PSN needs to happen before cloud, say IT chiefs

The PSN is designed to act as a “network of networks” to enable the delivery of government services from any provider or location; while the recently-launched CloudStore is intended to act as a portal for on-demand IT services for the public sector. Both the PSN and cloud were flagged as key ways to cut IT costs in the government’s ICT implementation plan.

Tom Baker, CIO of Sunderland City Council, said: “We need the PSN first, if there’s a service in the cloud store [for data requiring high security] at Impact Level 3, for example, we need a secure network to be able to access it. I see the PSN and G-Cloud as part of the same strategy,” he said at an event organised by BT

Also speaking at the event Phil Gibson, from industry body PSNGB, agreed: “All PSN is doing is allowing collaboration to happen. “The CloudStore has seen a massive response, and those solutions will enable new services. But we can’t do it if we don’t have a connected infrastructure – and the PSN enables that.”

Baker said Sunderland expected to procure services through the PSN once the national framework agreement was up. This will also lead to more local governments rolling out PSNs as it will reduce the time it takes for regional collaboration, he said.

“The challenge for many local councils is the fact they are often locked into multi-year contracts. The onus is on people like BT and Cable & Wireless to facilitate access to the PSN through their existing contracts,” he said.

Baker said the CloudStore did not contain much for local authorities beyond generic services at the moment, but added that he expected to start seeing areas of the public sector using cloud services on a PSN by the end of the year.

But local authorities are far ahead of central governments in the deployment of PSN, said Tola Sargent, analyst at TechMarketView, who was also attending the event. “The move [to the PSN] has predominantly been local government to date, that’s partly about being more nimble but also because the benefits of collaboration are more clearer for local government than central,” she said.

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