Ministry of Justice buying from CloudStore?

Ministry of Justice sign

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has been working behind the scenes planning its G-Cloud investments, but is still trying to keep quiet on its choices from the CloudStore. Last week, the ministry intimated it was exploring the possibilities of CloudStore.

A source in Whitehall has told Cloud Pro the department is planning on deploying cloud services from Microsoft in its first roll-out.

If successful, it is then looking to adopt technology from both Huddle and Dynamic CRM to extend its cloud purchases from the CloudStore.

We contacted the MoJ for comment on our findings but a spokesman said he was not in a position to confirm the purchases yet. However, he did admit the organisation was examining cloud services and praised the overall G-Cloud project.

"We support the G-Cloud programme and are actively investigating the potential use of G-Cloud services,” the spokesman told Cloud Pro.

"These services offer value for money by allowing departments to customise IT services on a pay-by-use basis. Departments can use a wide range of suppliers to purchase services via G-Cloud which means they get a competitive rate."

The CloudStore was opened for business in February and signed up its first customer – the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) – in the first week of March.

Even the department running the G-Cloud is going to use services from the CloudStore itself with Chris Chant, director of the project, telling Cloud Pro it was looking at CRM services to keep track of its own progress.

It has already faced its problems as well though, thanks to being based on Microsoft’s Azure platform which crashed on 29 February due to ‘calendar issues’.

Jennifer Scott

Jennifer Scott is a former freelance journalist and currently political reporter for Sky News. She has a varied writing history, having started her career at Dennis Publishing, working in various roles across its business technology titles, including ITPro. Jennifer has specialised in a number of areas over the years and has produced a wealth of content for ITPro, focusing largely on data storage, networking, cloud computing, and telecommunications.

Most recently Jennifer has turned her skills to the political sphere and broadcast journalism, where she has worked for the BBC as a political reporter, before moving to Sky News.