The UK’s £860 million National Cyber Security Programme has so far failed to deliver the expected economic benefits for businesses, the latest progress report from the National Audit Office (NAO) has found.
On the positive side, progress has been made in getting businesses and consumers to take cyber security seriously, the clutch of educational initiatives have started to address skills shortages, and financial governance of the Programme appears to be good.
On the other, the successful launch of UK CERT in March shouldn’t be allowed to obscure the difficulties that still exist in getting businesses to share threat information to make possible real-time intelligence of the sort the Government sees as critical.
But the weakest score of all is reserved for the Programme’s struggle to turn the security expertise held by UK-based businesses into something resembling an economic benefit.
