Efforts to recover the £2.3bn of taxpayer cash wrongly paid to employers claiming Covid furlough support for staff who continued to work has been “woeful” and will fail to deter potential future criminals, MPs have warned. The Commons Public Accounts Committee (PAC) said the Government has had little success recouping the cash, while it blasted the decision to wind up the Taxpayer Protection Taskforce without having recovered the money, saying it put taxpayer cash at risk.
In its report on Covid employment support, the cross-party committee said HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) was too slow to tackle problems in the design of the support schemes launched at the height of the pandemic, which saw some of those in genuine need miss out, while others were able to fraudulently and incorrectly claim. It said while the schemes needed to be rushed out to provide much-needed support, HMRC’s performance in recovering incorrectly claimed cash “has been woeful”.
The report concluded that the Government does not have a good enough understanding – and lacks proof of – the impact of £97bn of taxpayers’ money spent on furlough job support. Dame Meg Hillier, chair of the committee, said: “Bad actors in British business are running rings around the revenue.
