UK National Audit Office — Bounce Back Loan Scheme and test and trace reports

Case summary

This page collects three reports by the Comptroller and Auditor General, published by the UK National Audit Office between October 7, 2020 and December 3, 2021 and prepared under the National Audit Act 1983 for presentation to the House of Commons. Two concern the Bounce Back Loan Scheme: HC 860, an investigation into the scheme's purpose, how it functions, its performance and how government manages the associated value-for-money risks, and HC 861, an update on loan numbers, repayments, identified fraud and estimated losses. The third, HC 295, is a value-for-money report on test and trace in England covering the NHS Test and Trace Service's approach, funding and spending, performance and future plans. The audited bodies are HM Treasury, the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, British Business Bank plc and the Department of Health & Social Care.

Case at a glance

What did the 2020 Bounce Back Loan report record?

That HM Treasury data showed the scheme had approved more than 1.2 million loans totalling £36.9 billion as at 6 September 2020, that the Department and the Bank expected it to have lent between £38 billion and £48 billion by 4 November 2020, and that the three business loan support schemes had provided around £55.3 billion in loans between March and September 2020, close to the £57 billion lent to small and medium-sized enterprises in all of 2019.

What did the 2021 update record?

That the scheme made 1.5 million loans worth £47 billion as of 13 September 2021, more than 90 percent of them by value to micro-businesses, and that the Department estimated losses of £17 billion from loans that will not be repaid and, as of 31 March 2021, put the value of fraudulent loans at £4.9 billion on a sample of 1,067 loans, both figures described in the report as highly uncertain. The report states that the Department's counter-fraud strategy lacked clear governance at the outset and sufficient resources.

What did the test and trace report record?

That the NHS Test and Trace Service spent £13.5 billion in 2020-21 against a budget of £22.2 billion, that 964 contracts worth £14.1 billion were let to public and private organisations in that year, and that 102 million tests were done in community settings between November 2020 and April 2021, 69 million of them rapid-result lateral flow device tests.

Summary written from the documents on this page; every sentence is sourced.