Asked by: Lord Goodman of Wycombe (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask His Majesty's Government what total quantified estimate they have made of fraud and error in the Culture Recovery Fund; what methodology, including statistical sampling or independent audit verification, they used to calculate that estimate; and how that methodology has evolved since the start of the fund.
Answered by Baroness Twycross - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
While the department has recently updated data on detected fraud and error, there is no overall quantified estimate of total (detected and undetected) fraud and error for the CRF.
For the core grant programmes delivered by Arts Council England, British Film Institute, and National Lottery Heritage Fund, and DCMS’s loans programme: fraud risk assessment, due diligence, upfront eligibility verification and post award sampling of grants took place across the Fund. This was either conducted or reviewed by independent auditors, however, the methodologies were not all based on statistical sampling so can not be brought together.
The total fraud and error detected across the CRF programmes is £12.9 million, consisting mainly of dual funding with the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and breaches of terms and conditions. Of this, £10.3 million has been recovered.
Asked by: Lord Goodman of Wycombe (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask His Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the fraud and error of the Film and TV Production Restart Scheme; what processes are in place to identify, quantify and mitigate fraud and error in that scheme; and how much has been recovered as a result of those processes as of the most recent date available.
Answered by Baroness Twycross - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
External auditors were appointed to review the level of fraud and error in the Film and TV Production Restart Scheme, which ran between October 2020 and April 2022 under the previous Government. This was an indemnity scheme with robust checks at application and claims stages by the scheme administrator and loss adjusters.
The evaluation found an error rate of less than 1%, and did not identify any fraud. The supplier concluded that the scheme had strong governance controls in place reducing the risk of fraud, and the rate of error was within expectations, particularly in the context of a pandemic where there is a need to prioritise speed and financial support to organisations. Errors were reviewed by the administrator and corrected where appropriate within the terms of the scheme, with £2240 recovered accounting for the majority of the error rate.