The sharp rise comes despite an overall fall in G-Cloud sales across all government organisations, including central government from £39.2 to £38.6m.

The figure brings the cumulative total of local government purchases through the framework to £33.38m since it began in April 2012– 5.97% of the £559.22m total across all of government.

In March, 215 purchases were made in the local authority category, by 36 councils, Transport for London, plus housing associations, and shared services vehicles.

As in March biggest purchase by a local government body in March in the category was for £325,000 by Hampshire County Council for services provided by consultancy Deloitte. The data released by the Cabinet Office does not include information on what the payment covers.

To date, 49% of total sales by value and 58% by volume have been awarded to SMEs across the whole G-Cloud framework.

The government also announced that the cumulative total of purchases made through the Digital Services Framework (DSF) now stands at £14.8m. However, it does not release a detailed breakdown of sales for this framework.