GDS gives progress report on platform plans

Government claims 'huge amount of technical change' going on behind the scenes

The Government Digital Service (GDS) has hailed a "huge amount" of technical changes to the G-Cloud application process which it claims are speeding things up significantly.

In a blog post, GDS senior developer Kev Keenoy said although on the surface there isn't much difference in the application process for G-Cloud 8 compared with G-Cloud 6 and G-Cloud 7, in the background things are changing fast, which will be good news for the future.

"Behind the scenes there's been a huge amount of technical change," he said. "When suppliers applied to supply their services through G-Cloud 6, they had to use two separate systems to complete their application. They had to give information about their company - by making a 'supplier declaration' through an e-sourcing tool operated by the Crown Commercial Service - [and their] services, through a Service Submission Portal (SSP)."

But, he admitted, the GDS recognised this "didn't meet user needs", which prompted the organisation to rebuild it to make things simpler.

"The changes we've made meant that opening G-Cloud 8 for applications was simpler and faster than it has been for any previous framework iteration," he said. "In fact, it took two developers less than two weeks to get G-Cloud 8 ready for suppliers to apply to supply their services. The relative ease of the preparation shows the progress we've made towards becoming a platform."

The GDS hopes the model it has in place on G-Cloud can be used as a "foundation that would support all future frameworks on the Digital Marketplace".

"Our vision is similar to our colleagues' at Government as a Platform (GaaP) who are dedicated to building something once and making it available to everyone in the form of reusable design patterns, shared code libraries and platforms," he said. "If we can get these things right, we'll have more time to focus on delivering the bigger vision for the future of the Digital Marketplace."