{"id":848694,"date":"2025-05-16T09:11:54","date_gmt":"2025-05-16T14:11:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/16\/insolvency-service-to-take-over-covid-loan-fraud-investigations\/"},"modified":"2025-05-16T09:11:54","modified_gmt":"2025-05-16T14:11:54","slug":"insolvency-service-to-take-over-covid-loan-fraud-investigations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/16\/insolvency-service-to-take-over-covid-loan-fraud-investigations\/","title":{"rendered":"Insolvency Service to take over Covid loan fraud investigations"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Covid-construction-site.jpg\"<\/p>\n

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The Insolvency Service (IS) is to take over Covid loan fraud investigations after a review revealed taxpayers\u2019 money was not being effectively recouped.<\/p>\n

The National Investigation Service (NATIS) was appointed to investigate and recover the funds, but to date it has only secured 14 convictions despite costing the taxpayer \u00a338.5m.<\/p>\n

Business and trade minister Gareth Thomas announced on Thursday (15 May) that NATIS would be scrapped and the IS will take control in a bid to recover money more swiftly.<\/p>\n

More than 8,300 bounce back loans<\/a> issued to the construction sector during the pandemic are suspected to have been fraudulent.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday\u2019s decision to transfer cases to the IS will ensure lost funds from Covid-era fraud are recovered more quickly and effectively, so they can be reinvested back into the economy and our public services,\u201d Thomas said in a statement this morning on the Department for Business and Trade (DBT) website.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe IS will be taking responsibility for NATIS casework, helping to conclude investigations to continue the important work to claw back money for the public.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has a proven track record of tackling fraud and misconduct connected to Covid support schemes since 2020 using its powers to investigate trading companies, prosecute criminal offences, disqualify directors and impose bankruptcy restrictions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Until the end of March this year, the IS had secured more than 2,000 director disqualifications as well as 62 criminal convictions \u2013 recouping more than \u00a36m in compensation related to Covid financial support scheme abuse, the DBT said.<\/p>\n

Its announcement is the latest move by the government to reduce waste in the public sector and reform institutions to protect taxpayers\u2019 money.<\/p>\n

It instructed the Internal Audit Agency to assess NATIS and, following its conclusion, has scrapped it.<\/p>\n

The Covid loans, issued from May 2020 as emergency relief of up to \u00a350,000 for small companies, were backed by 100 per cent government guarantees.<\/p>\n

While over \u00a346bn was issued by lenders to support businesses, there have been over 100,000 cases of loss to fraud and error, the DBT said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis measure will ensure the continuation of ongoing investigations and expedite the recovery of millions estimated to be lost due to Covid-era fraud,\u201d Thomas said.<\/p>\n

Data obtained by\u00a0Construction News<\/em>\u00a0under the Freedom of Information Act from the British Business Bank, which facilitated the scheme, showed that 8,356 bounce back loans to the industry were flagged as suspected frauds by lenders at the end of January.<\/p>\n

The figure has\u00a0increased by 3,564 in the past two years<\/a>\u00a0as more potential cases have been identified, and now amounts to just over 3 per cent of all bounce back loans issued to the sector.<\/p>\n

For the larger-value Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS), which provided loans of up to \u00a35m, just 29 were flagged as suspected frauds as of January 31, 2025.<\/p>\n

In total, there were 260,912 bounce back loans issued to construction companies and 14,688 CBILS loans given to the sector.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Related Article<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n

Read More<\/a>
\n Nicola Harley<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Insolvency Service (IS) is to take over Covid loan fraud investigations after a review revealed taxpayers\u2019 money was not being effectively recouped. The National Investigation Service (NATIS) was appointed to investigate and recover the funds, but to date it has only secured 14 convictions despite costing the taxpayer \u00a338.5m. Business and trade minister Gareth<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":848695,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[125482,22],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-848694","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-insolvency","8":"category-service"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=848694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848694\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/848695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=848694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=848694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=848694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}