After ‘red’ rating, department has been required to provide new delivery and funding plan for £50m Falcon project, a key strand of which is migrating software platforms to improve interoperability
The Cabinet Office has maintained its intent to switch core IT systems from Google to Microsoft, despite lengthy delays and “misalignment between the strategic intent and funding availability” for the major migration project.
The Falcon IT programme – which is part of the government major projects portfolio (GMPP) – began work in May 2022 on two central objectives: updating the Cabinet Office’s IT platforms for supporting the processing of Official-grade information; and switching operations and data across the department from the incumbent Google Workspace tools to Microsoft 365.
As of the 2023 annual roundup of GMPP progress, Falcon was awarded an amber delivery confidence rating. Costs were slated at £52m and work was due to complete by the end of March 2025.
After signing a new contract for Google Workspace services late last year, the Cabinet Office told PublicTechnology that the Falcon project was “on track”.
The 2024 GMPP report and data was released recently, revealing that the delivery date had been pushed back to March 2026.
Even with this extra time, the project had been downgraded to a red rating – indicating that there are “major issues.. [which] do not appear to be manageable or resolvable” and delivery to the stated specifications is no longer considered achievable.
The newly published major project data set adds: “The programme is currently rated at red as it does not have an agreed strategic direction, investment and funding available. If there continues to be misalignment between the strategic intent and funding availability then the programme will almost certainly fail to deliver the scope and benefits set out in the business case.”
PublicTechnology understands that the red rating was first assigned in March 2024 and, since then, the department has submitted an amended case “proposing new delivery options” for the work. This has been approved, and funding has been signed off to be provided during the soon-to-start 2025/26 financial year continuing into “future financial periods”.
Additional recent support from the Infrastructure and Projects Authority – which oversees cross-government delivery of the GMPP – has helped the Cabinet Office improve the confidence rating assigned to Falcon.
In response to enquiries from PublicTechnology about whether the department remained intent on moving from Google to Microsoft, a spokesperson for the department said: “We have set a clear strategic direction to move Cabinet Office IT systems from Google to Microsoft. The Falcon Programme has been re-graded down to amber and is continuing with a new approved delivery option and funding.”
Details of any changes to the programme’s costs, timeline or scope have yet to be provided.
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Having been created as part of the Cabinet Office in 2011, the Government Digital Service was notable for its preference for Google Workspace applications, rather than the much more widely used Microsoft tools – such as Outlook, Word, and Excel. The broader Cabinet Office then adopted the Google apps across the department in 2015, in what was seen as a major coup for the enterprise software arm of the search-engine firm.
The intention of switching back to Microsoft is to “enable better interoperability across government”, the Cabinet Office has previously indicated.
The difficulties created by its ongoing use of Google were referenced in a recent Public Accounts Committee appearance by the department’s most senior figure: permanent secretary Cat Little.
“What we are trying to do is weigh up the benefits of having large suppliers at scale, which include interoperability as well as value for money,” she said, in response to MPs’ queries about the relative advantages of major overarching contracts with big tech firms.
Little added: “As someone from a department not on a Microsoft platform, I can tell you that it is incredibly frustrating to have to constantly say: ‘I’m very sorry: I can’t send you that document to work on because my system doesn’t talk to your system’. So, we need to think about how we create the best environment for our staff to operate in and drive value for money. That has to be weighed up against the obvious risks that come with these large primes delivering quite a lot of our services.”
Falcon first appeared to run into unexpected obstacles in early 2024, when the Cabinet Office terminated a £9m “migration delivery” contract with Microsoft less than 10 months into its planned three-year term.
A spokesperson told PublicTechnology at the time: “Following the successful completion of the discovery phase of our Falcon programme, we are reviewing options to deliver the migration workstream.”
