Quarter of public sector IT staff have never used cloud

New research finds 92 per cent of public-sector staff don't trust cloud computing

A quarter of public-sector IT staff have never used cloud before, according to a report that claims the sector should be encouraged to use the technology more if it is to achieve its savings goals.

Cloud firm Huddle released a report today ahead of tomorrow's Budget, in which the Conservative government is expected to announce measures to save £13bn across the public sector. The company claims much of the savings will be driven by a cloud-first approach.

But Huddle claims its research - which surveyed 5,000 public-sector employees - shows the sector is far from ready to move to the cloud.

Of the public-sector IT teams it spoke to, Huddle's research found the majority (53 per cent) are not comfortable using cloud technology, a figure that rises to 65 per cent when considering all public-sector staff, not just those in IT.

A quarter of IT teams in the public sector said they had never even used cloud computing services.

CRN research earlier this year found that G-Cloud - the government's flagship cloud framework - is being snubbed by local councils, with just 27 per cent of local authorities reporting firm plans to use the framework in the coming year. CRN's research also found that 40 per cent of council respondents had received no encouragement from the government to use the G-Cloud framework. Of the portion who said they did, many counted occasional emails as encouragement.

Alastair Mitchell, co-founder of Huddle, said talking up the benefits of cloud in general is essential to boost its popularity in the public sector.

"The public sector frontline is stuck between a rock and a hard place," he said. "On the one hand, staff are being asked to remove £13bn of spend, but on the other, the new cloud-based IT infrastructures that are key to a large proportion of these savings are not yet sufficiently understood or trusted enough to be widely deployed. UK government has to up the rhetoric on cloud benefits and training, else the cuts are simply not possible."