Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Conclusion 13
20th Report - DCMS management of COVID-19 loans
Published 2 Apr 2025
Addressed to HM Treasury
Public Accounts Committee DCMS management of COVID-19 loans All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
The Department recognised, at the time of the system going live, that it had to resolve a small number of issues to ensure the system was operating as intended, and it planned further improvements to functionality around, for example, automatic reprofiling.26 It told us that it had entered into another contract with PwC to get this additional functionality at an extra cost of £300,000. It assured us that delivery of this functionality was underway and it was very confident that this would be in place well before September 2025 at which point all borrowers will be repaying their loans.27 Future options for managing the loan book
From: Public Accounts Committee, 20th Report - DCMS management of COVID-19 loans (HC 364), 2 April 2025
Government response
Latest Treasury Minutes progress report to the Committee of Public Accounts on the Twentieth Report of Session 2024-26
The government responded to the whole report on 4 June 2026.
Treasury minutes: Government response to the Committee of Public Accounts on the Twentieth report from Session 2024-25
Published 10 July 2025.
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government agrees with the Committee's recommendations on loan book management, the loan management system, long-term options, repayment forecasts, borrower management and borrower engagement, but disagrees with the recommendation on rugby union accountability.
- On long-term options, the government agrees and says a strategic review, to be completed in 2025-26, will assess options "including, but not limited to, a sale or partial sale of the loan book".
- On repayment estimates, the government agrees, with a target date of December 2025. It says further cost, repayment and insolvency modelling will be done through its strategic review.
- On the PwC contract, the government agrees and says the full loan management system functionality was implemented in March 2025 "for under £300,000". The PwC contract has been extended for a further year.
- On rugby union accountability, the government disagrees with the recommendation. It "continues to believe" accountability is best achieved by a Director General within the department as Additional Accounting Officer, rather than a Permanent Secretary from another department.