Government extends Cloud services tender deadline

The Cabinet Office has extended the tender deadline for suppliers who want to provide Cloud-based IT services to government, following an unexpected rise in the number of applications submitted. 

The application deadline is being extended by almost three weeks to 19 December after more than 500 business submitted applications to the government’s recently published G-cloud framework. 

The government says the framework is one of the most SME-friendly to date - approximately a third of the interested businesses are SMEs.

G-Cloud services are a “pay as you go” approach to IT – adopting these services will allow the public sector to use “off the shelf” IT services, such as email, paid for on a usage basis rather than developing their own systems.

This way the government can then use what it wants, when it wants it and avoid duplicating services that cannot be shared.The framework, worth up to £60m in contracts, has a number of aspects that make it more accessible to SMEs, including less stringent evidence of financial history required of all SMEs who apply, an open procedure with no lengthy pre-qualification questionnaire (PQQ) and a simple spreadsheet with simple yes/no answers to the mandatory questions.

Meanwhile services are provided on the suppliers’ standard terms with a government overlay rather than a unique crown contract with regular updates provided to the supplier community via twitter. However the need for suppliers to increase the standardisation of services and build a 'pay as you go' model for Whitehall ICT remain barriers to entry.

Minister for the Cabinet Office Francis Maude said G-Cloud showed that public sector IT was becoming more flexible, modern and better value. "It is also an example of government procurement changing – rather than rigid requirements expressed in overly complex tenders, we are asking suppliers what they can offer and setting out our requirements in the simplest way possible."

Stephen Allott, crown representative for SMEs, said "This is the most innovative framework I’ve seen since working at the Cabinet Office.  Thankfully it’s not the only one. A consultancy framework announced just last week had similar features – simple steps that level the playing field for SMEs. Things are really starting to change."

An ‘Apply Camp’ vid to aid suppliers with the tender process can be watched on social media video content site Vimeo.