On Tuesday 10th February, Datalytyx attended the Think Cloud for Government event at the Business Design Centre in North London for a thought-leadership event aimed at government officials, procurement professionals and independent analysts. Matt Schroeder, Adrian Sutton and myself attended the event to disperse the message of Datalytyx’s recent accreditation to G-Cloud 6 and subsequent status as a Crown Commercial Service Supplier.

The theme of the event revolved around the celebration of current successful IT digitisation within the public sector and looking to the future; the development of IT digitisation within the Cloud environment.

There were several key items of note throughout the event, the first being that the keynote speaker – Tony Singleton, the current Director G-Cloud and Digital Commercial Programme – indicated toward the G Cloud’s success to date, although the audience was left with an apparent impression that G Cloud is still yet to reach its potential.

Sarah Hurrell, Commercial Director of Technology for Crown Commercial Service (CCS), provided a useful overview of the vision of G Cloud’s assistance to transform the delivery of public services. She remarked on how much of a distinct improvement the service for SME business is in particular, and successfully combatted some strong questions on G-Cloud’s place within the Digital Services Framework. Whether or not suppliers view this as an improvement or a step backward remains to be seen. The debate between the suppliers and Government continued in much the same way with an underlying tension emerging between the relatively new CCS and the more established GDS, leaving some in the audience to wonder whether there weren’t cultural differences that needed to be negotiated in order to move forward in the future.

Moving on, Pearse O’Donohue delivered an upbeat, positive talk on the European Commission’s position on the EU’s computing strategy. There was a very clear perspective that the audience thought alike; hoping that the EU would break with tradition and deliver on their strategy rapidly. For more information on the EU’s IT growth strategy, click here: Europe 2020.

G Cloud is open to the whole of public services, but is only mandated for Central Government as first route to market. It was interesting therefore to have three senior representatives (James Mansfield-Sturgess of Buckingham County Council, Steven Pendleton of Bristol City Council and Rocco Labellarte of Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead Council) from local councils in England talking about how they have taken things forward to help transform their organisations. Bravery and excellent leadership emerged as the key lessons here. And by the end of the presentation, the obvious opportunities for the rest of local government were well and truly lingering in the air.

Revitalising the event’s energy in the afternoon were the fathers of G Cloud themselves, Chris Chant and Jan Joubert from Rainmaker solutions. The gloves were off in their presentation, and their candid honesty about issues with the current G Cloud maturity and CSS was both amusing and worrying in equal measure. Clearly they have concerns about the Digital Services Framework and are not happy with the current state of play.

The closing session was presented by Chi Onwurah, the Shadow Cabinet Office Minister, who discussed Digital Government and in particular, what Labour would do if elected in the forthcoming election. While we remain politically agnostic, it was pleasing and unusual to have a Minister – Shadow or actual – discuss a subject area with the knowledge that accompanies the practical experience of having worked in a related area before entering politics. Of course, the entire audience didn’t ‘buy’ into what she said, thus is the nature of politics. But the questions she answered were numerous and her views candid.

Overall, it is apparent that there are an accruing number of public sector case studies demonstrating the potential that the G Cloud offers. We here at Datalytyx look forward to working and growing within the public sector in the year ahead.

“Public services are facing the biggest funding crisis in a generation and to lead through these difficulties whilst transforming the delivery of services, the public sector need to embrace digitisation and innovation.”