Digital and technology

Cloud first for Whitehall IT

Man with screen cloud ICT 14736908_l In the latest phase of the G-Cloud project, the UK Government has adopted a cloud first strategy for public sector IT procurement.

The cloud will be the first preference for sourcing the UK Government’s IT products and services following a Cabinet Office announcement on 5 May. Alternatives to the cloud can still be chosen if they demonstrate better value for money.

G-Cloud Programme Director Denise McDonagh believes that this will be an “essential tool” to encourage government to move towards more commodity buying. The “big is beautiful” mode, McDonagh says, has prevailed for too long. Based on feedback from buyers and suppliers, she acknowledges that the service needs to be “much more intuitive and easier to use” and hopes that the new procurement framework (Giii) will bring about improvements. Giii covers around 700 companies and 5,000 services.

Local suppliers include Tibus and Kainos. Tibus provides platform as a service (PaaS), infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and specialist cloud services (SCS) solutions. Kainos offers 23 consultancy and support services from its office in South Belfast, drawing on its experience in the public sector, health and financial services.

“We must continue to raise awareness, and make the buying process easier and clearer still,” Denise McDonagh continued. “This is about helping the marketplace through to a position of relative stability and maturity where we no longer talk about G-Cloud as a novelty.” The platform should be an “accepted and routine way” for the public sector to buy IT with competition driving down costs to “substantially less” than those today.

£18.2 million in IT sales have been generated by the CloudStore in the first year of its existence. The online shop for cloud-related public services was launched in February 2012 as part of the G-Cloud project.

All services listed on CloudStore are part of the G-Cloud framework and, as a rule, are immediately available to procure and use. This means that buyers do not need to tender for services through the Official Journal of the European Union and are assured that services are accredited to government standards.

Lambeth Council in south London is using the CloudStore to “create a completely different online experience for our citizens,” according to its shared services head, Rob Miller. The www.lambeth.coop site will allow residents to carry out more transactions online and also provide a platform for releasing data on local services (e.g. schools, post offices and police stations).

The council sees this as a commercial opportunity for local developers. Lambeth is using the Drupal open source platform to develop the site and its design team includes people from the local community as well as council officials.

A Department of Finance and Personnel spokeswoman told agendaNi that individual centres of procurement expertise in the public sector are free to use the G-Cloud if they wish.  The Central Procurement Directorate is aware of the recent developments in G-Cloud but did not plan to adopt it as a whole, as public procurement is devolved in Northern Ireland.

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