The Cabinet Office has launched a new strategy, setting out the future of information technology for the decade ahead. Ruth Keeling discovers ideas that could transform many government operations – including the ‘G-cloud.
It has been an exciting few weeks for information technology. At the end of last month, Apple’s Steve Jobs was on stage unveiling the iPad. And this month, the government’s chief information officer John Suffolk used an online video piece to announce the future of government IT – including the ‘G-Cloud’ and the Government Applications Store, or G-AS. “You hear of Google, you hear of Microsoft; now you are going to hear of the UK government’s G-Cloud,” he said.
Public sector IT has never achieved quite the glamour of Apple’s market-savvy products – but the new ICT strategy could well improve more people’s lives than the iPad. The plan – championed by Cabinet Office minister Angela Smith (see below) – promises to save the £3.2bn demanded by the Operational Efficiency Programme, while helping the government to meet its sustainability targets and provide better, more joined-up public services.
There are 14 strands to the strategy, but the most radical are the proposed government ‘cloud’ network and the G-AS. Cloud computing – the sharing of a central bank of hardware and software, with users paying only for the applications and disc space they need – has already reached the public sector but, as Suffolk says, an exclusively public sector cloud is needed for sensitive IT systems, such as those holding citizen data.
Meanwhile, the apps store offers the possibility of moving away from expensive, bespoke software towards reusable and sharable applications. Future procurements will be made on behalf of the Crown, in order to remove licensing restrictions and allow all public bodies to use the same software.
Imagine a criminal justice G-Cloud: police, probation, prison and courts would all use the same applications on the network, with officials from multiple public bodies able to access and amend the same documents. Simon Etherington, UK general manager of Objective Corporation, whose cloud computing network is used by local authorities to create multi-author documents, says the strategy’s delivery of improved services is as important as efficiency savings. “The challenge for the G-Cloud is to provide truly connected services,” he says.
Not everyone is wholeheartedly enthusiastic about the ICT strategy’s grand ideas. Socitm, the association of local authority IT professionals – who will play a big role in delivering the strategy – has questioned the workability of a G-Cloud. “We do not believe it is likely to become a mainstream service offering, delivering savings within the three years stated in the [2009] ‘Digital Britain’ report”, Socitm said in a recent report.
The strategy also makes another push towards the use of open source, non-proprietary software, enabling the public sector to share software and invite new suppliers to build on existing applications. The idea was first adopted as policy in 2004, and reiterated in a 2009 open source strategy; this strategy blames the lack of progress on the behaviour of traditional software suppliers, a lack of knowledge amongst IT staff, and the public’s sector “risk-averse culture”.
This latest commitment has been welcomed by Gerry Gavigan, chairman of the Open Source Consortium – but he does not believe it goes far enough. While the consortium’s offer of help with the strategy was ignored, big name suppliers were welcomed by the Cabinet Office, he says.
Although there is talk of interoperability and licensing to the Crown rather than individual organisations, he is concerned that government will fail to unshackle itself from the big players. The strategy is at risk of missing the opportunity for a “paradigm shift”, he argues.
However, it is early days; although the apps store is already being piloted, Suffolk says the G-Cloud will not be fully operational for at least five years. If it does deliver, the strategy will save money and make for better public services – but the cost savings and benefits for joining-up will only be realised if much of the public sector embraces the strategy’s ideas.
Capita’s central government market director Patrick Smith points out that public bodies have to think about their core responsibilities – delivering services – and are constrained by budgets that “leave them with precious little room for investment”. The onus is now on the Cabinet Office to persuade departments, agencies, local government and the wider public sector that the views are good from up in the clouds.
Ministerial viewpoint: from Angela Smith, Cabinet Office
“It is easy to forget how much technology has changed the world. Some developments are easy to see; desktop computers have spread into every office in the country, and we can scarcely escape the ubiquitous Microsoft or Google when we turn one of them on.
But the more significant changes are often ignored: homes as well as business have been transformed by IT. Everything is quicker, more flexible and more effective. These changes have transformed financial services, the transport industry and countless other sectors. Instant messaging systems, digital conferences, and even the humble email have made the world smaller and more efficient.
The transformation of public services is no different. The public expects cheaper, better and easier-to-use services and the government has to deliver. Computerised payments of benefits are easier and cheaper, paying car tax online is quicker and easier, and broadband access in all secondary schools provides young people with the opportunity to gain new skills.
But the transformation of public services does not stop there. In our drive to save money and modernise, we have just published the government’s ICT strategy. This provides the backbone for improvements in public services. It delivers the infrastructure that will enable us to adapt and modernise ICT across the public sector and to deliver services in the way that the public wants them.
At the heart of this strategy is £3.2 billion of annual savings; enough to build 12 new hospitals. We will remove unnecessary overlaps between departments and avoid costly duplications of technology.
The technology world is buzzing with talk about cloud computing; it’s the biggest development in the way IT services are delivered since the advent of the internet, allowing resources to be delivered over the web rather than each organisation running them locally. Once installed, the Government Cloud will be one of the first of its kind, placing the UK right at the forefront of ICT innovation.
The cloud will enable every area of government to access multiple suppliers and systems and enable improved delivery of services to those who need them most.
Modernising how workers across the public service use and access computer systems on their desktop computers might not sound revolutionary, but these changes behind the scenes will make our public services run even more efficiently, reduce our national carbon footprint and save billions of pounds.