Covid fraud and error price taxpayers £10.9bn, report will say | EUROtoday

Covid-19 assist programmes price taxpayers almost £11bn by means of fraud and error, a report will say.

The Covid Counter Fraud Commissioner Tom Hayhoe will say fraudsters exploited a “golden opportunity” when he shares his findings with MPs this week, the BBC understands.

Covid-era insurance policies initiated by the earlier Conservative authorities embrace the furlough wage subsidies, ‘bounce-back’ loans, the Eat Out to Help Out programme and one-off grants.

They have been credited with propping up the economic system all through the Covid lockdowns, nevertheless, there was criticism that the pace of the roll-out of monetary assist and a scarcity of eligibility checks led to widespread error and fraud.

Mr Hayhoe is anticipated to disclose the total scale of Covid-19 monetary fraud when his last report is shared with MPs on Tuesday.

A scarcity of anti-fraud controls in Covid schemes that have been arrange rapidly by ministers in Boris Johnson’s authorities are anticipated to be highlighted within the report and blamed for the massive determine.

Rushed rollouts meant “accepting a high level of fraud risk, without plans for managing or mitigating this risk,” it should say.

Details of the report have been first printed by the Sunday Mirror.

In September the federal government launched a voluntary compensation scheme for individuals and companies to return pandemic scheme cash with no questions requested till the tip of December.

Mr Hayhoe has been tasked by Chancellor Rachel Reeves with attempting to get better the general public cash misplaced to fraud and underperforming contracts utilizing his expertise in procurement as the previous chair of an NHS belief.

His earlier studies discovered that pandemic-era PPE contracts price the British taxpayer £1.4bn on undelivered contracts and unusable robes, masks and gloves.

Only a small fraction of that – £182m – has been recovered by HM Treasury.

The National Crime Agency is individually investigating potential legal offences dedicated within the PPE procurement system.