Hotels quarantined for incoming travelers to the UK during Covid cost taxpayers more than £ 400 million, a National Audit Office (NAO) investigation found, including almost £ 100 million in unpaid room bills and fraud.
While the government expected the cost of the hotels to be covered by the residents, it turned out that the taxpayer was left responsible for more than half of the bill of 757 million pounds. The rooms were for those traveling to the UK from high-risk countries on the Red List during the pandemic.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare, which has issued a £ 385 million contract to the Corporate Travel Management for hotel management, told NAO that around £ 74 million in room bills and tests for Covid had not been paid. Another £ 18 million was recovered through fraud in credit card repayments, but only two cases were investigated or challenged.
The losses were revealed in a NAO report on how the UK manages cross-border travel during the pandemic. The report found that travel rules and border policy were inconsistent, confusing and costly, and the government had no way of judging whether they were worth it.
Other policies reviewed by the NAO included passenger location forms introduced in June 2020 for incoming passengers to indicate where they will stay and be isolated. The report found that as of September 2021, less than 1% of the forms had been checked by border guards. The information provided was limited to self-declaration, while “inspections by private sector carriers focused on the existence and not on the accuracy of the data”.
The UK Health Security Agency, which had a contract worth £ 114 million for home visits to check that travelers were isolating themselves, could not confirm whether 33% of those who need to be isolated did so.
The NAO has also criticized the government’s attempts to create a market for Covid-19 testing. It says DHSC had “limited oversight of the market it created and the public service was sometimes poor.” In February, at least 369 private companies offering PCR tests were listed on the government’s website, with prices ranging from £ 15 to £ 525. The NAO said companies “are often placed on the market as approved by the government”, but the government’s listing gives “a minimum guarantee that they can provide the services”.
Between February 2021 and January 2022, the border rules were changed at least 10 times. The report said that “poor communication of some measures creates uncertainty”, with “minimum notice” causing operational problems for carriers.
The NAO found that the government “did not adopt good practices” or had any overall risk assessment of its system, nor did it state how its competitive objectives for Covid’s risk management and reopening of travel should be balanced and prioritized “.
While the departments monitored their own spending on cross-border travel measures, there was no tracking of the total by the central government, despite spending at least £ 486 million.
NAO added: “As it has not developed a set of efficiency measures to monitor the effectiveness of the measures it has deployed and without assessing the additional costs incurred, the government cannot demonstrate that its implementing measures have reached a price / performance ratio. quality.
MEP Meg Hillier, chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, said the policy was “reactive rather than proactive and led to a confusing mix of different parts and programs”.
She added: “There was little evidence of a guiding mind behind the approach, and poor communication meant that the public was often confused by travel advice.
“The monitoring of those entering the country relied on goodwill, not good data. The government has never been able to deal with the numbers or whether its border measures are working effectively.
“For more than two years since the pandemic began, the government has not yet tidied up its house. “As cases are still high and travel restrictions are being lifted, the government cannot afford to be complacent,” Hillier said.
Leisure travel was initially banned in March 2020, followed by a system of travel corridors opened in the summer of 2020, which was replaced by a “traffic light system” in May 2021, requiring different levels of testing. and insulation.
Gareth Davis, head of the NAO, said the government should have made changes as soon as possible during the pandemic, but now had “the opportunity to ensure that it develops a systematic approach to managing any future travel measures, applying what it has learned from Covid- 19 ”.
A spokesman for the UK government said: “The pandemic was an unprecedented challenge and we acted swiftly and decisively to implement policies designed to save lives and protect the NHS from overcrowding.
“As noted in the report, significant efforts have been made in the government to introduce border measures that have helped protect the United Kingdom from incoming Covid-19 cases. These measures have taken vital time for our internal response to new and worrying options, contributing to national efforts to curb and manage the virus.
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