Buried in a lengthy new audit on public-sector fraud by the National Audit Office is a remarkable detail. It notes that at the time the Department for Business, Energy and Industry Strategy was charged with handling the Bounce Back Loan scheme, it only had two full-time staff working in its counter fraud function. That’s how unprepared government departments were to handle the risk of corruption during Covid-19.
The Public Sector Fraud Authority has estimated that between £33 and £58 billion of public money was lost to fraud and error. Dial back, and during the two-year period leading up to the pandemic fraud amounted to £5.5 billion. The Treasury has admitted it has already written off £4.3 billion stolen from its Covid Recovery schemes. Put simply, we’re accepting that criminals will be keeping vast sums of public money with no consequence.
