Credit: PA

The Houses of Parliament is to implement a two-year programme to dedicated to building and maintaining “cyber capability”.

Parliament has issued an early-engagement notice outlining its desire to find “a supplier to deliver consultancy services” to support three security-related initiatives.

The first of these is a programme of “behavioural and cultural change to [help] maintain parliament’s cyber capability”. The second initiative will involve a “target operating model review and validation for delivery” of cyber programmes.

The third initiative will see parliament build a “workforce-management strategy for maintenance, development and retention of cyber-capable personnel”.

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“We expect to deliver this cyber capability change programme over the next 24 months, tailoring a phased approach to deliver maximum benefit to our stakeholders,” the notice said.

Before launching a full procurement, parliament is asking potential suppliers to complete a questionnaire.

“We will use the insights we gain here to shape our requirements for that procurement,” it said. “The soft market testing exercise will assist Parliamentary Digital Service understand the market and help shape the procurement process and assist with the definition of functional and non-functional requirements.”

The notice added: “The aim of this exercise is to provide a greater awareness of consultancy solutions that currently exist in the marketplace and to enable parliament to see if their ambitions to deliver broader cyber capability and cultural change can be supported by an external provider.”

The questionnaire is open [4] for responses until 14 October.