GGCA Concerned By Changes At Ministry Of Digital Services
The GGCA Executive Committee says it was “dismayed” to learn of changes at Ministry for Digital Services. The union says the ministry intends to “usurp” the functions of IT&LD in respect of cybersecurity. As a result, the union will commence industrial action measures on the 6th June.
A spokesperson said: “We understand that an amendment to the Civil Contingencies legislation is being drafted to remove IT&LD as the Computer Security Incident Response Team (CSIRT) and instead, to make Digital Services responsible for this area of work.
“In addition, we have been informed by the official side that this change will involve the creation of a Computer Incident Security Officer (CISO) post at Digital Services, to be filled via direct appointment.”
The union claims that the individual awaiting appointment has been named and lacks “both the professional qualifications and expertise to carry out the role.”
“The Ministry is unjustifiably moving responsibilities and roles away from the IT&LD onto Digital Services. The GGCA has not been informed as to the salary scale that will be attached to this post, the functions of which are currently being carried out by IT&LD at no extra cost to the taxpayer.
“When these matters were raised with the official side, the unjustified argument given for taking away IT&LD’s CSIRT role was a malware incident that affected 0.58% of Government PCs which was promptly mitigated by the IT&LD. The devices primarily identified were end of life PC's running legacy software. Funding to replace these computers was requested back in October 2021 but no substantive reply was provided, nor was there a reply when this request was repeated, even though IT&LD flagged the fact that these computers posed a security risk.
“It seems unbelievable that the official side should now use the resulting malware incident to justify removing the CSIRT role from IT&LD when to date, their concerns and request for funding have not been addressed.
“The IT&LD membership feels that this is another clear instance of the department not being given necessary resources and being set up to fail. Once the inevitable failure occurs, this then paves the way for outsourcing, privatisation and the dismantling of the department.
“To date, privitisation of the eServices project, which was taken away from IT&LD in 2018 and was outsourced to Deloitte, has cost the taxpayer in excess of £15 million with very little benefit to show for this massive outlay of public funds (the recent online Land Property Register comes to mind!) “The GGCA is concerned that this same strategy, now applied to cybersecurity, will have the same disastrous results, both for the IT&LD workforce and for the public purse.
“This long term strategy against IT&LD implemented by Minister Isola is strongly rejected by the GGCA. Consequently, a dispute was declared on Monday 23rd May 2022, with industrial action measures set to commence on the 6th June 2022.”