Maude Says G-Cloud Costs £4.93m

Steve McCaskill,

Cabinet Minister Says G-Cloud is making “good progress”

Cabinet Minister Francis Maude has confirmed that the estimated cost for the G-Cloud programme is around £4.93 million.

The information was revealed when Michael Dugher, Labour MP for Barnsley East asked Maude how much the project cost.

“The estimated cost for the G-Cloud programme (including the CloudStore) is £4.93 million,” replied Maude. “This is being met from the Cabinet Office SR10 settlement and is subject to the ERG spend and controls process. The savings it is expected the programme will deliver are estimated at £340 million.”

“The G-Cloud programme is making good progress,” he added.

Gov getting greener?

Maude has also answered questions regarding the government’s Green ICT Strategy, saying more details will be revealed in the annual update shortly.

Dugher also asked about the government’s plans for data centre consolidation and reducing its carbon footprint, Maude was more guarded and refused to disclose any exact details.

“The Government’s plans for data centre consolidation were laid down in the Government ICT Strategy Implementation Plan published in October 2011,” said Maude. “The Government is currently on track against this plan, and an update will be published shortly in the Green ICT Strategy.”

“The Cabinet Office has collected the baseline information from Departments around the cost and energy consumed by Government data centres and their servers and is actively working to consolidate and rationalise Government data centres which will save energy and costs,” he added.

The government launched the CloudStore in February with the aim of creating a competitive marketplace for cloud-delivered services pre-approved for public sector bodies. However, the former director of G-Cloud, Chris Chant, hit out at the government’s IT systems and managers, which he said were 10 years behind industry standards, while his replacement Denise McDonagh also warned that the government was unprepared for the mass adoption of the cloud.

How well do you know the cloud? Take our quiz