The UK government has signed a pact with Google Cloud to “upskill” as many as 100,000 civil servants in the latest tech by 2030.
In a statement issued to coincide with the Google Cloud Summit London event, the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology (DSIT) said the tech giant’s cloud division would help meet the government’s target of having 1 in 10 public officials designated “tech experts” to implement civil service reform.
“Without deals like this in place, we had hundreds of public sector organizations going it alone in negotiations with big tech companies – leaving them without the market clout they need to get the best deal,” technology secretary Peter Kyle said.
“When I negotiate with tech companies, I am negotiating on behalf of the British taxpayer,” he added, without revealing the specifics of the deal.
The Register has asked DSIT for more details. It is likely the services are provided as a “call off” from an existing framework agreement, possibly G-Cloud 14, which the government signed for up to £6.5 billion late last year.
In January, the government announced a “blueprint for a modern digital government” and said it would equip civil servants with a new package of AI tools it christened Humphrey.
A subsequent report claimed that publicly funded services including the NHS, local councils, and central government are missing out on a potential £45 billion ($55 billion) in productivity savings through old or poor use of technology.
The latest government release claims these findings represent a “£45 billion jackpot” from the application of technology in the public sector. It did not say whether these returns would be a lottery.
The government also said Google’s DeepMind AI subsidiary would work with technical experts in government to support them in “deploying and diffusing” new emerging technologies, driving efficiencies across the public sector, including accelerating scientific discovery.
It said Google’s “advanced tech” will help shake off decades-old “ball and chain” legacy contracts that leave essential services vulnerable to cyberattack.
It was not specific about which legacy contracts it hoped to be free from or how a new cloud services partnership would help, given the long-term nature of such projects. For example, the Home Office is still struggling to migrate away from a legacy platform for an asylum seeker case management system dating back 25 years, even though the replacement system has been in place for some time.
The government has also struggled to drive negotiations with cloud providers. In February, Andrew Forzani, chief commercial officer in the Cabinet Office, told Parliament’s spending watchdog that if the government wanted to use its spending power to strike better deals with the top cloud providers, individual departments needed to align their requirements. ®
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