UK Public Sector's Knowledge of G-Cloud Still Cloudy

LONDON - Sept. 2, 2014 - PRLog -- LONDON, U.K – September 2, 2014 – A survey of UK public sector professionals, commissioned by Six Degrees Group (6DG), a provider of converged managed data services, has found that the majority (66%) of UK civil servants have no knowledge of the UK Government’s G-Cloud initiative. The survey, which was conducted at Civil Service Live in July, has raised concerns over the public sector’s continued lack of G-Cloud awareness.

The survey, conducted to understand the public sector’s knowledge of the G-Cloud initiative, has unearthed that although the framework is now in its fifth iteration, the UK Government is still not doing enough to educate civil servants on the benefits of using the procurement platform. In fact, three quarters (75%) of public sector professionals were unaware of the many advantages of procuring through the framework.

The survey reiterates the findings of a Freedom of Information Act conducted by 6DG at the end of 2013, which similarly revealed that the majority (76%) of local authorities and councils had no knowledge of how the G-Cloud framework could be used. In fact, of the 300 public sector authorities questioned, only 38 had used G-Cloud to procure their cloud services.

Campbell Williams, Group Strategy and Marketing Director at Six Degrees Group explained: “These statistics demonstrate that as we move towards the end of 2014, the government still needs to do a lot more to educate all public sector departments on G-Cloud. The initiative has the power to transform radically how authorities interact with cloud providers. However, as the findings from both surveys have shown, the public sector remains unaware of the many benefits that using the G-Cloud framework can provide. It’s a framework designed specifically for the public sector, so it’s essential that they know what it is and how it can benefit them.”

About Six Degrees Group

Six Degrees Group is a privately owned converged technology infrastructure provider serving UK mid-market and corporate customers. The Group has a converged services portfolio – including datacentre, connectivity, voice and cloud offerings – designed to help companies meet the challenges of a connected, always-on world. For further information please visit www.6dg.co.uk