Government to drop 'cloud-first' policy - CCS boss

Crown Commercial Service director says cloud-first strategy is 'not doable for everyone in the short to medium term'

The government is set to tweak its cloud-first policy in acknowledgment that a public cloud approach is not right for everyone, according to Crown Commercial Service's (CCS) boss.

The strategy was introduced in 2013, with government bodies encouraged to move to the public cloud when infrastructure refreshes are required.

However, in an interview with the New Statesman, CCS boss Niall Quinn said that the strategy is set to be revised - possibly to "consider cloud first" or "cloud smart".

"It's an acknowledgement that public cloud first for everybody is not doable in the short to medium term," he said.

"We live in the real world. We think that most people are landing on a hybrid solution because there are lots of legacy departments that have pieces of kit and applications that are 40 years old."

"You need to acknowledge that [on-premise infrastructure] can still exist and there's some on-prem for security reasons as well, but it's on-prem, some private and some public as well - that's the more sensible solution."

Quinn also confirmed that CCS is planning to "spin out" certain parts of G-Cloud into separate frameworks, specifically cloud hosting and cloud services.

He said this will allow for the procurement of five-year deals, as opposed to the two years available via G-Cloud agreements.

Former CCS boss Tony Singleton was sceptical about the changes, tweeting: "Cloud first allows other solutions after making a robust case to do so. This looks like a watering down of the need to make the case.

"Also worrying is plan to 'spin out cloud hosting and cloud services from its flagship G-Cloud procurement framework'."