Speaker bio

Mark Cheeseman is the Deputy Director, Public Sector Fraud in the Cabinet Office.

Mark Cheeseman is the Deputy Director, Public Sector Fraud in the Cabinet Office. Mark leads, and set up, the Counter Fraud Centre of Expertise at the Cabinet Office, which lead the UK government efforts to improve the ability of the public sector to deal with fraud and economic crime.

He works closely with Ministers and senior leaders to agree the government wide agenda on fraud and error loss in the public sector. Mark led the development of several initiatives to transform the way central government deals with fraud including, the Government Counter Fraud Profession, the creation of organisational standards and the increased use of data sharing and analytics in the public sector. Mark chairs and sits on a number of cross government boards and has led several reviews into fraud management.

Mark started his career as a filing clerk in the Legal Aid Agency (LAA), at the Ministry of Justice. He later held various project management, operational and assurance management roles, including the role of Head of Counter Fraud and Investigations which he held for a number of years prior to joining the Cabinet Office. In this role, he redeveloped the LAA’s approach to countering fraud, leading to the first prosecution of members of the public for legal aid fraud, the first cross-agency prosecutions with other public bodies, a fundamental redesign of the fraud risk assessment model and securing a return on investment from the counter fraud function that exceeded its cost. Mark was part of the team that successfully took the Legal Aid Agency out of accounts qualification by the National Audit Office.