G-Cloud - a new approach to government IT

Now, with government procurement under greater scrutiny than ever before, another question is being asked: could the Cloud be the answer to cutting IT costs and delivering efficiencies for services provided by the state? And at the same time, could it also help stimulate economic growth by creating a market for Cloud services in which suppliers of all shapes and sizes can participate?

 

The Coalition (and the previous government too, to be fair) has been talking to industry for some time now, getting a good understanding of the potential this transformative technology can bring. Cloud technologies provide the opportunity to rationalise the current estate of government and public sector secure data centres into a few larger computing facilities which can become the hubs for providing services to public servants —the so-called “private Cloud” model.

 

At the same time, the “public Cloud” offers a step-change in price points which, for systems not requiring the top levels of security, can be used to support new delivery models for online government services accessed directly by the public on a self-service basis.

 

Most importantly, in either Cloud model the government gets access to services without having to pay upfront, be tied into long contracts or pay for capacity that it doesn’t need. Under a Cloud model, services can be charged for on a monthly subscription or on the basis of the computing power consumed, for example.

 

 

With the publication of its Strategic Implementation Plan, it’s clear that the government is making progress. We share their view that Cloud offers a highly promising way to wring cost out of operating IT systems and provides the agility to make services available faster. Because buyers needn’t commit to costly licences and hardware, they can quickly switch on, and switch off, projects. And because the public Cloud model is intrinsically linked to the web, services can be made accessible to a wide range of devices in one fell swoop.

 

The move to the Cloud may be the most significant change to the way government runs information services since networks of PCs replaced typing pools. It also promises to engender changes in the way IT services are consumed. For example, under the Cloud model it will be simpler for government Departments, councils and others to share services. Smaller government Departments and local councils can get access to services and systems previously only affordable to the big government bodies. If a Department has a requirement for a new document management system it can buy it as a shared service from the Cloud, rather than building a dedicated solution. Or if it does build a new solution it can be shared more easily with other Ministries with similar requirements.

 

It also changes user behaviour as citizens are more likely to access information that is relevant to them, whether from phones, computers or other devices, thus saving on phone and face-to-face interactions and allowing some public services to be delivered “digitally by default”.

 

Of course, as with any major change, there are sceptics and, quite rightly, people ask about data security and privacy. The appropriate analogy here is with banking. People no longer keep their money under the mattress but rely on large banks to look after their assets. Even if you argue a bank is not completely safe, it is still very much safer than the alternative.

 

By storing data in a central facility (with information replicated into other data centres to protect against failures) there is a mounting body of evidence to suggest that a well run Cloud-based system will provide greater security and more resilience than current systems where data often resides in insecure locations and more IT administrators touch systems, leading to more vulnerability points.

 

Moving services to the Cloud will allow the use of more rigorous support processes and, by providing administrators with a broad view over systems, there is a better opportunity to identify threats and act on them, for example by boxing off suspicious activity in part of the Cloud so that threats can be contained.

 

 

Finally - and perhaps most interestingly - we believe that government use of Cloud opens up new possibilities for bright, innovative small and medium-sized IT providers to offer services to government and work together collaboratively with larger suppliers to deliver better value for the taxpayer.

 

We’ve already floated the idea of a Cloud platform which will allow the UK’s most innovative small technology companies to piggyback on the infrastructure which HP already uses to deliver services to its government clients and thereby make their services available to public sector IT managers across the country.

 

Tapping this innovation potential could be a very interesting way to ensure small companies in Cambridge, Bristol or in East London’s Tech City can do their bit to support the taxpayer, improve citizen services and drive economic growth.

 

Government IT is a huge operation and systems won’t move to Cloud overnight. But by engaging with the promise of Cloud computing, I, and I hope you, think we have a once-in-a-generation chance to finally improve government IT efficiency and save costs.