Cabinet Office has relaxed its CoCo security standards

Nicola Brittain, Computing, Tuesday 21 September 2010 at 17:58:00

Meaning local authorities do not incur additional costs

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.

Full story at http://www.computing.co.uk/computing/news/2269953/cabinet-office-passed-coco