£11.5b in 10 years: UK's government cloud services unit G-Cloud

British readers who have only recently packed away the bunting commemorating the Platinum Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II have been offered reason to get it out again by Crown Commercial Services, which is offering up the 10-year anniversary of G-Cloud as a cause for celebration. The procurement wing of the Cabinet Office has …

[elsergiovolador]

Tax

Government shouldn't be allowed to deal with big corporations until they start paying the right amount of tax.

I get the "they don't do anything wrong!" tripe, but have they actually been investigated? The billionaire owners have enough dough to silence any inspector trying to tuck in the books.

Then you have some HMRC and Treasury CS also being members of WEF and these corporations are also listed as WEF partners.

There is no conflict of interest there, oh no, move along, nothing to see here.

If only these institutions were so diligent as they are chasing cash in hand plumbers.

[Mike 137]

"10 years of the agreement "to aid their digital transformation"

The focus on the means ('digital') rather than the outcome (????) of transformation is deeply worrying. I constantly observe 'digitally transformed' services that perpetuate inefficient and inadequate processes that should have been entirely redesigned given the opportunity digitisation provided, instead of which they just get 'digitised' as found, with all their existing faults. Unfortunately, once digitised, it becomes much harder and more expensive to correct those faults.

[elsergiovolador]

Re: "10 years of the agreement "to aid their digital transformation"

The problem may be that when digital system is being developed, usually it has to mirror the "analogue" process, otherwise having two different processes working simultaneously could cause chaos.

I think once the process is in digital domain, it is probably deemed "good enough" and they move onto something else.

Also these things probably take years to complete, so people who started probably are no longer available at the end.

Boxes are ticked and while there are still processes in need of being transformed, there would be no apetite to optimise digital processes - especialy if that meant reduction of number of people needing to service them.

I mean why would Civil Service want to cut the branch they are sitting on...

[Mike 137]

Re: "10 years of the agreement "to aid their digital transformation"

The problem may be that when digital system is being developed, usually it has to mirror the "analogue" process

The trick is to improve the 'analogue' process first as part of the preparation for digitisation. But nobody ever wants to take the time to do that as it 'delays' the 'transformation'. However, from the service user's point of view it's not transformed to their advantage unless it's better than before. The mere fact of its becoming 'digital' is not usually sufficient to provide that.

[andypowe11]

Re: "also have access to memoranda of understanding signed by the big-name cloud providers"

Minor correction... AFAIK, the OGVA MoUs are not really an alternative to G-Cloud, as you seem to be implying, because they require an underlying procurement route like G-Cloud in order to function.