What comes next – strategic updates from the CFPC and its IPSFF partners

On 28 January 2026, the Commonwealth Fraud Prevention Centre (CFPC) came together with its partner agencies in the International Public Sector Fraud Forum (IPSFF) as part of a senior leads meeting.

These meetings offer the IPSFF a valuable opportunity to consider common risks, celebrate collective or individual achievements and look for opportunities to collaborate on common issues of interest. In this article, the various strategic updates from the IPSFF’s partner agencies have been digested and unpacked, with key achievements and common areas of focus for 2026 highlighted.

Looking back, the IPSFF can celebrate a broadly successful 2025, with success spanning multiple fields. The CFPC, working alongside New Zealand’s Counter Fraud Centre (CFC), collaborated in an International Fraud Awareness Week that achieved record engagement across the Australian and New Zealand public services.

Partner agencies also celebrated a year of positive achievement in legislative reform, with the United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) celebrating the passage of the Federal Program Integrity and Fraud Prevention Act of 2025 and the United Kingdom’s Public Sector Fraud Authority (PSFA) securing the passage of The Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Act 2025. These pieces of legislation draw from years of collaboration on best practice counter-fraud to enable government agencies to detect and disrupt fraud when it occurs and recover losses when they arise.

All partner agencies also celebrated a year of successful collaboration across and between governments and government agencies, with Canadia Revenue Agency flagging positive cross-agency collaboration with law enforcement and fraud disruption, and the CFC noting widespread take-up of its in-house advisory services.

The crowning achievement of the IPSFF for 2025, however, was the publication of the Fraud Loss Measurement Framework. Spearheaded by the PSFA and CFPC, and with input from across every IPSFF partner agency, the Fraud Loss Measurement Framework provides best practice guidance for government entities seeking methods to estimate the levels of fraud and error within their entity. The framework is available for download from the CFPC website and IPSFF website.

In their updates, IPSFF agencies were also concerned with looking to emergent risks/threats, and to new opportunities for implementing or developing fraud controls. Most participants flagged the enormous potential of AI and machine learning tools in fraud detection, with Canada Revenue Agency advancing pilot programs for Canadian government agencies, and representatives of the GAO and PSFA both providing testimony for their respective legislatures on the possible benefits of AI powered data analytics.

New and existing fraud vulnerabilities were also raised by Canada and the CFPC. Canada noted an increase in the ‘velocity’ of fraud threats, with fraud incidents that once took weeks now compressed into time periods of hours or minutes. The CFPC flagged exploration of law reform to enhance Australia’s fraud prevention, detection and enforcement framework, to address inconsistencies in data acquisition and information sharing legislation and enhance cross-agency information sharing.

The common theme that all IPSFF agencies said was an ongoing concern was the need to consider corruption risks and controls alongside fraud. All agencies highlighted the unique difficulties posed by internal fraud and corruption risks as matters of ongoing concern, requiring more focus.

The CFPC noted ongoing cooperation with Australia’s anti-corruption body, the National Anti-Corruption Commission, in developing new guidance on incorporating corruption control into risk management frameworks. The New Zealand Serious Fraud Office noted the establishment of a joint New Zealand taskforce, focused on establishing a more complete picture of corruption and fraud risks across the New Zealand Public Sector.

Looking ahead, the IPSFF Senior Leads discussed developing a work plan across 2026–27 and beyond. This explored opportunities for further collaboration across countries, including expanding the IPSFF’s existing catalogue of practical guides and frameworks that are utilised extensively across member countries.