Revealed: Why local councils are snubbing G-Cloud

Senior figures claim government's shared-services agenda could be to blame

Saving local jobs, commitment to shared services and reluctance to spend time re-evaluating IT are some of the reasons mooted by senior officials as to why G-Cloud is failing to take off in local councils.

Senior figures met last week at an event organised by industry body EuroCloud UK to discuss the framework and local authorities' reluctance to get on board was a hot topic. In order to encourage frank and honest debate, the event was held under Chatham House rules, meaning the speakers spoke under the condition of anonymity.

Research carried out by CRN last month found that the vast majority of local authorities have no firm plans to use G-Cloud in the next year. Official figures show that since it was set up in 2012, 76.3 per cent of the total £591m of sales put through the framework came from central government departments, of which there are just 24. The 433 local councils in the UK accounted for a paltry six per cent of the value.

As revealed by CRN on Friday, a senior figure at the event said between only one and six per cent of the total spending on IT across the public sector goes through G-Cloud – a figure they described as "very, very low".

The reluctance of local councils to join in was cited at the event as an issue for the framework, with many delegates chipping in with their theories on why so few are interested.

One said a cultural difference between IT people in central and local government was to blame.

"[Local authorities] are looking for excuses, I think" they said. "A lot of it, I think, it to do with employment issues. The Civil Service is a different culture. Most civil servants I deal with in central government are career professionals – they move around a lot, they want to innovate. They really are a different culture to those in local authorities."

Another member said the Labour government's push for local councils to team up and create shared services centres has backfired.

"Most councils were encouraged in the mid- to late 2000s to go out and spend large wads of capital money on big warehouses to go and then build their own datacentres to put in coloation and hosted services so other boroughs would come and join in," they said. "They cannot – politically and to save face – go back to their members and say that money is wasted. That's the reality. It will eventually change – it has to."

The opinion struck a chord with another delegate.

"Those [local authorities] that did not make a relative success of shared services – some smaller boroughs and counties did not go down the shared services route – are the ones embracing G-Cloud. It was the shared services agenda which resulted in local government not getting involved in G-Cloud now. They are too much wedded to the infrastructure they have built."

Two years is the maximum length of contract on G-Cloud, which some at the event cited as an issue for local council IT managers.

"One of the real barriers is the two-year contract [renewal]," they said. "At the end of two years, you don't have to change suppliers. All you have to do is do the original filtering and make sure you get the best deal. I heard it said in one department 'I don't want to go through all that rigmarole'.

"Well that's fine, but every year I would check my utility bill to make sure I'm getting the best deal. If it's too much rigmarole for me to change suppliers and save money, then so be it. Unfortunately, in the public sector if there is too much rigmarole, it's the council tax payer who is losing out."