Local Government CIO: “We Don’t Ignore G-Cloud”

The CIO of two London Borough councils has refuted claims that G-Cloud has failed local government, claiming his organisation has spent significant amounts on the framework.

The comments were made at this week’s Cloud World Forum by Rob Miller, CIO at Kingston and Sutton Councils, which share services to form one IT department covering both organisations.

“We put a lot of effort into making sure we can use G-Cloud. There’s a lot of coverage and portrayal in the media about how the government doesn’t use G-Cloud,” he said.

“I’ve spent plenty on G-Cloud – it’s not the only way I buy services and it’s not the only way I buy cloud services – but it’s certainly very helpful for us and this is the first place we look,” King added.

For King, the cloud offers an effective way to meet the ever-changing role of technology in today’s world and it is G-Cloud that offers an effective starting point to gain access to this market.

He claimed that the cloud offers benefits such as pay-as-you-go pricing – organisations no longer need pay for capacity or services they are sampling not needed.

This is beneficial, said King, because the council business is ever-changing; it is impossible to predict the number of users for a local government service and only paying for what you use offers much needed flexibility.

Shared Services “New, Right Direction” For IT

King took over as joint head of ICT at the two local authorities in May 2013 after funding cuts meant new, different ways of thinking about IT were needed.

According to the CIO, sharing services pushes organisations in the right direction and creates much needed cost savings by eliminating the use of several legacy systems.

“It’s an opportunity, not just to cut IT costs, but also to use intelligent IT investment to help deliver greater service efficiencies and savings,” King claimed.

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