UK Government claims success with G-Cloud

The United Kingdom has declared its G-Cloud to be "a model for efficient public sector IT procurement" after the first year of operation.

In a statement, cabinet office minister Francis Maude said the G-Cloud made government IT "simpler, quicker, cheaper and focused on matching solutions to business requirements, reducing waste and cutting costs."

G-Cloud now has 459 providers on its second framework with over 3200 offerings in store, supplying hosting, storage, email, document management, collaboration tools, virtual desktops and more, which are accessible through different cloud models.

This compares to July last year, when the Home Office IT director Denise McDonagh said there were 250 suppliers offering 1700 services on G-Cloud.

McDonagh said she's convinced G-Cloud is "a game changer for the way government buys, manages and operates IT."

She added that most large government departments have bought services from the cloud, as had local administrations.

However, despite the claims of success, purchases from the G-Cloud Cloudstore total only £6 million (A$8.93 million) and number only 200. 

Total British Government IT expenditure for the 2010-2011 year was £17.8 billion ($A27.6 billion) with the 2011-2012 year estimated to be around £1.5 billion less.