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[Hector]

The recently published ‘Digital Britain’ white paper has offered great encouragement to Clouds UK by recommending that more Government IT applications embrace and employ this form of technology.

An article relating to the report on Kable.co.uk (information for the public services community) picks up on some of the key points from the chapter eight section on procurement:

'The report proposes the creation of a G Cloud for government business applications, to run alongside the Public Service Network. It says this could be used for function such as server and storage virtualisation and systems management automation.

The government Chief Information Officers Council and IT industry association Intellect have drawn up a route map for the creation of the G Cloud as part of the rationalisation of public sector data centres. They are now developing a business case to justify the investment in technical development and physical facilities.'

The report acknowledges some of the many positives features Cloud Computing encompasses such as the 'on demand' service and the flexibility for organisations in demand for and spending on their IT resources.

Another area of heartening news for Clouds UK is the section of the report that identifies a need for a more competitive market in public sector IT, encouraging new suppliers to bid for the rights to provide their services. Kable.co.uk write:

'It recommends that the CIO council should provide a simplified, fast track process for procurement — consistent with EU rules — initially focused on a small number of areas for tender. This would allow innovative companies to compete with incumbent bidders as main contractors rather than sub-contractors'.

Clouds UK are already in the vanguard of government cloud computing with our involvement in key PFI projects and Primary Care Trusts. Following the encouragement given through this report we will build on these successes.