In its evidence to us, TaxWatch said the legacy of the employment support schemes risks being damaged if more is not done to recover the billions of pounds stolen from them.20 The Association of Accounting Technicians submitted evidence to us in which it said HMRC’s current target for recoveries somewhat lacks ambition and HMRC needs do more to recover losses from errors and fraudulent payments.21 We asked HMRC how much extra money it would need to get the remaining £4 billion back. HMRC told us that it was not sure whether further spending on recovering employment support schemes payments would provide it with the greatest payback, although it recognised such action might be important for other reasons. We told HMRC that its answer reinforced the impression that it had written off chasing fraudulent payments and errors as too difficult and too resource intensive. It responded that it had made a realistic assessment of what it thought it could recover.22 Error and fraud on research and development tax reliefs