Out-Law News 1 min. read
21 Aug 2014, 3:31 pm
Technology website V3 said that although central government was still the main public sector adopter of cloud services, accounting for 79% of the cumulative £249m total; every branch of the public sector had increased its uptake of cloud services procured through the platform.
The Cabinet Office has announced that its Digital Marketplace will replace the existing CloudStore as a portal for public sector organisations to purchase cloud services through. In her blog post discussing the change Ivanka Majic, the government's digital commercial services manager, said that this new delivery framework would make it easier for smaller public sector customers to find G-Cloud service providers.
The G-Cloud programme allows public sector bodies to gain access to cloud-based IT services being offered by a selected list of pre-approved suppliers during a set period. The fifth version of the framework, which went live in May, includes 1,132 suppliers offering more than 17,000 services. The government has said that the availability of "off the shelf" IT solutions through the G-Cloud programme will allow public sector bodies to "use what they need when they need it" and avoid duplication of services that cannot be shared, while the Cabinet Office has claimed that purchasing services through the G-Cloud could cost departments 50% of what it would cost on the open market.
Central government departments are now subject to a 'cloud first' policy that requires them to consider cloud-based IT solutions before other options. These departments can only deviate from using cloud-based IT solutions where they can show that alternative offerings provide better value for money than products and services available through the central platform.
According to the government's latest sales figures breakdown, as of the end of June smaller suppliers continued to dominate the market for sales made through the G-Cloud framework, accounting for 54% of the total. However, larger suppliers accounted for almost as much of the sales made in June as small and medium enterprises (SMEs): sales by SMEs accounted for £9m of total June sales, while larger firms accounted for £8.95m of the total.