HM Treasury told us that over the pandemic it had kept the same basic framework for public expenditure decisions, with a strong emphasis on value for money, but that it had adapted it and made it more flexible to recognise the circumstances. In some areas, value for money was best achieved by moving quickly and accepting the need for a higher- than-normal risk appetite. As time has gone by, HM Treasury has been looking at where it can tighten up and reintroduce the usual set of controls, and it confirmed that it had done so in a quite a few areas.23