Outgoing G-Cloud boss slams government IT

Chris Chant says government has been unwilling to embrace smaller suppliers' potential

G-Cloud boss Chris Chant has hit out at the government's rotten record of working with smaller IT suppliers as he prepares to retire after 30 years in the civil service.

Chant will hand over to successor Denise McDonagh on 30 April after 18 months heading up the government's new cloud services procurement framework.

Unveiled in February, the G-Cloud's Cloudstore online app store features 1,700 off-the-shelf IT services from 257 suppliers. In a blog, G-Cloud engagement manager Eleanor Stewart stressed that the G-Cloud programme "will continue in very much the same vein as it has done to date".

Chant used a separate blog post last week to underline the issues within government IT procurement that G-Cloud is seeking to remedy.

"Real progress has been blocked by many things, including an absence of capability in both departments and their suppliers, by a strong resistance to change, by the perverse incentives of contracts that mean it is cheaper to pay service credits than to fix the problem and by an unwillingness to embrace the potential of newer and smaller players to offer status quo-busting ideas," he wrote.

Chant has already begun his handover to McDonagh, who will carry out her responsibilities in tandem with her existing role at the Home Office.

Stewart said her team is on track to launch the next iteration of the G-Cloud framework at the end of April or the first week of May.

"As planned, that will incorporate a new approach where we will be able to add new suppliers and services on a quarterly or possibly more frequent basis," she revealed. "This will be a first in procurement, certainly in the UK, and perhaps even in the world. Existing G-Cloud suppliers should be able to move to the new framework with just a small amount of effort."