Herts County Council is facing its "maximum" level of cyber security risk, with fears over how IT systems will cope amid sweeping changes to local government.

Officers are working against an "escalating external threat environment", with the council's head of technology describing the situation as "the most risky time in all of the council's existence".

The issue was discussed during a risk management update at Herts County Council's Audit Committee on Friday, July 24.

Key changes from the previous report show cyber security has increased to the maximum score of 25.

Meanwhile, a new corporate risk around global economic instability has also been added to the register, following concerns expressed by members over the Iran War.

Another red risk concerned climate change, with concerns the council "cannot fully function, provide services and support residents" during severe weather, and incurs significant costs in unplanned emergency response.

Chris Wood, head of assurance services, said: "We have three corporate risks which are above their target score. It's around climate change impacts, the new cost of living and global economic instability risk, and the national resilience and business continuity risk."

Cllr Richard Roberts (Conservative, Kings Langley) said: "Thinking about how LGR (local government reform) is coming down the track and potentially very quickly, where effectively does the fraud cyber risk sit in terms of planning around the change programme?

"The change itself will presumably create weakness and accessibility… there will be a period of instability, and is that being planned for?"

Dave Mansfield, head of technology at Hertfordshire County Council, said: "As part of the government reorganisation preparations, there are a number of workstream activities – one of which is cyber [security].

"Everybody is really aware that this is probably the most risky time in all of the council's existence because, A; in the olden days we didn't have computers but now we do, but also, everything is up for change.

"We are… looking to make sure that everyone is at a common minimal security level because we're all going to have to inter-communicate with each other.

"A large number of county services won't be able to be disbanded in time simply because they're too vast. I'll give an example: if they've taken, say, three years to put in place, that is the sort of time it will take to unravel those, depending on what the frontline service pattern looks like.

"So, we're focusing on getting a common level of security, and that work is going pretty well at the moment. The next bit for us to do is to work out, 'Does anyone need bringing up to standard?'

"That will inevitably be a problem put back to the current district or borough to say, 'You don't quite meet the standard, therefore, you need to do some work before V-Day', basically."

Asked about what he meant by shared IT services, Mr Mansfield said: "An example would be, for instance, East Herts and Stevenage currently have a shared IT service, but they also have shared revs (revenues) and bins service.

"Any changes to what the future might look like will involve dismantling potentially both of those, or possibly dismantling one and keeping the other. Again, all decisions are not within my remit, but that's the sort of thing we're trying to get ahead of."

Cllr Richard Roberts referred to the work of the shared anti-fraud service (SAFS) and whether the committee was expected to comment on whether it should be broken into four parts [in line with the four new unitary authorities].

Cllr John Hale, chair of the committee, said: "The answer to that question is I don't know. I think it's a good question.

"As it's a shared service, one would hope that some of those shared services would continue as a shared service."

Darren Williams, head of shared internal audit services at the council, said: "There's a lot of work to do, I would say, and it's not a case of just making an instant decision. There needs to be the appropriate kind of work around what the unitaries would need, what the best structures are and put the options there."