The Government Digital Service (GDS) has published the latest sales figures for the G-Cloud procurement framework, revealing almost £700m has been spent via the framework in total.
GDS has also published similar data for the Digital Services Framework, where £26.4m has been spent to date, excluding VAT.
SMEs remain the biggest recipients of payments from each framework – 50% of total sales by value and 60% by volume were awarded to smaller businesses on G-Cloud and 64% of contracts were awarded to SMEs on Digital Services.
Both frameworks continue to be dominated by central government users. Just 24% of G-Cloud sales were through the wider public sector and this figure drops to 11% on Digital Services.
While such figures suggest that local government take-up of G-Cloud is low, a report recently published claims this is not the case.
GDS recently claimed that submissions for G-Cloud 7 would open before the end of August but this did not happen.
On 27th August, it published a blog that said it wanted to “give suppliers the change to prepare” and reiterated the information needed to apply as a seller on the framework.
A follow-up blog post the next day offered further tips for making a successful application and revealed that the submission process will now begin sometime this week.
Gemma Phelan, head of engagement at GDS, says that those wanting to offer services on G-Cloud should spend time on their application, do research, work as a team and understand what government needs.
Phelan also suggests providing a free trial, considering offering a discount and paying attention to clarification questions and adjusting accordingly for each iteration of the framework.
© 24N.biz