Recommendation 1

The Government must balance transparency with the public about the reality of threats the UK faces with not causing alarm and making sensitive information unnecessarily accessible to adversaries. However, there is a sense among industry stakeholders and civil society organisations that they were not sufficiently consulted in the development of the National Security Strategy, and a subsequent lack of transparency on certain important aspects such as the China Audit and timelines. The lack of publicly available detail, particularly around the issue of China, risks eroding public trust that progress is being made to improve national security. The lack of engagement with stakeholders makes securing the buy- in needed for a whole-of-society approach to resilience more challenging. (Conclusion, Paragraph 21)