Recommendation 11

The Department informed us that the speed at which finance could be provided was a key design and operational requirement. We were told that the Department placed no budgetary cap on the Scheme and that demand was far greater than the Department anticipated. Government does not know how much of this demand resulted from businesses needing the cash or just taking advantage of cheap and readily available finance as there are no credit and affordability checks under the Scheme, and the Department and the Bank are not collecting relevant data.27 International schemes required more detailed application checks and are more restrictive in the use of proceeds.28