The government failed to guard properly against fraud in its £47bn Covid emergency lending programme for small businesses, opening itself up to billions of pounds of losses, a watchdog has said.
The bounce-back loan scheme launched in May 2020 and did not include credit checks or fully verify the identity of small businesses applying for loans, the National Audit Office, which scrutinises public-sector spending, said.
“Government prioritised getting bounce-back loans to small businesses quickly but failed to put adequate fraud prevention measures in place,” said Gareth Davies, the NAO’s comptroller and auditor general. “One impact of these decisions is apparent in the high levels of estimated fraud.”
The government launched the scheme at the
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