Mark Cheeseman, the chief executive of the specialist Public Sector Fraud Authority, reveals how the data-focused unit must ‘keep in mind the fact that today’s answer might not be tomorrow’s’

The use of data and analytics has helped government in “transforming” how it tackles fraud to take a more proactive approach.

Based jointly in the Cabinet Office and HM Treasury, the Public Sector Fraud Authority (PSFA) was established two years with a remit to use new and modern techniques – including digital technologies and data analysis – to help combat fraud across government.

According to its founding chief executive Mark Cheeseman, the authority is “transforming how government deals with fraud – we’re modernising it”. This transformation involves going much more on the front foot against fraudsters, the PSFA head told PublicTechnology sister publication Civil Service World in an exclusive interview. This more proactive approach is enabled by using information to gain insights into the the threat.

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“You try and understand the risks, understand the ways you’d be attacked,” he said. “You use data and analytics to then try and identify if that’s happening in the system or to prevent it from happening. You then use a range of techniques to deal with where that is happening. And that requires a huge diversity of skill sets.”

A key current objective for the PSFA is to move from merely encouraging organisations to find fraud, to “celebrating “ their doing so.

In meeting this and other challenges, Cheeseman says his approach is to “analyse them, meet them head on and just work with people to get through them”. 

“That’s one of the great strengths of the civil service,” he says. “You identify the challenge and there’s so many people with so many different experiences in the system that together you can generally work your way through it.”

The challenges facing PSFA and the departments it supports are certain to change as anti-fraud professionals must always “keep in mind the fact that today’s answer might not be tomorrow’s”.

Cheesman added: “It’s such a fast-evolving area. We need to always be thinking about where the next step is.”

The PSFA chief executive’s full interview with Civil Service World can be read here.