Socitm refutes criticism of councils for 'wasting millions' by ‘ignoring government IT cloud’
6 Jun 2014 12:35 PM
Socitm has issued a
strong rebuttal of press reports published by the BBC and Computer Weekly
earlier this week, based on research by Bull compiled from FoI requests to
county councils.
The reports, claiming councils
were 'wasting millions' by 'not using the G-Cloud', show poor
understanding of how local councils procure and deploy IT, says
Socitm
Bull’s data suggests that
in 2012-13, county councils spent nearly £440m in total on IT services,
including staffing costs, but that only £385,000, or 1% of that was going
through the government's "G-Cloud" framework.
Socitm does not dispute the data
about the proportion of spending going through G-Cloud, but challenges the
conclusions being drawn from it on the following
grounds:
- Media reports based on
Bull’s figures suggest that by not using G-cloud, councils are forgoing
savings from using cloud services. This overlooks the fact that G-Cloud is a
procurement framework, not a "cloud" in the sense generally
understood of a service whereby software can be rented and hosted off site.
Consequently low use of G-Cloud does not correlate with low use of cloud
services, and indeed many councils are using cloud services from via other
procurement frameworks or procured directly from vendors like
Google.
- Much of the software used by
local authorities to support key lines of business, for example systems to
support planning, housing or social care services, is not available on the
G-Cloud
- The single year snapshot
produced by Bull does not capture significant 'one off' spending via
G-Cloud - for example that made by Hampshire County Council in 2011-12, when it
was one of G-Cloud's biggest users
- Large local authorities
(individually, county councils are among the largest local authorities) have
significant in-house capability to provide IT infrastructure and services, a
route that for some services can be more cost-effective that buying-in external
services, even cloud-based services
- Local government IT functions,
supported by a range of organisations including Socitm, routinely use
benchmarking to compare costs of acquiring and deploying IT. These practices
are generally accepted as being responsible for the much lower costs of IT in
local government than in central government. Evidence presented by Socitm to
the Public Administration Select Committee (PASC) inquiry Good Governance: the
effective use of IT in 2011, showed that while spending of 3% of total revenue
on IT is generally accepted as a benchmark of good practice in the private
sector, local authorities’ recent averages were 2.33%, while central
government departments’ were thought to be (in the absence of any
evidence from equivalent benchmarking activity) at least 5%.
So, whilst local government is
making less use of the G-cloud framework than its central government
counterparts, that is partly because the G-Cloud (and the Government Digital
Service) was established primarily to address problems with central government
IT procurement and deployment practice. The PASC inquiry report said that
central government’s over-reliance on large contractors for IT needs, and
a lack of in-house skills, had created a ‘recipe for
rip-offs’.
While local government has to
date made less use of the G-Cloud that its central government counterparts, it
has engaged with the programme from its inception and played a significant role
in G-Cloud creation and implementation.
Socitm research suggests that
G-Cloud may not always offer the most cost effective solution for councils.
Kent County Council told Socitm that: ‘We have used the G-cloud to
procure some software, but it is not currently able to offer the time savings,
quality assurances and consistency necessary to make it effective. We have
raised these issues with the Cabinet Office and believe that until these are
addressed, the G-cloud does not offer the best route for sourcing software for
local authorities.’
According to Martin Ferguson,
Director of Policy & Research at Socitm: ‘G-Cloud is already a useful
procurement framework. However it is still in its relative infancy, as is cost
effective public cloud provision for use in councils more generally. What will
make the G-cloud increasingly attractive will be the flexibility to use it in
ways which deliver best value and sustainable IT architectures fit for the
future, especially where these impact on councils’ increasing need to
join-up and deliver services with partners in Health, Police, Voluntary and
other sectors. It is also the case that the biggest beneficiaries of cloud
computing, and G-cloud as a procurement vehicle, are likely to be the smaller
public service organisations which were not covered in the FOI research carried
out by Bull.’
Further
information
Martin Ferguson, Director
of Policy & Research, Socitm
Tel: 07931 456 238
e-mail: martin.ferguson@socitm.net
Vicky Sargent, Socitm Press
Office
Tel: 07726 601 139
e-mail: vicky.sargent@socitm.net