Missed opportunity in digital marketplace

Despite total sales on the Government’s G-Cloud Digital Marketplace reaching £1.39 billion, research has shown that more than half (58 per cent) of public sector IT organisations, including the emergency services, have not used G-Cloud in the past year.

Although the Government is aiming to drive digitisation in public services through the G-Cloud framework, public sector IT leaders are still missing the opportunity to use the system to innovate through key digital initiatives such as cloud adoption and big data projects. In fact, despite rating digital transformation as the top challenge facing their organisations over the next year, only eight per cent of executives have used the Digital Marketplace more than five times in the past year.

These are among the findings of research into the state of public sector technology and use of the digital framework carried out by British cloud and network provider Exponential-e.

The study questioned IT professionals across the UK, covering the emergency services, local and central government, health, education and the third sector.

Public sector organisations are increasingly viewing the implementation of new digital systems as a key objective to help boost efficiency and improve services. The majority of IT heads (57 per cent) rate digital transformation as being of considerable or high importance for their organisation. More than half (54 per cent) also view compliance and security as a matter of importance, indicating that the need to improve data handling practices is an essential element of digitisation for public sector IT teams. However, only around a quarter (27 per cent) rate cloud adoption as an important challenge for the next year.

“Many public sector organisations are missing the opportunity which cloud provides to cost-effectively support innovative digital transformation initiatives,” said David Lozdan, head of public sector at Exponential-e. “According to government data, out of the £1.39 billion total sales since the launch of G-Cloud, central government departments have been responsible for £1.06 billion, compared with only £73 million from local authorities and £245 million from the wider public sector.

“In order for these organisations to achieve their digitisation goals, there is clearly a gap to be filled when it comes to engaging within the G-Cloud framework to access secure, flexible cloud services capable of servicing the sector’s growing needs.”

William Mosseri-Marlio, a researcher at the think-tank Reform, says few doubt digitisation can be an agent of reform for policing– be it through driving efficiencies, helping to tackle cybercrime or forging a new relationship between officers and citizens – yet the “police are not renowned for digital adoption”.

“A report by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary found IT capability was ‘weak and ageing’. Tactical procurement practices are partly to blame – forces have tended to purchase tools in isolation, as kit rather than as an enabler of better outcomes. The resultant estate is complex and difficult to unpick,” he explained in his ‘Reformer’ paper Analytics and algorithms: the future of policing?