The Department told us that in order to get money to where it thought it was needed during the COVID-19 pandemic it deliberately loosened controls and thereby took on a lot of additional risk spending money without prior approval.35 It acknowledged that its controls and processes were inadequate for the post-pandemic environment and need to be reset. We questioned the Department on what changes it had made to its processes so that this does not happen again. The Department told us that it had...

The Department told us that in order to get money to where it thought it was needed during the COVID-19 pandemic it deliberately loosened controls and thereby took on a lot of additional risk spending money without prior approval.35 It acknowledged that its controls and processes were inadequate for the post-pandemic environment and need to be reset. We questioned the Department on what changes it had made to its processes so that this does not happen again. The Department told us that it had launched a financial reset programme to get it and the NHS back to normal financial management. It said this programme would review systems and processe Type: conclusion | Number: 19 | Response status: not_addressed Government response: 4: PAC conclusion: The Department has regularly failed to follow public spending rules and across the Departmental Group there is a track record of failing to comply with the requirements of Managing Public Money. 4: PAC recommendation: The Department should writ