Government plans £1.4bn savings on IT strategy

The Government today launched the long awaited timetable for implementing its ICT strategy, but has left us waiting for its exact cloud computing plans.

The ICT Strategy was unveiled by the Cabinet Office back in March, mapping out how the Government planned on saving 1.4 billion on its IT projects over the next four years, whilst improving delivery to citizens.

However, the actual timing of these improvements had yet to be worked out and have only come to light with the publishing of the 71-page ICT Strategy Strategic Implementation Plan (SIP)' document released today.

Despite cloud computing playing a major role in the savings, helping the Government focus on "creating a common ICT infrastructure," the Cabinet Office revealed there were more strategy documents to be released by the end of the month, including one focused on the cloud.

"Today's SIP includes specific delivery dates for each aspect of the strategy and an overview of how the strategy will be implemented with further details for each of the 19 delivery areas," the statement read.

"It will be followed in the coming weeks by four sub-strategies which will detail the commitment being made on key elements of the ICT strategy, including cloud computing and ICT capability."

The document did flesh out details of the Government strategy, however, such as a December deadline for an open technical standards document to be published and a February deadline for data centre standards to be agreed.

However, the SIP also revealed the plans would only be forced onto central Government departments, with local authorities being left to their own devices.

"Though implementation is not mandatory outside central Government, Government will work with the wider public sector to identify and exploit further opportunities for savings through greater innovation, and sharing and re-use of solutions and services," it read.

Minister for the Cabinet Office, Francis Maude, remained positive though, claiming the Government's plans had already saved the UK 300 million through "applying greater scrutiny" to ICT spending.

"Now we are going even further and save even more money, while delivering higher standards for government ICT," he concluded.

The full document can be read here.