Recently the editor of Computer Weekly, one of the biggest IT publications in the UK, made some interesting observations about how the future of government digital services will shape up.

His musings make for attention-grabbing reading. Especially his observations on how a growing number of government ‘commodity style’ services are ripe for commercialisation.

In his Editor Blog, Bryan Glick points out how the Crown Hosting Data Centre service model is transforming the way public sector organisations access the expertise and resources they need.

Highlighting how there’s no longer a strategic need for Gov.uk to be run entirely in-house, he goes on to predict how other sections of the government will follow the lead of the Cabinet Office and Ark Data Centres and embark on joint venture models that deliver significant benefits for all.

It’s heartening to see the widespread recognition that approaches like Crown Hosting Data Centres represent an ideal way to accelerate new government services to market.

Because Crown Hosting Data Centres has already checked all of the OJEU procurement boxes, it can reduce operational risk and the overall cost for public sector departments and organisations immediately. We offer fast access to a rich portfolio of hosting services at different levels of accreditation – all underpinned by a comprehensive set of SLAs that are in line with industry standards.

As digital services move from strategy to delivery, the agility of models like ours to provide a cloud transition platform are set to lead the way for others to follow. We’re adding the opportunity to reduce both cost and risk now, while allowing government bodies to stay on strategy.

By simplifying procurement for public sector and government bodies, we streamline the whole on-boarding process to give organisations a fast and easy way to access the hosting services they need. It’s a neutral environment too. This allows you to bring in third party services such as managed service and application providers as you see fit. You’re not locked into a single turnkey provider.

Perhaps the icing on the cake is the commercial agility that ensures government customers can tap into a solution that delivers power monitoring. This ensures that they only pay for what they use and no more. And this flexibility is important, because it means they can try out new platforms and move to the cloud when they are ready.

Peter McShane