The sixth iteration of the G-Cloud procurement framework will go out to tender by the end of next month, the government has confirmed.

In a blog posting, Tony Singleton, director of digital commercial programme at the Government Digital Service said that the aim would be to get the new version of the framework up and running in early 2015.

The new version of the framework will make it clearer, simpler and faster for suppliers to submit their services as part of the submission, he said. The fifth version of the framework launched in September 2014 with 1,132 suppliers listed as providing digital services and products.

Singleton also launched a bullish status update on the project, which has faced criticism that many working in central and local government are not aware of its existence.

Singleton said: “G-Cloud has had a great number of successes recently, which shows how it is transforming the way the public sector buys commodity IT services.”

He said that at least 356 new jobs in small and medium enterprises have been created as a result of G-Cloud.

According to Singleton, average spend so far this year is running at £22m per month through the programme.

In his blog post, he said that a tender for the next iteration of the digital services framework, through which public sector bodies can procure deliver agile software development services, would also go out to tender by the end of October.

In addition, he said that buyer feedback on an alpha version of the new Digital Marketplace, which is set to launch at the end of this month, had received good feedback during testing.

He said: “By far most comments from buyers are about how much easier it is to find the service they are looking for.”