The government will undertake more intensive engagement and education for local authorities on the G-Cloud purchasing framework from next year, according to Mike Bracken, executive director of digital in the Cabinet Office.
The government will undertake more intensive engagement and education for local authorities on the G-Cloud purchasing framework from next year, according to Mike Bracken, executive director of digital in the Cabinet Office.
Bracken made his comments at an event to publicise efficiency savings totalling £14.3bn made by central government during 2013/14.
Bracken said that moving central government services to the unified .gov.uk platform had saved £63m during the year, but admitted that there were problems with take-up of G-Cloud among the wider public sector.
He said: “We are finding there is a lot of education to be done. Some have taken it up with real enthusiasm, but some have not.”
But he said that this was mainly because the focus of the G-Cloud team had so far been to encourage take-up amongst central government organisations.
But he said: “In the next Parliament we will engage more with the wider public sector on G-Cloud.”
In April, the government announced a round of limited measures to promote awareness of the G-Cloud platform among public sector buyers.
In February, the government announced that it would work towards integrating the G-Cloud online marketplace Cloudstore with other government digital frameworks under the new name the Government Digital Marketplace.
Separately, Liam Maxwell, the government’s chief technology officer, told PublicTechnology.net that the government would not be funding or instigating a single website platform for local government similar to the central government .gov.uk model.
The issue will come under discussion at two events being run by local government organisations in the coming two weeks.
However, Maxwell said: “We have no writ in local government and we are never going to turn round to them and say that they must do anything.”
However, he added that the GDS was talking “more and more” to local government ICT leaders to collaborate on projects.
