In its letter to us after our evidence session, HM Treasury recognised the helpful role that the NAO cost tracker has played in improving transparency on the cost of COVID-19, as well as its role as the definitive source of information on the public expenditure costs of the pandemic. It told us that it would conduct “a routine review of material changes to the estimated costs of these measures and provide public updates”. It confirmed that this would include updates to the estimated lifetime costs of loans and updated costs for some public services measures “where these can be reliably attributed to COVID-19”. It did not comment, however, on which measures this would include, what would constitute material changes to estimated costs, or what approach it would take to monitoring the costs of those measures that were not included in the updates.24 23 Committee of Public Accounts, COVID 19: Culture Recovery Fund, Eighth Report of Session 2021–22, HC340, 23 June 2021 24 Letter from Tom Scholar, Permanent Secretary, HM Treasury, to Dame Meg Hillier MP, Monitoring the cost of cross-government programmes, 23 December 2021 12 COVID-19 cost tracker update 2 Fraud and error within pandemic spending