Event

Lessons from Covid: How to avoid fraud in future crises?

This event hosted by UK think tank the Institute for Government explores what government should do to ensure more robust checks and balances ahead of the next crisis.

The Covid-19 pandemic saw the government spend hundreds of billions of pounds to buy PPE, keep businesses afloat and avoid mass redundancies. In the heat of this once-in-a-generation crisis, decisions were made that enabled widespread fraud by both individuals and organisations – leading to an estimated £10.9 billion of Covid-19 spending being lost to fraud and error.

In December 2024, the chancellor appointed Tom Hayhoe as the Covid Counter-Fraud Commissioner to scrutinise Covid spending, explore how public funds could be recovered and make recommendations to prevent fraud in the future.  

So what could government have done differently to respond quickly to the pandemic while avoiding the vast scale of fraud? What should government do now to ensure there are more robust checks and balances ahead of the next crisis? How can departments and organisations better work together to prevent fraud across the public sector? And how will cultural and technological changes since the pandemic, including the growth of AI, impact the nature of public sector fraud and government’s ability to tackle it?

Speakers

Dr Susan Hawley – Executive Director of Spotlight on Corruption  

Tom Hayhoe – Chair of the NHS Counter Fraud Authority and formerly the Covid Counter-Fraud Commissioner

Joshua Reddaway – Director of Fraud and Propriety at the National Audit Office

Rachael Tiffin – Director of Public Sector & Learning at Cifas 

The event will be chaired by Tim Durrant -Programme Director at the Institute for Government.