The Department has not yet identified how it will share the lessons from the Scheme. The Department asserts that it has applied some of the lessons it has learned from this Scheme in the subsequent Recovery Loan Scheme, such as introducing additional reporting requirements on lenders. It also recognises that it needs to ensure stronger counter-fraud capability and data-sharing across government to be in place from the start of any future scheme. Yet these learnings should have been obvious following the Department’s experience in the Financial Crisis when its approach was similarly reactive. We are surprised that the Department and the Bank were so ill-prepared to respond an economic shock, irrespective of the nature of the pandemic. The Department recognises that it would have been possible to design the outline of the Scheme five years ago, but it would not have planned for a scheme of this type because its pandemic preparedness plan did not foresee an event of such gravity. In responding to the pandemic, the Department was able to draw on some of the planning from its experience during the UK’s exit from the EU. Carrying lessons forward to future schemes, however, is hindered by the Department’s lack of corporate memory, with staff moving to other roles. The Department is shortly due to publish the findings of its first of three evaluations of the Scheme, as part of its three-year Scheme evaluation programme, but it has not shared any plans about how it would disseminate the lessons-learned across government. Recommendation: The Department and the Bank should establish a strategy on how it intends to share lessons from the scheme within a month of the publication of their first evaluation report. The Bank should develop a business case for an emergency loan scheme for future crisis within 6 months of publication of this report. Bounce Back Loans Scheme: Follow-up 9 1 Scheme risks and management The Bounce Back Loan Scheme