Socitm: public sector must move to cloud, not outsource

Only a move to the cloud will make public sector services affordable and efficient, according to Socitm.

This means that ICT strategies should be rewritten with cloud adoption made a central theme and investments in new or enhanced data centres avoided.

Similarly, outsourcing IT service now might delay the benefits of moving to the cloud at a later stage, warned the professional association for public sector ICT management.

According to Socitm, the Public Sector Network (PSN) is a key infrastructure to support cloud applications and the growing number of PSN-ready regional networks is enabling the cloud to become more easily adopted.

However, the initial lack of applications to run on the PSN will mean that internally-hosted systems will continue to exist in the short-term.

The Socitm report also listed flexibility, scalability, and resilience among the benefits of public sector cloud migration.