Government Departments: Internet

(asked on 4th March 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the government of the United States’ Cloud Smart strategy; and what consideration they have given to adopting a similar strategy.


Answered by
Baroness Barran Portrait
Baroness Barran
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
This question was answered on 18th March 2020

Emerging technologies can enable effective use of data for improving public services. DCMS is continuing to lead cross-government work to progress the UK's National Data Strategy, so that we can fully and responsibly unlock the power of data, for people and organisations across the UK.

The Government Digital Service (GDS) conducted extensive user research in August 2019 on the UK's Cloud Strategy which concluded that Cloud First is as relevant to government today as it was when it was introduced, and will remain a flagship technology policy.

This research considered international cloud strategies, such as Cloud Smart in the US, but concluded that Cloud First was a better fit for the UK government. This is for a number of reasons, including that many departments consider Cloud First to be a core part of their technology strategy, and that there is a need for government to provide a strong cloud message from the centre to encourage transformation. The user research showed that Cloud Smart was seen as “watering down” the high-level cloud message and many participants considered the name “Cloud Smart” to be confusing.

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