The Department has yet to capitalise on the use of new technologies and data analytics to detect and prevent more fraud. We recently found that emerging technologies such as data analytics are a vital tool to help government tackle fraud and error. The Department’s improved counter-fraud savings in 2024–25 were largely the result of a single data analytics project examining ‘commercial leakage’ in its digital procurement contracts. But so far, the Department told us its use of analytics has been focused on finding fraud that has already happened and seeing if it can recover the money. This includes activities like retrospectively checking for duplicate invoices. The Department intends to move these checks earlier in the process, so that incorrect payments are prevented in the first place. 6 plans to use technology to strengthen its control environment as part of its Defence Reform programme. But the Department has provided very little detail on the specific data analytics techniques it will use to prevent fraud losses from happening, or on how and when these approaches will be embedded consistently across the Department. However, as our predecessor Committee warned in September 2023, fraudsters also use data analytics so this will be an ongoing war to defeat them. recommendation The Department should, within six months, write to the Committee with an assessment of areas of fraud risk where data analytics could be applied cost-effectively to detect and prevent fraud. The Department should clearly set out its plan and timelines to exploit these opportunities, and the savings it expects to achieve from this. We understand that there may be confidentiality considerations, in which case the Department should write to us privately in response to this recommendation.