The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) has taken steps towards the development of a cyber health framework for local authorities in England.
Its Local Digital Collaboration Unit (LDCU) has reported that the discovery work is complete and it is now calling for councils to contribute to the alpha phase of the project.
This follows its indications last year that it was planning to spend around £1 million in building a prototype to help authorities assess their cyber security capabilities.
It said the framework will help local authorities to apply cyber security standards and guidance and to assess where they are against a baseline.
Among the factors it will take into account are the knowledge and behaviour of people in an organisation, procurement and executive governance processes, and the standards, architecture and management of relevant technology.
“In order to better understand how we can help, we want to involve a wide range of local authorities in the process of creating a tool and associated framework that is achievable, actionable, and useful,” LDCU said, directing interested parties to an online form.
Scottish and NHS work
It added that is also taking into account the work done by the Scottish Government on a cyber resilience framework and self-assessment tool, and the NHS Data Standards Protection Toolkit.
In September of last year the LDCU identified five areas for alpha projects to improve cyber security in local government, saying it had begun to submit bids for funding of the work.
Image from GOV.UK, Open Government Licence v3.0
