Yesterday, PublicTechnology.net reported that the tender document had been delayed from its original planned publication date by the end of October.

And in a blog post yesterday, Tony Singleton, director of digital commercial programme at the Government Digital Service, revealed that the delay will only be short.He said: “I can confirm that the G-Cloud 6 Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU) is expected to be published next week, on 6 November 2014, and should go live in the first week of February 2015.”

Singleton said that the team working on improving the service submission portal on the Digital Marketplace to prepare for G-Cloud 6.

He said: “This has been supported by weekly sessions in the GDS user research lab, listening to what people had to say about applying to the framework and continuing to improve and iterate it to make sure that it meets user needs.”

Singleton added that the second iteration of the Digital Services framework is now pencilled in for an OJEU notice before the end of November.

The government announced that 1,132 suppliers had been appointed to the fifth iteration of the G-Cloud framework in May.

Writing on PublicTechnology.net last week, Louise T. Dunne, managing director at data Analytics, ICT and Security consultancy Auriga Consulting warned that if G-Cloud “becomes a faceless shopping channel it is liable to become more bureaucratic, no longer championed by enthusiasts intent on making the framework actually work better.”