Public Sector Spends £10 Million On Cloud in A Month

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The use of the public sector cloud computing system – known as the G-Cloud – is increasing rapidly, after government departments and other bodies spent around £10 million on IT software and services that connect to it last month.

It takes total spending on the G-Cloud platform to £63.4 million, with 56 per cent of sales by value going to small and medium enterprises (61 per cent by volume). Of the sales to date, 70 per cent were via central government and 30 per cent through other public sector bodies.

The latter category was responsible for the biggest expenditure, with Plymouth University spending £435,000 on a new wireless deployment provided by Cisco Gold partner ONI.

Among the largest central government sales were the £256,725 spent by the Office of the Public Guardian with The Engine Group, which saw the department's core systems being replaced, reports V3.

Other major transactions include the £217,456 spent by the Ministry of Justice with Detica and the £158,882 NHS outlay with PA Consulting on the first phase of a project to migrate the National Institute for Health Research's computing to the cloud.

The initiatives may be seen in the context of an increasing use of more modern data systems by the public sector. These will undoubtedly need to be secure, given the sensitive nature of much of the data kept, but it will also enable information to be more accessible and help with the move towards paperless offices.

Going paperless could help Whitehall save up to £70 billion by 2020, according to a report by the Policy Exchange thinktank published in September. It singled out departments like the Driving and Vehicle Licensing Authority and the Crown Prosecution Service as examples of bodies that churn out reams of paper every day at a substantial cost.

The adoption of the G-Cloud is partly an exercise in saving money. The reduction of cost is listed as being one of its benefits, alongside economies of scale, the meeting of environmental costs and providing support to emerging suppliers.

As such, the public sector may be able to demonstrate a number of benefits of cloud use that private enterprises can also gain from if they adopt it.

Storetec News/Blogs."http://www.storetec.net/news-blog/public-sector-spends-10-million-on-cloud-in-a-month/. Public sector spends £10 million on cloud in a month. November 27, 2013.

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