The government has published its Cyber Growth Action Plan, aiming to support innovation across the cyber sector, and outlining up to £16 million in funding to help commercialise cyber research. As part of this, University of Bristol and Imperial College London’s Centre for Sectoral Economic Performance will be tasked with exploring the UK’s cyber sector and offering a roadmap for future growth, with the government noting that “this will culminate with a set of recommendations later this summer”.
A key focus of the upcoming Industrial Strategy and a pillar of the government’s Plan for Change, the plan has been welcomed by cyber security minister Feryal Clark, who said: “Through our Plan for Change, we’re backing the sector to create high-quality jobs through the Cyber Growth Action Plan and ensuring our public services are built on secure foundations with the expert support of the Government Cyber Advisory Board.”
Findings and recommendations will feed into the upcoming National Cyber Strategy, covering the supply and demand of cyber goods and services to understand opportunities for growth. Emerging technologies such as AI and quantum will also be explored for their potential in helping “strengthen Britain’s competitive edge”.
The £16 million of investment will be split between two dedicated cyber programmes, with up to £10 million available for the CyberASAP programme over the next 4 years to help turn academic research into commercial companies. A further £6 million will go to government cyber accelerator Cyber Runway, supporting startups and SMEs in the sector with the hopes of offering more jobs, supporting innovation, and national cyber security.
A new government Cyber Advisory Board will also be established, featuring “senior cybersecurity experts” from defence, academia, AI labs, and companies including BAE Systems, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, and Google DeepMind.
The publication of the plan follows proposals for the forthcoming Cyber Security and Resilience Bill, which looks to ensure public services such as hospitals increase “their cyber defences, protecting public services and safeguarding growth”.
Wider trend: Cybersecurity across the health sector
We were joined for a recent HTN Now webinar focusing on sharing best practices around cyber security, by an expert panel including Neill Crump, digital strategy director at The Dudley Group NHS Foundation Trust; Nasser Arif, cyber security manager at London North West Healthcare NHS Trust and Hillingdon Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust; and Martin Knight, privileged access management at Imprivata. The session focused on key considerations for NHS organisations in their approach to cyber security, assessing cyber security maturity, good cyber security practice, the challenges in this area and tips to overcome them.
An open letter signed by Mike Fell, director of cyber operations at NHSE; Phil Huggins, national CISO for health and care at the DHSC; and Vin Diwakar, national director of transformation at NHSE; has asked suppliers to sign a charter of cyber security best practice, representing a voluntary commitment to a series of measures covering support, standards, multi-factor authentication, monitoring, and reporting.
NHS Cornwall and Isles of Scilly’s cyber security strategy to 2026 has been put forward for board endorsement, with a focus to identify and managing risk; strengthen governance; embed cyber awareness and culture; critical IT systems and suppliers; and prediction, prevention, detection, response and recovery. Outlining the current situation in C&IoS, the ICS highlights that implementing the Cornwall Cyber Security Operations Centre has been “advantageous”, enabling greater value around cyber security operations and offering improvements around compliance, risk and governance. It also notes challenges around ongoing funding to support the ICS’s cyber plans, with limited finances or resources often meaning tech assets are utilised for “longer than originally designed”.
