40. The Joint Report from the Business, Enterprise and Industrial Strategy and Work and Pensions select committees sets out the key facts about Carillion's business approach, corporate governance and financial performance and reporting. The Committees' conclusions and recommendations are a damning litany of incompetence and self-delusion at the top of the company. Several aspects of the company's, and its advisers', activities continue to be investigated by outside regulators, including The Pensions Regulator and the Financial Reporting Council. (Paragraph 118)
41. The net loss to Government of carrying out the liquidation is currently estimated at £148m, but the final sum is uncertain. The wider costs to former Carillion workers, pensioners, investors, the supply chain, and other creditors remain unclear. Carillion's shareholders and lenders bore the brunt of much of financial penalty for the company's failure. Many of Carillion's subcontractors and suppliers took a very large penalty as Carillion had accrued significant credit through late payments which, even if the contract had been taken over, were unlikely to be paid. (Paragraph 119)
42. We welcome the Government's intention to introduce a requirement for suppliers to produce 'Living Will' contingency documents. (Paragraph 121)
43. Recommendation: In response to this report, we expect the Government to provide more detail about how the policy will be implemented; what the documents would contain; and how their contents would be scrutinised, assured and kept up to date. (Paragraph 122)
44. Recommendation: More complex contracts are more likely to go wrong. We would expect the Cabinet Office to consider the burden of creating and maintaining the living wills and balancing that burden with the complexity of the project and the risk and impact of contract failure. (Paragraph 123)