Recommendation 19

We asked the Departments how much they expected the extended furlough scheme and the SEISS would cost the taxpayer on top of the £55 billion spent so far. HM Treasury told us that it was not responsible for forecasting the expected cost of the scheme, which would be published by the Office for Budget responsibility in a few weeks. We were concerned that neither Department was able to provide any details on how much the extension to the schemes would cost. HM Treasury said the final costs would depend on take-up levels which in turn depended on labour market forecasts. It told us that it had a broad range of estimates, so it had a sense of what the maximum cost of the extended schemes might be and what range the costs were expected to be within, but we unable to provide the figures during our evidence session.52 We were concerned that, even if the OBR does the detailed number crunching, HM Treasury should at the very least be providing the Chancellor with some ballpark costings before implementing any government policies.53 46 Qq 97–98 47 HM Treasury, Further details of the Job Retention Bonus announced, available at: www.gov.uk/government/ news/further-details-of-the-job-retention-bonus-announced 48 Q 101 49 Q 38 50 Q 51 51 Q 99 52 Qq 15–17 53 Q 34 16 Covid-19: Support for jobs