The Department for Education is investing in its generic cloud platforms to underpin service delivery, while it prepares to build and implement its own software-development capability.

The DfE has issued contract-award notices for two one-year projects that began on the first day of this month. The firs covers the deployment of technology from cloud vendor ServiceNow, and related services. The aim is to give the department’s Skills Funding Agency a platform from which to fulfil digital initiatives.

London-based ServiceNow-specialised consultancy Whitespace Studios has won the £150,000 deal to provide “architecture, development, and deployment Services to assist [the Skills Funding Agency] to deliver a range of digital projects and to assist [it] in building its own digital capabilities,” the DfE said.

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Concurrently, the department is spending £69,000 on a 12-month deal with research and professional services firm Gartner. Over the next year a number of staff from the department’s digital, data, and technology function will go through the company’s leadership coaching programme.

“[This will] support the implementation of a DevOps capability [and] the transformation to a digital workplace, supporting the government's approach to modernising public-sector services,” the department said. “The engagement plan provides a strategic leverage of its resources to ensure that the DfE achieves its technological and organisational objectives.”