91. Cyber security has quickly emerged as a huge and pressing issue across all of Whitehall. While the government has admirable aspirations to become a world leader in digital economy and the digitisation of services, these ambitions bring with them a number of risks.
92. The UK is becoming increasingly vulnerable to cyber attacks and the government should adhere to a thought-out and co-ordinated approach to cyber safety. It also needs to ensure that cyber security is a top priority for all departments.104 However, there is also a role for government in assessing and tackling the shortfall in cyber security skills across the UK as a whole. This skills gap is the biggest challenge that the country faces as we look to managing cyber safety. The government's training work in schools is very welcome but we won't be able to assess for quite sometime whether these interventions have been successful in improving the levels of cyber skills across the country. I would like to see the government taking further steps to engage and educate large organisations, particularly within the retail sector. I expect to see more of a joined-up approach across Whitehall as departments consider how best to tackle this emerging threat.
93. One of my main concerns is that every organisation is as weak as its weakest link. It is very difficult for-as an example-every school or GP's practice to employ personnel who are well enough equipped to take responsibility for and manage each workplace's cyber security responsibilities.
94. I would also like to see a more focused approach to the targets of the Cyber Security programme; currently the Cabinet Office simply does not have enough of an evidence base to make the best strategic decisions. The committee has encouraged the department to write to us to detail its plans for how it is using evidence-based decisions to structure its cyber security work. We expect this to detail how it is learning from its previous work and applying these lessons moving forward. We will continue to focus on this as a priority.
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104 Committee of Public Accounts, Cyber security in the UK, Ninety-Ninth Report of Session 2017-2019, HC 1745, 5 June 2019