More G-Cloud guidance and clarity required

Confusion reigns in G-Cloud and this is dissuading local government, warns Peter Groucutt

The lack of guidance and clarity surrounding the new G-Cloud Security Approach and the recently changed Government Security Classifications will only further confuse local government departments considering procuring services through G-Cloud.

Earlier this week, it was announced that suppliers seeking to join G-Cloud will not be able to apply for the Pan Government Accreditation (PGA) from the end of this month.

PGA certifies IT suppliers to handle data up to certain levels of sensitivity under the impact level (IL) classification scheme, without the need to re-certify for each organisation with which they work.

Moving to the sixth iteration of G-Cloud, a new classification system with just three categories – Official, Secret and Top Secret – will be used.

A recent survey has suggested that less than one per cent of local councils in England procured IT services through G-Cloud's online CloudStore from 2012 to 2013. This figure suggests a big lack of enthusiasm for the scheme in local government.

But this is simply not the case.

Local government departments can't be blamed for failing to keep up with G-Cloud. We've gone from it being controlled by the Government Procurement Service (now the Crown Commercial Service) to the Government Digital Service (GDS), and now we're swapping CloudStore for the Digital Marketplace.

That's not to mention the changes to the security classifications. While central government has the resources to adapt to these changes, local authorities do not. This has given the quite unfair impression that they are unwilling to embrace cloud services.

Local government departments are finding themselves in an increasingly difficult position when it comes to managing their IT infrastructure. They're constantly being told to buy more from SMBs and become "cloud first".

At the same time they are trying to keep up with new G-Cloud initiatives introduced every six months. Understandably, keeping pace is a challenge.

To increase adoption among local government departments, we need stability and continuity in this programme.

We have often called for greater efforts for educating G-Cloud buyers, but I can imagine that when buyers are presented with this constantly changing framework, they feel it might be better to wait until things have stabilised.

The concern we have as a G-Cloud supplier is that, in light of the continuing uncertainty, local authorities will try to play things safe by continuing to procure expensive, inflexible IT solutions from their incumbent large suppliers.

Now could be the perfect time to take this message out to local government. We have enough success stories from those who have already used G-Cloud; the Digital Marketplace looks like a major improvement over CloudStore; and data classification changes should boost the cloud services opportunity.

It is not surprising that 80 per cent of the G-Cloud spend to date has come from central government; that is an easier group to target and educate. Now we need to extend the message to local government bodies.

Peter Groucutt is managing director of Databarracks