Cloud 9 - Why we should be happy with latest Government IT thinking

I had one of those meetings the other week that catches you unawares and ends up genuinely changing your perspective on things. John Suffolk, the UK Government CIO, had offered me and a colleague some time to talk about government cloud computing ('G-Cloud') after it featured prominently in the Digital Britain report published this summer.

I wasn't expecting too much because an early version of the plans had been widely leaked on the internet and derided by some for not dealing with the many issues that bedevil public sector IT programmes. But having talked to him, I think that what John and his team are up to is actually rather clever and that his critics have massively underestimated the impact G-Cloud will have.

G-Cloud is conceptually similar to what Amazon have been offering through their Web Services model for the last 3 years. Amazon rent organisations (or individuals) part of their infrastructure to run software from. You can host web servers or private applications in their 'cloud'. You pay only for the capacity you use and, because of their massive scale, distributed data centres and industrial grade support, you know that your costs will be low and your service can scale up or down with demand and meet high standards of security and reliability.

G-Cloud will be similar but dedicated to government. Procurement rules mean that every flavour of operating system and the other building block of modern applications (databases, web servers etc) will be in there, configured and ready for use. As part of the process, new licensing methods (e.g. 'you install your software first and we’ll pay later when somebody uses it') are being negotiated with vendors who don’t like the direction of travel but can’t afford to be left out. As a public sector organisation you’ll be able to provision pretty much any amount of power built on any type of software at the click of a mouse. Just from consolidating hosting, network and, application licence costs, Cabinet Office is estimating savings of £300m per annum.

But the most exciting innovation to my mind is the creation of the government 'app store' (or 'G-AS' as the leaked Cabinet Office strategy document rather unfortunately describes it). As new applications and services are built and deployed for public sector organisations and hosted in G-Cloud, they will get listed in an online directory so that other organisations can see what has already been created. Combined with a ratings system G-AS could be a hugely powerful driver for eliminating supplication, speeding up innovation and sharing ideas. So, for example, a number of departments have developed tools for online consultation. In the G-AS model, these would go into the app store and be visible for other who can choose to re-use or adapt them rather than develop their own. It will be interesting to see whether this approach favours existing major software vendors or creates a platform for innovative new challengers to open up the market. Cabinet Office is estimating a further £500m per annum can be saved from G-AS.

For my money, this is disruptive innovation at its best: radical changes to economic models combined with vastly better information for purchasers. It's no wonder that major IT suppliers are providing their time for free to make sure they understand G-Cloud and how their businesses can make money in the new world (answer: some of them won’t). And the impact doesn't end in the public sector. If John Suffolk and his colleagues succeed in driving different economics for government IT then private sector organisations are bound to put pressure on vendors to offer them the same new licensing models.

G-Cloud isn't the answer to many of government's IT issues; too many projects still suffer from poor specification, outdated delivery approaches, lack of imagination and inadequate connection with real users. And, this quiet revolution isn't really known about by the people who arguably have most to gain: communications and delivery teams for whom G-Cloud will lead to shared ideas, reduced costs and joint working. But in the coming years I strongly suspect that G-AS will turn out to be more than just hot air for those using technology to innovate in the delivery of public services.

Image courtesy of Will Lion