Majority of UK’s local authorities yet to fully embrace cloud migration

Back in 2013, the government introduced a ‘Cloud First’ policy calling for all public sector organisations to consider cloud solutions when procuring new or existing services. It goes on to state that the public cloud is the preferred deployment model as “the primary benefits for government come when we embrace the public cloud”.

Cloud migration still a work in progress

Despite these guidelines, the new figures released today indicate that there is still progress to be made with cloud migration – as it stands, just 8 per cent of responding councils stated that they access and manage all citizen data in public clouds.

The majority of councils confirmed that they currently use multiple methods to access and manage citizen data: four in five (80%) still access and manage their citizen data on-premise in some capacity. 30 per cent of authorities leverage a private cloud and quarter (25%) rely on a hybrid cloud model. 

The new data also revealed that no single local authority manages their organisation’s applications (and data) entirely in a cloud environment, either. In fact, more than four in five (85%) local authorities have less than half of their applications and data in the cloud, with 77 per cent storing less than a quarter in a cloud environment. Furthermore, over one third (35%) of councils are not outsourcing or downsizing their physical IT infrastructure in favour of a cloud model - and do not have plans to do so.

Councils not confident they have ‘single view’ of citizen data

Around 70% of IT teams indicated that they were “not confident” that they hold a ‘single view’ of their citizen data, i.e. one database entry per citizen with access to all service history such as parking permits and council tax records.

Investments in change

Encouragingly, the majority (75%) of local authorities did indicate they are considering investment in cloud infrastructure and technologies within the next 12 months. Alongside this, more than a third (38%) of councils also confirmed that they are either preparing for, or in the process of, moving to a cloud based model - by outsourcing and downsizing their IT infrastructure including on premise servers and physical hardware.

The research also suggests that many local authorities are embracing workplace transformation initiatives for staff, with three in five (60%) councils permitting remote working practices for their knowledge workers – enabling them to access data files and applications when working away from the main site.

Darren Fields, Managing Director, UK & Ireland, Citrix, said:

“Local councils today are under enormous pressure from both central government and British citizens to deliver better services, at lower costs. With local authorities facing an overall funding gap of ?5.8 billion by the end of the decade, councils are always on the lookout for innovative, cost effective technology to help deliver efficient citizen services, whilst also improving productivity for staff and reducing costs.

“The cloud has the potential to transform public services, yet many local authorities are held back by legacy IT systems – making it a demanding and challenging exercise to consolidate and transition data and applications to the cloud. However, the cloud will inevitably become integral to service delivery – solutions are typically more cost effective, scalable, secure and flexible – and are likely to become an indispensable asset for local authorities looking to deliver first-class services to residents across the UK. Like many organisations, it is evident that local authorities continue to review the possibilities of cloud and, it seems, private and hybrid environments are currently proving to be the most popular option.”