Recommendation 24

The final cost and impact of some of the measures introduced in response to the pandemic will not be known for many years. We examined the Bounce Back Loans Scheme in December 2020 and April 2022, where we found that the Scheme’s impact could only be judged when borrowers reached the end of their six- or ten- year loan period and their loans were either repaid or written off if the business has not survived.37 In June 2021, we also examined the Culture Recovery Fund, a £1.57 billion fund which aimed to save up to 75% of organisations in the arts, culture and heritage sectors at risks of financial ruin following the national lockdown. The loans had a 20 year term, with a low interest rate and no repayments for two to four years.38 We noted that the recipients of these unexpected injections of funding will have absorbed that money into their forward funding plans and will have reconfigured how they will fund future activities. We asked the Treasury whether the taxpayer was subsidising an organisation unnecessarily, or was stimulating growth, innovation, and employment opportunities. Given the length over which spending measures such as the Culture Recovery Fund and Bounce Back Loan Scheme funding will be repaid, we also asked how the Treasury would ensure that this spending could be evaluated by the next generation of elected and permanent officials without having to go through every individual Department’s accounts. HM Treasury told us that it had recently written to all Departments to remind them of the expectation that material policies are evaluated. It confirmed that it would be checking that major policies are evaluated in the way intended.39