PUBLIC spending watchdog the National Audit Office (NAO) has raised questions about “failings” in the UK Government’s £1.9 billion programme to protect the country’s critical infrastructure from cyber-attacks.

The NAO said the National Cyber Security Strategy 2016 included £1.3bn for a five-year National Cyber Security Programme to keep the country – one of the world’s leading digital economies – safe from attack.

However, it said failings in the way the Cabinet Office established the programme meant the Government did not know whether it will meet the programme’s goals.

Delivering the strategy was a “complex challenge” said the NAO, and the Government did not know which areas it should target to make “the biggest impact or address the greatest need”.

A section of the plan to protect power plants and hospitals was the only red area in the NAO’s assessment, which meant that fewer than 80% of projects to defend these areas would end on time.

Key targets were being “actively defended”, but methods to measure success in this area were still being developed.

The NAO said the Government itself had “low confidence” in the evidence gathered for half of its strategic plans, but noted this was an improvement on the “very low confidence” expressed late last year about the same topics.

NAO head, Amyas Morse, said: “Improving cyber security is vital to ensuring that cyber-attacks don’t undermine the UK’s ability to build a truly digital economy and transform public services. The Government has demonstrated its commitment to improving cyber security.

“However, it is unclear whether its approach will represent value for money in the short term and how it will prioritise and fund this activity after 2021.

“Government needs to learn from its mistakes and experiences in order to meet this growing threat.”