobs, Thirty-Fourth Report of Session 2019–21, HC 920, 20 December 2020 16 Fraud and Error public money is being spent”.62 HMRC told us it was not reliant on the public sharing of information to manage fraud risk as it was not an integral part of the fraud management process, although it welcomed any useful information as a result of doing so.63 In response to a parliamentary question about the list of companies offered coronavirus business interruption loans, BEIS stated it was seeing if it could “publish something soon”.64 In written evidence the Fraud Advisory Panel told us publishing data on loan recipients would have been useful as it could have assisted with the early identification