Government seeks bids for £60m cloud framework

The tender encompasses SaaS, PaaS and IaaS

The UK government has released a tender through its online procurement service detailing plans for its £60m G-Cloud framework.

It highlights that "public sector bodies have a need for a compliant procurement vehicle to access cloud computing services" and is inviting bids until 30 November.

The tender notice is thin on detail, but it does specify that the government is dividing the contracts into four specific lots:

• Infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS)
• Platform-as-a-service (Paas)
• Software-as-a-service (SaaS)
• Specialist cloud services

More specific details are expected to be released in a Cloud Computing Strategy due for publication before the end of this month.

Yesterday, the government announced a Strategic Implementation Plan (SIP) for its ICT strategy, which minister for the Cabinet Office Francis Maude argued will deliver approximately £1.4bn in savings in the next four years.

Part of the SIP looks at plans for the G-Cloud. It claims the government currently has "an expensive and fragmented ICT infrastructure which often duplicates solutions and impedes the sharing and re-use of services and solutions".

The hope is that cloud computing will provide part of the solution to this problem, and it is argued in the SIP that the G-Cloud will "increase public sector agility and reduce the cost of its ICT".

The SIP indicates that the G-Cloud will save the government £20m between 2012-13; £40m between 2013-14; and £120m between 2014-15.