Well, if you’re Chris Chant, what comes next is some time with the family, a big renovation project and an idyllic life in the countryside. Yes, Chris Chant has opted to retire from life in the cloud and, instead, plans just to look at them from afar. In just the last 18 months Chris has achieved an enormous amount including, to mention just a few, starting off the alpha.gov project, moving many cabinet office staff to cloud-based email, shaping/launching/concluding the G-Cloud procurement, convincing (many personally) suppliers to join the framework and steering the first sales through the pipeline. We haven’t even started on what Chris did in the 30 years in the civil service before he even knew what a cloud was, which is perhaps for another post.
Of course, the G-Cloud programme will continue in very much the same vein as it has done to date. Here’s how things will look now:
- We’re delighted that Denise McDonagh has agreed to take the lead on G-Cloud from 30th April. Chris has already started handing over to her. Denise will keep her existing role at the Home Office – which doesn’t mean to say that G-Cloud is a part time role, only that she’ll be even busier than she is now.
- We are on track to launch the next iteration of the G-Cloud framework at the end of April or in the first week of May. As planned, that will incorporate a new approach where we wil be able to add new suppliers and services on a quarterly (or possibly more frequent) basis. This will be a first in procurement, certainly in the UK, and perhaps even in the world. Existing G-Cloud suppliers should be able to move to the new framework with just a small amount of effort.
- We have a series of new deals on the framework to announce and we’ll let everyone know about those as soon as we can
- And don’t forget we are working hard on getting the first security accredited services.
We wish Chris luck in his life post G-Cloud. @cantwaitogo will become @gone perhaps… He’s been an inspiration and a delight to work with. We will carefully shepherd what he’s started to make sure no momentum is lost. As he said himself recently, everyone needs to get on the bus… And we have no reverse gear!
[...] second G-Cloud was due to float at the end of April or first week of May but programme supremo Denise McDonagh warned on 16 May it was now slated to arrive end of May or [...]