Award of Cyber Incident Response Service for Local Government to Accenture (UK) Limited

About

Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government awarded a contract to Accenture (UK) Limited for a Cyber Incident Response (CIR) service to operate on behalf of the local government sector.

The service ensures English local authorities receive support to respond to sophisticated and bespoke cyberattacks, using the National Cyber Security Centre's (NCSC's) framework for classifying incidents to activate the service at C3 and above, or at a lower level as MHCLG sees necessary.

An NCSC Assured Service Provider (ASP) is required to align with other government departments and NCSC advice.

The supplier will work with MHCLG to introduce the service to local government and integrate it into existing incident management processes for 24/7 access.

Local authorities will report incidents to the NCSC; once categorised and the threshold met, or MHCLG approves a below-threshold activation, local authorities will be eligible for incident response support.

The contract is for one year, with the option to extend for up to four additional years in one-yearly increments.

MHCLG will appoint two suppliers, with service activation rotating between them; in the instance of an event impacting many local authority organisations at once, both suppliers may be deployed.

The contract value is £18,500,000.