The future of government – in the Clouds?

The obstacles facing the UK Government as it makes its journey to the Cloud has taken centre stage during the opening panel session at this year's Business Cloud Summit in London in which Professional Outsourcing participated.
The panel, which included Dr Richard Sykes, a member of the G-Cloud & Apps Store commercial work stream, and the Earl of Erroll, pointed out a number of challenges such as an apparent conservatism towards Cloud Computing within Whitehall ("Backed by vested interests," said Sykes) and the need for both time and money - both of which was lacking.

"The huge danger is that everybody goes for optimum safety and not what is needed," argued Lord Erroll. "Some data must stay in control of the UK government, but for a lot of it, it doesn't really matter."

"The easy option is to say everything is going to be held securely," he added, "But that pushes up cost." Like Sykes, Erroll pointed towards unnamed "vested interests" who are advising the government.

Somewhat inevitably the issue of security arose, with Andy Burton, chairman of the Cloud Industry Forum, commenting while there were lots of people who can provide basic infrastructure, "if you're an organisation looking for a solution, how do you know you're dealing with?" The crux, according to Burton, was understanding the business behind the Cloud provider's website.

Regulation and the external auditing of self-certification was a requirement, said Erroll.

Burton defended self-certification, and explained the process of self-certification would see the creation of a whistleblower audit process, together with a governance board made up of a broad range of members including industry users, and the community. "At the end of the day when you're starting out and proving clarity," he added. "We're saying companies should provide data enabling users to make an informed decision."

Chris Middleton, editor of Professional Outsourcing Magazine, told delegates it was currently "an interesting time" for government ICT thanks to Cloud Computing and outsourcing, adding, "Government outsourcing contracts have traditionally been large outsourcing deals, many are massively flawed, not very successful, and over budget. A rethinking of how the government buys technology is necessary."

"The problem is," Middleton added, "is the UK Government doesn't have a centralised buying function that it can use as a large scale user."

He continued to argue both traditional outsourcing and Cloud Computing required a change in management culture and strategic thinking, "and not just sorting out the lowest cost deal".

"A big cultural shift needs time and money," Middleton said, "Both of which the government doesn't have."

Erroll added the danger with central buying policies was they were putting in artificial barriers: "It's a barrier to innovation and efficiency and cost cutting in some areas."