Credit: Pete Linforth/Pixabay

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has retained a consultancy firm on a multimillion-pound contract to boost the department’s cyber credentials.

According to newly published procurement documents, the FCDO entered into a deal with Ernst & Young on 9 January. The deal lasts until 31 March 2025 and is expected to be worth about £6.5m to the professional services company.

The contract is described as a deal for “cyber capacity” and the award notice adds that EY will be tasked with “delivering cyber resilience to the FCDO”. 

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Over the next couple of years, ensuring such resilience will become an increasingly important objective for all central government departments – which will face a new regime of independent audits. These assessments are intended to help departments identify areas for improvement, and provide the Government Security Group – housed in the Cabinet Office – with a cross-government view of resilience.

PublicTechnology revealed earlier this month that the Home Office and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy are set to become the first two departments to undergo the new audits.

In addition to its own internal IT and digital systems, the FCDO also houses the Rosa network – a global platform enabling officials to access information classified at Secret level. 

The department recently signed a £10m contract for technical support of the Rosa system, which supports more than 12,000 users, spanning 74 organisations in scores of countries around the world.