Recommendation 14

The Digital Economy Act 2017 established a process through which government bodies can agree arrangements to share data with one another. The NAO reported that, as of July 2025, there had been 28 data-sharing pilot agreements set up through this process to tackle fraud, although only four had become business-as-usual processes.35 The NAO noted that government bodies found it difficult and time-consuming to conclude these data-sharing agreements. The PSFA had an ‘indicative timeline’ which suggested that setting up a data-sharing agreement should take around 20 weeks, but the NAO found that the process could take months or even years to negotiate and that the PSFA does not have a formal monitoring process to check whether this is achieved.36 The PSFA told us that, in response to these findings, it had produced a number of standard templates which it hopes will make the process quicker and simpler.37 It also noted that projects initiated through the Digital Economy Act had achieved benefits in excess of £200 million in reducing fraud.38