G-Cloud 11 to be awarded in July

Tender process for eleventh iteration of public sector framework to start soon

The eleventh iteration of the G-Cloud framework is set to be awarded in July this year, according to Crown Commercial Service (CCS).

On its website, CCS said that G-Cloud 11 will run for an initial 12-month period, with the option to extend it by up to 12 months.

G-Cloud 10 launched in July last year, after CCS scrapped an extension to G-Cloud 9 following a supplier backlash.

CCS says that the G-Cloud 11 contract notice will be published this month.

Chris Farthing, managing director at public sector consultancy Advice Cloud, said the relatively short tender duration could make things tricky for G-Cloud newcomers.

"It's great news that G-Cloud 11's timeline has been added to the CCS Pipeline today," he said.

"Given the short timescales, we would have preferred more notice so that people can prepare, however this probably means that not many changes are planned. But for those new to the framework this may prove challenging.

"I would like to see some expansion to the filtering capabilities and hopefully an update to the ability to use multiple categories to refine my search. Longer term, the ability to award contracts and directly publish to Contracts Finder would be immensely helpful from a buyer's perspective."

G-Cloud has facilitated sales of over £4bn (up to 31 December 2018), with £1.2bn of these sales coming in 2018.

Last year also saw CDW complete the largest ever G-Cloud deal - a £25.7m contract with the Department of Education.

Capgemini was the largest G-Cloud supplier overall in 2018, raking in over £50m in sales.