The department has specified that it does not wish to simply procure a specialist outsourced service, but wishes to work with an independent expert to create its own FinOps function
The Home Office is to create a centralised expert internal team to help it better manage hundreds of millions of pounds spent by the department on public cloud services.
According to recently published commercial documents, the organisation “is in the process of setting up a central FinOps capability as part of the management of public cloud spend”.
Defined as an “operational framework and cultural practice” – and also sometimes referred to as “cloud financial management” or “cloud optimisation” – FinOps was created and is defined by the FinOps Foundation, a subsidiary of not-for-profit open source industry body the Linux Foundation.
According to the foundation’s website, the adoption of a FinOps approach “maximises the business value of cloud, enables timely data-driven decision making, and creates financial accountability through collaboration between engineering, finance, and business teams”.
In establishing a central team to implement this ethos, the Home Office hopes to address its current situation in which “siloed areas do things in very different ways” in managing their cloud spending.
“The need for increased visibility of cloud billing by area and usage is a high priority, coupled with the need to optimise usage,” the department said, in commercial specifications.
To help establish and embed FinOps expertise, the Home Office has signed a one-year £475,000 deal with specialised consultancy Mobilise Cloud Services to “ensure we do so under the guidance of industry-leading experts who align with FinOps foundation and are fully independent” of cloud vendors.
But the text of the contract – which specifies another specialist, Synyega, as a key subcontractor – clarifies that the Home Office wishes to develop its own skills, not simply rely on an outsourced FinOps provision.
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“What is important is to ensure we do not move into a FinOps managed service and that we continue to build the skills and capability internally,” the contract says. “[The department’s] appetite to contract public cloud services worth millions of pounds will be down to the effectiveness of our optimisation and FinOps practice, so these requirements are crucial in achieving that. It is also crucial that we think longer term and build in capability to align our efficiencies with software licensing and the sustainability agenda again with advice from independent support.”
In late 2023, the Home Office signed a potential £400m-plus agreement with Amazon Web Services, as well as a £30m engagement for the provision of Microsoft Azure hosting services. Ministers have previously indicated that the department keeps 250 groups of software applications in either an AWS or Microsoft public cloud environment.
The deal with the Mobilise, which came into effect on 19 August, will see the Bridgend-headquartered firm “align and advise as and when” needed by the department over the coming months.
“It is important to note that the [Home Office] does have some incumbent suppliers working on SoWs (statements of work) in part working towards the processes and values we wish to adopt; however, they have been unable to offer an independent service where we are noticeably clear that we wish to grow internal capability and NOT take on a FinOps managed service,” the contract said. “It is also worth noting that any support has been in specific areas, and we are in a position where we require cross-buyer and cross-government discussions to take place.”
The document added: “As this function is built at pace, it will have far-reaching impacts, so to ‘get it right’ first time is imperative. We need FinOps foundation expertise, knowledge and experience to support us as we plan the three-year transformation map and short-term (FY24/25) milestones, as well as understanding our maturity; where are our pockets of excellence and where is there no understanding found.”
