Agenda item

The Committee received a report of the Corporate Director of Resources that provided an update on the progress being made in relation to the actions arising from the Council’s draft Annual Governance Statement (AGS) for the year ended 31 March 2023 (for copy see file of minutes).

Mr C Robinson recalled two years ago that there had been an issue with a power outage at Tanfield and queried if there were protocols in place to prevent this from happening again or if there was a cyber-attack.

P Darby replied that the issue at Tanfield had been mitigated with generators in place to reduce the risk.  He clarified that if data was under attack all systems would be frozen.  Under a cyber attack, systems would be prioritized for business continuity and time scales allocated on which were reinstalled when.  He highlighted that data and back ups was also stored off site to help with business continuity.

Mr I Rudd raised the issue of what had happened at the British library and asked if Durham County Council were prepared.

P Darby explained that all Durham County Council employees were cyber aware and were trained to prevent a cyber attack and that included phishing to try to catch people out and highlight the dangers of their error if they were caught. This was a key risk and something the council prioritised investment in anti-virus software and firewalls etc.

Resolved:

That the progress made against each of the improvement actions be noted.