The UK public sector’s ‘Cloud First’ policy was first announced back in 2003 but 15 years on, less than one in 10 local authorities are using cloud services to access and manage residents’ data. On-premise infrastructure is still relied on heavily by some 80% of councils.
The figures are from FoI requests made by software giant, Citrix, to 80 local authorities, out of which 40 responded. The councils say the main stumbling blocks to using cloud are data fragmentation and a lack of funding for new infrastructure.
Around 77% of councils said they store just a quarter of their data and applications in the cloud while none use it to store more than 75%. More than a third have no plans at all in place to outsource or downsize their physical infrastructure to adopt a cloud model.
On the subject of data fragmentation, 70% of council IT departments were not confident that they have a ‘single view’ of citizen data, meaning there is only one database entry per individual, with access to all service history.
As one of the Government’s preferred IT suppliers, having secured a place on the new Technology Services 2 (TS2) Framework, Transputec is experienced in supporting public sector bodies on their service improvement and technological journey.
The public sector faces numerous challenges when implementing emerging technologies, including a lack of access to the necessary technical expertise and concerns over the security of cloud solutions. We have already worked with several public sector organisations, including the larger Whitehall departments and their executive agencies as well as local authorities, on how best to approach and overcome these challenges.
Transputec offers a suite of solutions including TransCloud, an enterprise class cloud deployment environment with the ability and flexibility to manage resources with best of breed technology. Moving to TransCloud offers expanded opportunities to both public sector bodies and private sector companies by ensuring they have the right technology that supports their transition to the cloud.
For advice and information about our cloud services, please contact us on +44(0) 208 584 1400.
Stuart Salt
Director of Services
