Government sets up service aimed at “designing out” fraud when new public sector schemes and services launched

A new specialist anti-fraud service has been launched to help Whitehall departments prevent fraud in public services.

The Risk, Threat and Prevention Service will be led by the Public Sector Fraud Authority.

It will seek to identify the services areas most at risk and help civil servants to ‘design out’ fraud when new schemes and services launch.

Experts will be used at critical moments, for example when new spending programmes or policies are being launched, to try to ensure that fraudsters cannot profit from these.

Teams will comprise counter-fraud experts with specialist training and who are experienced in preventing and detecting fraud.

Techniques to be used will include adopting a fraudster’s mindset to stress test fraud controls, which the Cabinet Office described as similar to ‘ethical hacking’.

Cabinet Office minister Baroness Neville-Rolfe said: “We know that fraudsters, both in the UK and overseas, are targeting public funds and so we must do everything we can to stop them.

“The public expects us to protect taxpayers money, so this new service steps up the government’s fraud defences through more rigorous identification of the threats we face and specialist support for public services.”

She said the team would develop a High Fraud Risk Portfolio to identify the most vulnerable parts of the public sector to help determine the allocation of counter fraud resources.

Mark Cheeseman will be the authority’s first chief executive. He was formerly head of counter fraud and investigations at the Legal Aid Agency.

He said: “Across the world fraud is getting more complex and pervasive, but we  know that the investment in understanding and preventing fraud pays off.

“The creation of the new Risk, Threat and Prevention Service, a first for the government, will help us to continue innovating, and improving, across the system at finding, fighting and stopping fraud.”

During this spending review period the Cabinet Office said the Government had invested £1bn in counter-fraud measures and recovered more than £3.1bn of fraud losses in the last two years.

Mark Smulian