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The Ministry of Justice has signed a £1m contract for an external partner to provide support with responding to and investigating cyberattacks.

The one-year deal – awarded to Accenture – came into effect on 19 April.

Limited detail is given on the services to be provided by the company, but the contract states that the deal is a retainer through which the company can be called on to provide “incident response services… and security investigation services”.

The deals adds that “specific services will be defined in work packages” agreed by the MoJ and Accenture over the course of the year. The contract can be extended by a further 12 months at the ministry’s discretion.

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The contract is the latest in a series of similar deals signed recently, in which departments have retained external specialist companies to assist with their response to cyberattacks and other incidents.

The Department for Education has signed a £500,000 deal that will provide around-the-clock on-demand access to cyber experts that can help guide the response to attacks and other incidents.

Shortly after the MoJ’s contract with Accenture came into effect, the Department for Education entered into a two-year £500,000 engagement with BAE Systems, in which the defence contractor is retained to provide around-the-clock access to cyber experts.

The Cabinet Office has also retained BAE to provide cyber response services via a £50,000 contract, while the Home Office has more than a year to run on a similar engagement with Deloitte.

As part of the rollout of the first-ever Government Cyber Security Strategy, published earlier this year, all government departments will be asked to be to undergo independent audits of their cyber resilience.