Government finance involves some mind-boggling numbers at the best of times but at lunchtime today, alongside the Chancellor’s announcement of the extension of the Job Retention Scheme the government published details of the cost of its economic support since the lockdown was announced.
The job retention scheme has helped 7.5m workers and 1m businesses so far. the cost of the JRS remains unconfirmed but it is thought to be in the region of £14bn. If this is the case that almost matches the disclosed value of the other loans and grants provided under the umbrella of Covid-19 Business Support to date.
The Coronavirus Bounce Back Loan Scheme launched just over a week ago has been far and away the most successful with £8.3bn of funding provided to 268,000 businesses up to close of business on Monday 10th May. The much-maligned Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme has advanced £6bn to 36,000 businesses while its big brother the “CLBILS” accounts for £359m.
Ranking the three loan schemes by success rate – the number of successful applications as a percentage of the total also produces some interesting results.
CBBLS 74%
CBILS 50%
CLBILS 16%
The chancellor will be fervently hoping that these sums are not costs to the exchequer in so far as only a small proportion of the guarantees the government has provided will be called on, but it is a staggering sum all the same.
But with the JRS extended until October, even at a reduced level the cost of that scheme alone will exceed £50bn at a very conservative (no pun intended) estimate.
