(Bloomberg) --
Fraud and error on the U.K.’s coronavirus support programs is expected to cost British taxpayers as much as 15.7 billion pounds ($21.4 billion), an influential panel of lawmakers said, calling on the government to ensure transparency around ongoing costs associated with the pandemic.
Some 5.3 billion pounds of cash lost through fraudulent or mistaken claims is estimated to have been in Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak’s flagship furlough program, the cross-party Public Accounts Committee said in a report published Wednesday. That’s 8.7% of payments made under the program, which paid idled workers as much as 80% of their wages. Other loans and grants programs added to what the panel branded as “unacceptable” losses.
The government has spent 261 billion pounds on 374 different measures tackling Covid so far, according to the panel. That is expected to reach 370 billion pounds over the lifetime of the measures, with some loan repayments not due for two decades. It pointed also to other losses, including 21 billion pounds of loans that the government doesn’t expect to ever be repaid.
“Lack of preparedness and planning, combined with weaknesses in existing systems across government, have led to an unacceptable level of mistakes, waste, loss and openings for fraudsters which will all end up robbing current and future taxpayers of billions of pounds,” Committee Chairman Meg Hillier, a member of the opposition Labour Party, said in a statement.
©2022 Bloomberg L.P.
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