Cloudy outlook on government ICT

The Cabinet Office has published a ten year strategy for government ICT that emphasises the use of cloud computing and greater standardisation across the public sector.

The strategy identifies potential savings of £1.8 billion from developing a single voice and data network for the public sector, rationalising data centres, setting up a government app store and creating common designs for desktop services.

It also argues that The Government Cloud (G-Cloud) infrastructure and applications first outlined in the Digital Britain report will be “a key enabler” of the £3.2 billion a year ICT savings that the Treasury’s Operational Efficiency Report argued could be made in the run-up to last year’s Budget.

The ICT strategy describes the G-Cloud as a “government cloud infrastructure that enables public bodies to select and host ICT services from a secure, resilient and cost-effective shared environment.” It says “multiple services will be available from multiple suppliers” so it will be easy to ditch any that fail to deliver reliably.

The strategy also calls for common standards for government IT architecture and applications, more use of open-source software, more use of shared services and improved IT skills; as well as action to meet the government’s commitment to make government IT carbon neutral by 2012.

In a forward to the report, Angela Smith, minister of state for the Cabinet Office, writes: “We need to remove unnecessary overlaps between departments and avoid costly duplication of technology. We need to standardise, simplify, and move to a more shared and open world, ensuring that we continue to develop local solutions at a price we can all afford.”

Despite the sweeping agenda set out in the report, the Cabinet Office claims Britain continues to lead the world in developing online public services, and that “most” citizens and businesses can make use of services online as well as by using other routes.

Link: Government ICT Strategy: smarter, cheaper, greener.