Wednesday, February 23, 2022
The cost of government incompetence?
As if it were not bad enough that billions of pounds of our money was lost buying unusable PPE during the pandemic, the Guardian draws attention to yet another scandal related to the Government's handling of Covid.
The paper says that the public accounts committee has found that fraud and error are likely to have cost the UK government as much as £16bn across the Covid-19 emergency loan schemes. They want the Treasury to come up with estimates of fraud and error losses across the individual schemes and how much it intends to recover by the end of the year:
The government guaranteed or gave out loans worth £129bn to people and companies during the coronavirus pandemic to support them financially through lockdown restrictions. However, ministers were warned from the start that the speed of the schemes would open them up to fraud.
Since then government agencies have found large-scale frauds across several parts of the system, ranging from the coronavirus job retention scheme (CJRS) for furloughed workers, the bounce back loan scheme (BBLS) for small companies, and the coronavirus business interruption loan scheme (CBILS) for mid-sized businesses. Reports from crime and bankruptcy agencies have shown some loans were used to fund gambling, luxuries and home improvements.
Theodore Agnew dramatically quit his role as a Treasury minister in a speech in the House of Lords last month after criticising the lack of action to recover stolen money.
Data from government departments’ annual reports suggested fraud and error losses of between £12.4bn and £20.1bn, with a central estimate of £15.7bn, the report said.
The furlough scheme is estimated to have suffered the largest fraud and error losses of £5.3bn, followed by the BBLS where £4.9bn is thought to have been lost. The government has funded a “taxpayer protection taskforce” to chase fraud in the schemes including furlough run by HM Revenue and Customs, but anti-corruption experts are concerned that funding is inadequate to fight fraud in bounce back loans.
The government will also have to write off £21bn in loans to people or businesses who will be unable to pay them back.
Will the Public Inquiry, if and when it happens, look at this as well?
The paper says that the public accounts committee has found that fraud and error are likely to have cost the UK government as much as £16bn across the Covid-19 emergency loan schemes. They want the Treasury to come up with estimates of fraud and error losses across the individual schemes and how much it intends to recover by the end of the year:
The government guaranteed or gave out loans worth £129bn to people and companies during the coronavirus pandemic to support them financially through lockdown restrictions. However, ministers were warned from the start that the speed of the schemes would open them up to fraud.
Since then government agencies have found large-scale frauds across several parts of the system, ranging from the coronavirus job retention scheme (CJRS) for furloughed workers, the bounce back loan scheme (BBLS) for small companies, and the coronavirus business interruption loan scheme (CBILS) for mid-sized businesses. Reports from crime and bankruptcy agencies have shown some loans were used to fund gambling, luxuries and home improvements.
Theodore Agnew dramatically quit his role as a Treasury minister in a speech in the House of Lords last month after criticising the lack of action to recover stolen money.
Data from government departments’ annual reports suggested fraud and error losses of between £12.4bn and £20.1bn, with a central estimate of £15.7bn, the report said.
The furlough scheme is estimated to have suffered the largest fraud and error losses of £5.3bn, followed by the BBLS where £4.9bn is thought to have been lost. The government has funded a “taxpayer protection taskforce” to chase fraud in the schemes including furlough run by HM Revenue and Customs, but anti-corruption experts are concerned that funding is inadequate to fight fraud in bounce back loans.
The government will also have to write off £21bn in loans to people or businesses who will be unable to pay them back.
Will the Public Inquiry, if and when it happens, look at this as well?
