Government slow to act on pandemic fraud, says parliamentary committee

The government had by May 2023 recovered only £20.9m of an estimated £1.1bn in fraud and error losses on the provision of £22.6bn in business support schemes during the pandemic according to a new report from the parliamentary public accounts committee.

When challenged by the committee on its approach to recovering losses Department for Business and Trade (DBT) officials said that checking payments is very expensive there are legal questions about the ability to recover some payments and it will be ‘incredibly hard’ to recover much of the losses. The PAC is urging the government to set out the specific steps it will take to tackle this fraud and error to recover funds and restore public trust.

The report also found that it had been harder for some local authorities to deliver Covid schemes. MPs said: ‘Central government’s distance from the...