Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, if he will hold discussions with the Public Sector Fraud Authority on the setting of longer term targets for savings.

The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Minister Neville Rolfe, who leads on the counter fraud portfolio, regularly meet with the Public Sector Fraud Authority (PSFA) CEO and Senior Leadership Team to discuss their progress - target setting forms part of those discussions.

It is the government’s stated ambition to continue to increase the impact from counter fraud activity. The PSFA exceeded its target of achieving £180 million of savings in its first 12 months by preventing and recovering £311 million of audited savings.

The PSFA CEO works with the PSFA data and analytics delivery teams and Ministers to set the PSFA delivery target on an annual basis. The PSFA’s second year target is to deliver £185m of savings and will report performance against it when the independent audit of savings is complete. The PSFA is working with Ministers to set a financial target for its third year as part of routine business planning.

As the centre of the Government Counter Fraud Function (GCFF), the PSFA also requires, and supports departments to set financial impact targets for their counter fraud work and progress against this is published in the annual Fraud landscape Reports.

Government policy is that setting targets not only improves the transparency of counter fraud spending, but also ensures that we deliver a serious message to fraudsters that the government is making a concerted effort to tackle their ever-evolving crimes.