Cabinet Office has relaxed its CoCo security standards

Meaning local authorities do not incur additional costs

Cabinet Office passes security standards

The Cabinet Office has relaxed its security standards for accessing the Public Sector Network (PSN), ensuring local authorities do not incur additional costs when ensuring they are compliant with the Government Connect Code of Connection (CoCo).

This follows work done between the Cabinet Office and local government IT body Socitm and the LGA on the back of concern from local public service providers about the potential cost of new standards.

The agreed standard will continue to see the secure sharing of data and services across the Government Secure Extranet (GCSx), and its future iteration, the Public Sector Network (PSN).

The standards that have been agreed are modifications on the last version of the CoCo standard and will mean no further investments are required to become compliant.

The move also alleviates concerns that the local authorities that are most strapped for cash might have considered terminating their GCSx connections – these concerns were heightened by the increasing pressures on budgets caused by the coalition government's cost-cutting measures.