Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 4
4
Accepted
Establish a long-term plan for tracking COVID-related costs and evaluating support schemes.
Conclusion
HM Treasury does not have a clear plan for tracking ongoing COVID costs or evaluating COVID schemes in the longer term. It is essential that government learns from its response to the pandemic to ensure that lessons are applied and improve both future responses and business-as-usual service delivery. Yet HM Treasury has no existing plans to track COVID spending beyond next year. There is clear value in tracking some specific data for longer, such as the 20-year culture loans and 10-year business loans, and in learning lessons to understand if these initiatives just propped up struggling institutions or allowed them to invest and expand. There is also a risk that Machinery of Government changes can obfuscate attempts to follow the performance of, and return on, these investments. Evaluation of COVID support schemes is beginning to be reported, but on a scheme-by-scheme basis. Recommendation 4a: HM Treasury should, within six months, set out a long-term plan for tracking COVID-related costs, such as requiring accounts disclosures for annual accounts of significant schemes beyond the cost-tracker. b) HM Treasury should, by July 2024, provide a compendium of evaluation of COVID schemes from across Government, and cross cutting lessons to learn.
Government Response Summary
The government agrees and commits to providing a list of relevant COVID scheme evaluations by July 2024 and to carry out an exercise to distil cross-cutting lessons, with an update to the Committee in April. It also highlights ongoing efforts in risk management and refining spending frameworks.
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. achieving policy aims and remains committed to learning and sharing lessons from the response to the pandemic. The government has written to the Committee regularly over the last four years explaining where improvements to processes can and have been made. For example, the government's response to recommendation 1 of the Committee's Forty-Sixth Report of Session 2021-22 provided an update on the steps taken to bolster the department’s approach to risk management, including the creation of a Risk Management Strategy and Delivery Plan. The then Chief Secretary also wrote to the Treasury Select Committee on 1 April 2021, copied to the Chair of the PAC, explaining the lessons learned by the department, on how responding to the pandemic required the department to administer the spending control framework more flexibly than during ‘normal’ times. HM Treasury continues to refine the spending framework annually to ensure it remains fit for purpose. HM Treasury sees the value in bringing together evaluations of COVID schemes, including completed and in-flight evaluations, into a single compendium. HMT is content to provide a list of relevant evaluations in July 2024. Separately, HM Treasury has committed to carry out an exercise to distil lessons from the experience of supporting businesses through the pandemic, drawing on existing evaluations and reports, and where relevant including cross-cutting lessons to learn. HM Treasury will provide the Committee with an update on its progress in April.