This submission first examines two key areas of government activity that are particularly vulnerable to fraud and corruption: government-backed loan schemes and public procurement. It highlights lessons the government should learn from pandemic loan schemes, which were severely affected by fraud, and examines shortcomings in the UK’s public procurement regime, both in how it debars and excludes rogue companies from public contracts, as well as how conflicts of interest are prevented and managed. The submission then looks at two key issues in the overall framework for tackling fraud and corruption against the public purse: the legislative framework and the resourcing of law enforcement to tackle fraud and corruption, so that those who defraud the public purse can be brought to justice, and resources recovered.
UK needs much stronger rules to prevent new chumocracy scandals. Post-Brexit procurement reform is an opportunity to create a tough national strategy drawing on best practice from US & Canada. 28 January 2021
Last week’s much anticipated National Audit Office report into the government’s handling of emergency procurement during COVID-19 effectively corroborated widespread allegations of cronyism in the dishing out of PPE contracts....
16th November On Friday 13th November, Spotlight on Corruption wrote to the government’s procurement body, the Crown Commercial Service, asking it to review whether the accountancy firm Ernst & Young...
What’s the issue? Corruption is particularly common in public procurement. Of the foreign bribery cases prosecuted under the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention, 57% involved bribes to obtain public contracts. The problem exists...
