Call to catch furlough fraud
COMPANIES that have taken furlough cash must be named, MPS have demanded.
More than £55billion has been spent on efforts to keep people in work but concern is mounting about possible fraud.
Westminster’s powerful public accounts committee also warns that many self-employed workers, such as freelancers and entrepreneurs, have not had help and wants assurances that cash is going where it is needed.
It fears that in up to 34 per cent of cases furloughed people may have continued to work while companies claimed grants.
The MPS are demanding that HMRC publish a full list of companies that have signed up to the furlough scheme by the end of next month. It comes as Chancellor Rishi Sunak last week extended the scheme for one month until the end of April. The Governmentguaranteed Covid-19 business loan schemes was also extended until the end of March.
However, the MPS report that HMRC “still does not know the actual level of fraud and error in the schemes” and will not have a complete estimate “until the end of 2021 at the earliest”.
There is also concern that the Treasury is not able to provide “even a ballpark figure for the expected cost” of furlough, even though more than £55billion had been invested in keeping people in work by midOctober. The committee wants to know how the Government will recover cash from firms that “made substantial profits or were not adversely affected by the pandemic”.
Committee chairwoman Meg Hillier said: “With billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money going into private companies to support jobs, the least we expect in return is transparency.
“That is doubly so when speed has been prioritised over effectively targeting support, or checks on the value it offers.
“With the Treasury claiming it can’t give even a ballpark figure for the cost of Covid job support until the end of next year, public scrutiny of where taxpayers’ money is going is essential. We want to see the list of the companies that have taken furlough money much sooner than that – in the next six weeks.
“Many workers, including freelancers and entrepreneurs, have not had a penny and are really struggling. There is data that could be crunched to reach these individuals, many of whom will be unable to work at all under Tier 3 restrictions.”
The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme for businesses and employees has allowed more than 9.6 million jobs to be furloughed.
At least 2.6 million people have received payments through the Self-employment Income Support Scheme.