Niall Hearty assesses the statistics for directors being struck off over abuse of pandemic support schemes.
Official figures show that more than half of all UK company directors who have been struck off in the past 15 months faced allegations of abuse of the Covid-19 financial support schemes.
Between 1 April 2022 and 30 June this year, 611 of the 1,200 director disqualifications related to how they used Covid-19 schemes, with the majority of allegations relating to the taxpayer-funded bounce-back loans. The news comes in the wake of more than £1 billion in Covid loan payments having been identified as involving fraudulent behaviour or being paid in error.
The Covid-related disqualification of directors will prove a professional, and probably financial, burden to them as they seek to earn a living in the future. But the sheer numbers of those disqualified in such circumstances is a testament to the lack of professional and financial competence of those in government who orchestrated the schemes.
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