4.9 One of the principal aims of the Strategy is to deliver common ICT infrastructure, including communication networks, business applications bought through cloud computing, data centres, desktops and mobile devices. The common ICT infrastructure is the only technical delivery area where the Cabinet Office has forecast cost savings (Figure 4). Demand will be largely governed by when contracts for existing ICT services end or reach a break point. The two biggest uncertainties for the Cabinet Office when estimating the scale of benefits are market pricing and timing of the adoption of common ICT infrastructure.
4.10 The Cabinet Office intends to use a competitive market to drive down costs of common ICT infrastructure. Departments will buy components of ICT infrastructure from a range of different suppliers, rather than signing a small number of long-term contracts. To make sure that components from different suppliers can communicate and share data, the Cabinet Office is agreeing a set of open technical standards to which the components will all conform.
4.11 The Public Services Network (a secure communications network for government) is the most advanced project and has funding and a resource plan. This project started in June 2008 and is relatively low risk as government and its suppliers have a good understanding of the requirements. The project team, through the Government Procurement Service, is planning to award contracts to Public Services Network suppliers in March 2012. Kent Public Services Network Partnership (public sector organisations such as local authorities, schools and Fire and Rescue Services) and Hampshire County Council have piloted the service and reported reduced network costs. For example, Kent Public Services Network Partnership reported that it had achieved ten times the network capacity than before, for the same cost.
4.12 Government started work on Cloud Computing and the Application Store in October 2009. This delivery project lacks funding, an agreed business plan and dedicated resources at this stage. This is a more innovative area of work and government has less experience of how to standardise its requirements and procure services through the Internet. Some central and local government organisations have, however, started to buy applications through cloud computing. In the United States of America every federal government agency has had to select three services to move to cloud computing and close down the old systems. Research analysts, Gartner, predict that restructuring services in this way will usually not lead to any savings until the second year.17
4.13 The cross-government project on data centre consolidation started in October 2009, but it is moving slowly and there is no robust business case yet in place. The Cabinet Office conducted a survey of data centres in July 2010. Some of the larger departments said that they have already started consolidating their data centres. In the United States of America, incomplete information on their data centre inventory led to inadequate plans to implement their data centre consolidation programme, and expected savings from the programme were not realised.18
4.14 The strategy for developing common desktops for government (Government End User Device Strategy19) started after the main Strategy was published. The Treasury has not approved any funding for the project as yet but the team will:
• define standards for desktops and devices so that departments can properly compare costs;
• establish a marketplace of suppliers able to deliver products to the defined standards; and
• allow departments to run more effective competitions between suppliers for devices.
4.15 The Committee of Public Accounts recommended that the Cabinet Office should clarify how cyber security would be integrated into the Strategy. We found project teams are using the technical expertise from the Office of Cyber Security and Information Assurance in the Cabinet Office. There is also a specific project to develop risk management aimed at countering cyber threats. We were told that this new risk management system will be piloted by the Public Services Network project, followed by trials in other parts of the common infrastructure. The Cabinet Office has now also published a new cyber security strategy.20
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17 Gartner, Where to focus first with the US CIO's 25‑Point Plan, April 2011.
18 United States Government Accountability Office, Data Center Consolidation: Agencies need to complete inventories and plans to achieve expected saving, GAO-11-565, July 2011.
19 HM Government, Government End User Device Strategy, 28 October 2011.
20 Cabinet Office, The UK Cyber Security Strategy: Protecting and promoting the UK in a digital world, 25 November 2011.