Credit: PA

The Crown Commercial Service has signed an agreement with Google Cloud, enabling organisations throughout the public sector to benefit from preferential pricing and greater access to the technology vendor’s products.

Google Cloud announced today that, after discussions going back to last year, it has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Cabinet Office-based procurement agency.

The exact terms of the agreement are yet to be disclosed, but the two parties indicated that it contained “a discount for qualifying public sector bodies based on aggregated cloud service demand and expected spend”. Charities are also covered by the deal.

The MoU is also intended to “break down barriers to cloud adoption… [and] allow organisations to take full advantage of a range of technologies across Google Cloud, including infrastructure, analytics, artificial intelligence, application modernisation and development, and collaboration solutions”.

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The agreement also covers “managed and serverless offerings”, including the vendor’s Anthos products and services which constitute a “comprehensive hybrid and multi-cloud solution”.

The CCS and Google Cloud claimed that today’s announcement “marks the beginning of an expanded relationship” between them. This will include “regular dialogue and strategy sessions” – a key focus of which will be helping SMEs work with public-sector organisations.

CCS chief executive Simon Tse said: “"CCS provides commercial agreements which help organisations across the entire public sector save time and money on buying everyday goods and services. This MoU with Google Cloud unlocks large-scale business benefits for our customers, and demonstrates CCS's role in helping the public sector serve UK citizens in more innovative ways."

The procurement agency first contacted Google Cloud as part of its work, alongside the Government Digital Service and the wider Cabinet Office, in delivering the One Government Cloud Strategy programme. The OGCS scheme aims to support digital transformation and cloud adoption by working in a more joined-up way across government.

"This is a significant milestone for us, as we see the results of our focused investment in cloud services and solutions primed and tailored for the public sector," said Mark Palmer, EMEA head of public at Google Cloud. "The UK public sector is a major focus for Google Cloud, and this is an opportunity to further support Her Majesty's government in their digital transformation."