Government CTO flags up milestone and outlines coming priorities for technology effort
Sales going through the Digital Marketplace have surpassed the £1 billion mark, with 52% of the business going to small and medium enterprises.
Liam Maxwell, the Government's chief technology officer, and Matthew Hancock, Cabinet Office minister, highlighted the milestone in their presentations to yesterday's Sprint 16 conference in London.
It has enabled the Cabinet Office to claim success for its IT procurement strategy, which has placed an emphasis on public authorities using commoditised products and services since the Digitial Marketplace was launched, initially as the CloudStore, in February 2012.
Hancock said the channel has helped to increase the number of IT suppliers to government to more than 2,400, and spread the supplier base geographically, with 58% now coming from outside the M25.
Maxwell (pictured) said the further development of the marketplace, enabling it to scale up to provide more services, will be one of four main priorities for the Government's technology team.
The others will be providing technology leadership, raising the level of IT skills and capability in the Civil Service, and working with Common Technology Services programme to build a collaboration tool and identify common service patterns.
He also emphasised the need to “remove friction” from the processes in governmental IT.
Image from GOV.UK, Open Government Licence v3.0
