Yesterday the government published four follow-on documents to the ICT Strategic Implementation Plan, released earlier this month. The strategies will cover G-cloud, End user Devices, ICT Capability and Green government. According to the Cabinet, the strategies will radically transform the ICT landscape to create a more productive flexible workforce that will deliverer digital public services in a more cost effective way.

The government cloud (G-Cloud) strategy details how cloud computing can be exploited to transform the Government ICT estate into one that is agile, cost effective and sustainable. The government will adopt an approach of ‘public cloud first’ whilst recognising the requirement for secure private cloud provision in some areas.

According to the statement, cloud computing will be enabled through the creation of a Government Application Store, displaying services that will be able to be procured, used, reviewed and reused across the public sector. The government confirmed: “Government Cloud is not a single, government owned, entity; it is an on-going and iterative programme of work which will enable the use of a range of Cloud services, and changes in the way we procure and operate ICT, throughout the public sector. The vision is for government to robustly adopt a public Cloud first policy, though this will not be possible in every case and there will also be a requirement for a private G -Cloud.”

Through its ICT strategy, the government aims to make significant savings, including savings of £460 million per year by 2014/15 from its move to cloud computing alone.

The G-Cloud programme is currently trialling services in six areas. These includes an email Software as a Service (SaaS) with Warwickshire County Council; a Customer Relationship Management SaaS with the British Council; web hosting and online content management system with the Government Digital Service (GDS), Department of Health and HMRC; public cloud services with the Ordnance Survey and Enterprise Resource Planning with GDS.