Money lost to fraud and error due to the Covid pandemic: FOI release

Information requested

How much money has the Scottish Government lost to fraud and error due to the Covid pandemic since 2020, and a breakdown of this?

Response

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, this is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have all the information you have requested.

The Scottish Government has been working with Local Authorities to obtain data on fraud and error within COVID-19 business support. The evidence collected is based on an assessment of the levels of inherent fraud risk within the highest value business support schemes administered by Local Authorities in 2020-21. Therefore, the data held covers the following three funds:

• Strategic Business Framework Fund
• Small Business Grant Scheme
• Retail Hospitality and Leisure Business Grant Scheme

The total spend for the Strategic Business Framework Fund, the Small Grant Scheme, Retail Hospitality and Leisure Business Grant Scheme was £1.4 billion, approximately 30% of the total amount provided to businesses during the pandemic (£4.7bn).

We have interpreted a fraud loss to be where a payment has been made in respect of an application, and the application is later found to be fraudulent within the description set out in Annex A. Data collected in December 2024, based on returns from 30 local authorities, showed the number of individual cases where potential fraud was detected is recorded as 2,660 - 1.5% of the total number of applications received across schemes. Payments were only made in 297 of these cases which was equal to £3,412,235. Almost 18% of this amount, which is £597,450 has now been recovered.

The number of errors in payment, recorded as at December 2024, is 465. An error includes an overpayment to a business or an underpayment. The number of errors resolved as at December 2024 stands at 280, with £2.1 million in overpayments reclaimed.

In addition, we did a similar analysis on a representative selection of Local Authority Funds administered in response to the Omicron wave of the pandemic.

This included the following funds:

• Hospitality Top-up
• Hospitality and Leisure
• Public House Table Service
• Nightclub Closure Fund
• Brewers Support Fund
• Taxi and Private Hire Fund

Evidence collected in December 2024 showed that the number of individual cases where potential fraud was detected stands at 402. Payments were only made in 12 cases which was equal to £32,750. The number of errors in payment recorded as at December 2024 is 228, with 202 having been resolved and £166,441 in overpayments reclaimed.

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The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at https://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.

FOI 202500469229 - Information released - Annex A

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