G-Cloud 11 goes live with 4,200 suppliers onboard

Launch of G-Cloud 11 comes as over £4bn has been spent on IT procurement by public sector bodies via the service

The government's latest G-Cloud procurement framework has gone live with 4,200 suppliers taking part in the programme.

In an announcement, officials said that thousands of small businesses will now be able to bid to supply IT and cloud services to government bodies through the framework.

More than 90 per cent of these suppliers are thought to be small and medium-sized businesses, while the scheme is comprised of 31,000 services.

The programme enables central government, local councils, NHS trusts and other public-sector organisations to purchase IT services, such as web hosting, via a single, central marketplace for the public sector.

G-Cloud continues to be a major success story for how we drive innovation in the public sector

Since 2012, the scheme has seen more than £4.79 billion of cloud and digital services purchased by public bodies through G-Cloud, with small businesses receiving 45 per cent of this spend.

Public bodies can access G-Cloud via the Digital Marketplace, which was developed by the Crown Commercial Service and Government Digital Service in 2014 with the aim of making government procurement easier and more transparent.

Niall Quinn, director of Crown Commercial Service's Technology Pillar, said: "G-Cloud continues to be a major success story for how we drive innovation in the public sector. G-Cloud is all about simplicity, making it as straightforward as possible for customers and suppliers to find each other."

Triad, a small software company based in Godalming, Surrey has been a G-Cloud supplier since 2013. It originally gained a place on the second iteration of G-Cloud.

Adrian Leer, managing director of Triad, said: "Since winning a place on G-Cloud ii in 2013 we have been successful in winning a number of contracts for the government.

"We have been involved in numerous large programmes of work across government and in January 2019 we were ranked fourth of the digital suppliers to government. To be ahead of some of the largest consultancies in the UK as an SME of 70 staff is incredible."