Two-year contract provides access to a range of software tools

Credit: Stock Catalog/CC BY 2.0

The Cabinet Office has spent almost £6m on a new two-year deal to provide its staff with Google’s productivity applications.

The contract, which came into effect on 30 September and lasts for two years, was awarded to Cloud Technology Solutions, a Mancunian IT services firm that specialises in Google’s technology.

The nucleus of the deal is the provision of licences for the Google Workspace suite of applications, which includes tools such as Gmail, Docs and Drive, as well as platforms for chat, video meetings, spreadsheet, slides and various other functions. In the contract document, the Cabinet Office indicated that these programs will be “used by all personnel for emails, contacts, calendars, files and documents”.

Also included is the CloudLock technology from Cisco, which is “a security system add-on to Google Workspace to enable a number of security functions including leak investigations”.

AODocs, meanwhile, offers the department “a critical document-management system for Google Workspace which allows the appropriate control, retention and management of Cabinet Office files, documents [and] data for information legislation compliance”. Data discovery software from specialist firm Dahu will also be provided, while a general audit tool included in the contract will be “used by GDS to interrogate Google Workspace data as part of Freedom of Information and Subject Access Requests, as well as for administrative, audit and security purposes”.

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The Google Cloud Platform will be managed by the department’s IT and digital leadership and used “to operate a number of IT infrastructure components as part of Cabinet Office and Government Digital Service IT systems”.

The provision of support services from Cloud Technology Solutions is also covered by the deal.

The Cabinet Office has used Google’s productivity applications since 2015; the department’s adoption of the technology was seen as a major coup in the vendor’s bid to eat into the dominance of Microsoft.

The latest renewal deal, the value of which is estimated at £5.78m, will provide the department with access to tools not covered by its current engagement.

“Under the previous contract the Cabinet Office was on a legacy tier of the Google Workspace system, formerly ‘G-Suite’,” contract documents said. “This legacy licence tier did not allow the CO to access features only available in current licence models: Google Workspace Enterprise. This new contract allows the CO to gain access to a number of Google Workspace’s new features and functions into their modern licensing structure. This case includes an enterprise support relationship agreement which is intertwined with the Google Workspace vendor licences.”