Almost £400 million in taxpayers’ money was lost on government hotel quarantine restrictions as just 2% of passengers from red list countries tested positive for Covid-19.
The National Audit Office (NAO) also said that as many as 42% of people broke Covid rules by failing to self-isolate after travel despite £144 million spent on a contract for a private firm to make checks.
The critical disclosures came in a report by Parliament’s spending watchdog, which found that the rules for the border were changed at least ten times between February 2021 and January 2022.
The report said the Department of Health and Social Care had originally thought the cost of running the managed quarantine service (MQS) would be met by the price charged for the quarantine hotel rooms, “but in the event the taxpayer has subsidised half of its total £786 million cost”.
DHSC “has not been able to determine” how many Covid-19 cases were prevented by the MQS, according to the report.
But between February 15 and mid-December 2021 “some 2% of quarantined guests tested positive for Covid-19”.
During the Omicron outbreak, from December 9-15 last year, 6% of all tests taken from guests were positive.
NAO said 214,000 arrivals from red list countries were held in quarantine hotels for 11 nights between April and December 2021. An estimated further 14,000 arrivals were able to claim exemptions from hotel quarantine.
Of those required to self-isolate at home, the UK Health Security Agency “was unable to confirm whether on average one third (33%) of those required to isolate had been doing so, ranging between 26% and 42% of possible non-compliance during these months. This was above the 25% non-compliance it expected,” the NOA said.
Although individual departments have been monitoring their own spending on implementing cross-border travel measures in response to Covid-19, the government has not routinely tracked the total cost of pandemic border restrictions “despite spending at least £486 million”.
“Government told the NAO that cost had not been a factor in its implementation decisions,” the report said. “Without a set of performance measures to track effectiveness and with no evaluation of the additional costs incurred, government cannot demonstrate that its implementation measures have achieved value for money.”
The NOA also revealed that some information submitted on Passenger Locator Forms (PLFs) may not have been accurate as checks by carriers “focused on the existence rather than the accuracy of data”.
The government was also criticised for its approach to Covid-19 testing for travellers.
The report said: “Government had limited oversight of the market it created, and service to the public has sometimes been poor.
At least 369 private firms offering PCR tests were listed on gov.uk, with their stated prices ranging from £15 to £525 on February 15 this year.
The NOA said: “Firms listed on gov.uk have often marketed themselves as being government approved, but DHSC’s listing process gave minimal assurance that they can provide the services.”
The Competition and Markets Authority recommended in September that government take action to give consumers information on provider quality.
“Despite complaints of providers failing to deliver tests or results, DHSC has yet to formally respond to the CMA recommendations,” the NOA added.
The report urged government departments to establish a “clear system-level risk management framework” to support decision-making, setting out who is responsible for capturing and managing the risks.
“Should measures be needed again, government should have key metrics to judge the effectiveness of the overall system, to understand performance and inform future decisions,” the NOA said.
NOA head Gareth Davies added: “The government has had to balance many competing objectives when managing the border through the pandemic, making changes at short notice to adapt to the challenges of Covid-19.
“After two years of the pandemic and following the recent removal of travel restrictions, the government has an opportunity to ensure that it develops a systematic approach to managing any future travel measures, applying the learning from Covid-19.”