Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 17
24th Report - Government cyber resilience
Published 9 May 2025
Addressed to HM Treasury
Public Accounts Committee Government cyber resilience All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
We asked the Cabinet Office if departments have underestimated the cyber risk. It told us that until recently it had not done enough to ensure leaders across government understood the cyber threat, but that it had made 28 Q 17 29 C&AG’s Report, para 4.16 30 Qq 17–18 31 C&AG’s Report, para 4.2–4.4 32 C&AG’s Report, para 4.9–4.12 11 significant improvements in the last three years.33 These included bringing all the permanent secretaries together to discuss their responsibilities for cyber risk and writing to them to remind them of their duties.34 We suggested to the Cabinet Office that all departments needed to have a Chief Security Officer operating at senior levels. The Cabinet Office agreed that government should have senior people accountable and there was a need to have a very senior Chief Information Officer in every single department as standard.35 We asked the Cabinet Office if its senior board had a digital expert and it explained that it was recruiting new non–executive members and that these would include at least one digital expert. The Cabinet Office expected every department to do the same.36 The Cabinet Office reassured us that as part of the 2025 Spending Review, government was undertaking a comprehensive review of its technology budget and how it is spent.37
From: Public Accounts Committee, 24th Report - Government cyber resilience (HC 643), 9 May 2025
Government response
Latest Treasury Minutes progress report to the Committee of Public Accounts on the Twenty-fourth Report of Session 2024-26
The government responded to the whole report on 4 June 2026.
Treasury minutes: Government response to the Committee of Public Accounts on the Twenty-fourth report from Session 2024-26
Published 18 September 2025.
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government "agrees with the Committee's recommendation" in each of the six areas, setting target implementation dates between winter 2025 and autumn 2026.
- On the evolving threat, the government agrees, notes responsibility has moved to DSIT, and says DSIT will publish an implementation plan in winter 2025 and write to the Committee "in one year's time".
- On cyber skills, it "acknowledges the ongoing cyber skills gaps" and says that "Early next year" DSIT will set how many anticipated vacancies its central initiatives will address and how it will assist departments with the remaining gaps.
- On accountability and funding, DSIT will set expectations for departments to appoint a board member with cyber security and digital resilience expertise, and is "working with HMT on mechanisms for protecting budgets" for cyber and legacy remediation programmes.
- On arm's-length bodies and supply chains, it says departments remain "ultimately accountable for the risk" and that DSIT will "assure and enforce" that Accounting Officers are meeting this responsibility.