MPs are right to raise issues with the government’s job support schemes

The Public Accounts Committee is worried about a lack of transparency and the plight of freelancers among other things, writes James Moore

The schemes have kept millions from joining Britain’s rapidly growing number of unemployed people  (Getty)

The government’s Job Retention Scheme (JRS) and the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS) were put together with commendable speed when Covid-19 landed on these shores.

The former has potentially protected millions of jobs in industries burnt by the pandemic. The latter has provided at least some freelancers with income at a time when the only other option was universal credit.

But their operation has not been as transparent as it might have been and the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee (PAC) is worried about a lack of evaluation of their operation that might otherwise have plugged some of the gaps, most obvious with the second of them.

It called for these issued to be addressed in a report published on Sunday morning.

When it comes to the issue of transparency there is both a moral and a practical case for as much daylight as possible.

The report makes the point that the JRS, more popularly known as the “furlough scheme”, and the SEISS are estimated by the Office for Budgetary Responsibility to have have handed out £55bn by the middle of October, with a further £21bn to come

Those are huge sums and taxpayers, on whose shoulders the bill rests, really ought to be given a few more details on how their money has been spent and on whom.

In theory, they’re going to get that, albeit not until February when HM Revenue & Customs is set to provide a list of claimants  along with bands designed to give some idea of how much each has put in for. It will cover claims made from December.

HMRC says it can’t publish details from prior claims because it had no legal power to do so, which is unfortunate to say the least. The Treasury had to add a legal instruction to allow the move when the schemes were extended to cope with the second wave of the pandemic (they’re now due to run until April).

Even this concession created a flutter in the accounting and legal communities. “It may put firms off claiming,” huffed critics.

Really? There should be no shame in doing so and I’m not aware of anyone saying that there is. To the contrary. What publication might serve to do, however, is deter fraudulent claimants, and given that the level of fraud could be quite high, that stands as a thoroughly good thing.

The PAC, however, wants the information much quicker – ideally within six weeks. This brings us to the practical case for greater, and faster, transparency.

The PAC’s members are worried that the schemes’ extension was “not accompanied by any substantial changes to the design” that might reduce the number of people excluded, especially freelancers and those working in the gig economy, who frequently look like employees but lack the status and rights that flow from that status.

It says neither the Treasury nor HMRC have yet “produced evaluations of the initial CJRS and SEISS schemes”, their own estimates of cost, and an assessment on whether they constitute value for money.

Given the size and importance of these schemes that’s more than a little concerning. 

A government spokesperson told me that the furlough scheme has saved “millions of jobs and kept businesses in operation”. They promised the government would “consider carefully the findings and recommendations of the PAC report”.

It should do so. The job support measures can broadly be seen as a success for an administration that hasn’t had many of those. But that doesn’t mean that they can’t be improved, particularly when it comes to the plight of excluded freelancers, which is desperate in some cases and a cause of very real concern.