The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) has launched a training initiative to improve the understanding of cyber resilience issues at a local level in England.
It is beginning to run a series of exercises and seminars under its Cyber Pathfinder Training Scheme for practitioners and policy makers from local authorities, local resilience forums and other public sector organisations.
The ministry’s National Cyber Security Programme – Local team has developed the scheme to help participants understand cyber related issues and review their emergency planning.
William Barker, head of the National Cyber Security Programme – Local team at MHCLG, said: “It’s all about building resilience together, learning what works and what we need to change so we can face the growing challenges of the cyber agenda with confidence.”
It involves a series of multi-agency exercises to help build a shared understanding between partners of how to respond to incidents, and five seminars on different aspects of planning.
These cover cyber landscape, guidance and support; cyber threats and the core components of resilience; the role of people, processes and technology; resilience preparedness and planning; and helping participants to understand their requirements for an effective incident management capability.
The Pathfinders are set to run until March 2020.
Image: An early session of the Pathfinder programe
