G-Cloud 7 and The Wheel of Fortune

What I think should be included in G-Cloud 7

Crown Hosting


A lot for co-location services should be created and the Crown Hosting services should be added, along with co-location services from other suppliers, to ensure an open and competitive market.

Crown Hosting should embrace the G-Cloud principle to offer services at the same price to other suppliers, as it does to Government.

This we then enable a competitive and transparent marketplace for co-location services.

G-Cloud 7

Central Government as a Platform

  • All Central Government as a Platform (CGaaP) services should be published via G-Cloud, as this will allow an open, transparent and competitive marketplace for Government platforms.

Co-Location

  • A new lot should be created for co-location services, and this should include the new Crown Hosting co-location services.

IaaS


  • The Crown Hosting IaaS services should be added to Lot 1 on G-Cloud 7. This will ensure an open and competitive marketplace

PaaS


  • The PaaS lot, should remain as is, but it would give the opportunity of PaaS suppliers to utilise the Crown Hosting co-location services.

SaaS — Applications Store


  • Lot 3 — SaaS, should be renamed to Applications Store
  • Application Store — We will enable any supplier to publish their SaaS application within the marketplace and update the application as an when they see fit. For purchases under £110K, it will be open and up to the department or public sector to purchase using their existing processes. They will not have to follow the G-Cloud process. This is compliant with procurement rules across Europe.
  • If the total value over the lifetime of the contract is to exceed the OJEU limit, then they will need to follow the G-Cloud process.

SCS


  • SCS — Full searchable rate cards online and not in PDF files. Search for a team or an individual skill set. This should be expanded to include the skills to support co-location
  • Agile services should be put back into scope. Let the market decided where they purchase their Agile skills!
  • Full review of Contingent Labour 1, Consultancy One and G-Cloud Lot 4 should be carried out to ensure they are all aligned and required.

Education / Training

Education and training around cloud and digital services needs to be significantly increased to support the transformation required within Government.

Promotion / Marketing

Promotion and marketing of G-Cloud and the Digital Marketplace needs to be significantly increased.

Risks


There is a great opportunity to take the G-Cloud framework to the next level with version 7, but I'm concerned the current Digital Marketplace is now becoming it’s Achilles heel for innovation with the velocity of change to the Digital Marketplace at a crawl, or even backwards.