Just 1% of fraudulent or incorrect Covid-19 business grant payments have been recovered by councils, because there are no incentives for them to do so, the National Audit Office has said.
Billions lost to fraud and error in the furlough scheme and other Covid-19 support programmes mean the government faces calls to strengthen its estimates and recovery efforts.
MPs have criticised the government for allowing “billions and billions” of pounds to be lost to fraud and error in Covid-19 support schemes, and particularly for lacking information on loans and...
The Treasury will spend £25m on a 'fraud squad' aimed at recovering funds wrongly given out in Covid-19 support schemes, with hopes the team will be up and running by the summer.
The Treasury has written off the possibility of recovering most of the money lost to fraud and error during the pandemic, according to official documents.
Fraud and error in pandemic support programmes have led to head of the National Audit Office Gareth Davies qualifying his opinion on the 2020-21 accounts of the Department for Business, Energy and...