Whitehall lukewarm at best toward Cloud, FoI request suggests

Only six out of 25 central government Departments have any plans to adopt Cloud computing services, a Freedom of Information request has revealed - leading to speculation that widespread adoption could take "the best part of a decade".

The news came to light amid continuing confusion as to whether the public sector's much-hyped but so far vaporous G-Cloud initiative would be axed in favour of simply focusing on greater data centre consolidation.

The FoI request - sent to all quarters of Whitehall - indicated that, while some planned to follow the Government ICT strategy and guidelines published by the Cabinet Office in March, only just under a quarter were likely to move to Cloud any time soon.

Treasury, for example, said the fact that it was tied to one service provider meant there could be systems integration issues and it was worried about Web security would all put a brake on any migration.

The Department for Education was a little more positive, however. It indicated that it would "consider best fit technology on a case-by-case basis", adding:

"We expect to adopt some attributes of technology that may be described as those of Cloud computing in the next five years."

As a result, Bindi Bhullar, director of offshore software development firm HCL, which was behind the request, said that he expected the adoption of Cloud services by government departments could take "the best part of a decade".

"Regardless of whether the government opts for a G-Cloud or some other approach, there has to be clarity around the real benefits such as centralisation and economies of scale that are currently being lost in this confused environment," he warned.