Digital cloud and on-premises capabilities

FOI reference: FOI-2023-1657

You asked

Can you please provide the following information:

1. Total spend on new digital cloud and on-premises capabilities
2. % of total spend on cloud services rather than on-premises capabilities
3. Common causes of cloud service complexity within initiatives, such as lack of implementation skills, complex integrations, or missing functionality
4. % of initiatives using cloud services that had time, cost, or scope issues due to technical complexity 
5. Common causes of on-premises capabilities within initiatives, such as lack of implementation skills, complex integrations, or missing functionality
6. % of initiatives using on-premises capabilities that had time, cost, or scope issues due to technical complexity 

The scope of my request can be national, organisational, departmental, or programme.  Similarly, the time can be any period within the last five years, provided it is stated.

we said

Thank you for your request. Please see the following information:

Q1:

For the Financial Year (FY) 23/24, the ONS will spend: 

• £7.19m on Cloud capabilities 
• £0.663m for On Premises (On Prem) capabilities 

Q2.

For FY 23/24, we had a 92% spend on Cloud Services.

Q3.

The ONS is an ambitious department with a Cloud strategy that reflects this. Our biggest challenge is getting a solid agreement about what tooling is needed at a sufficiently granular level for us to deliver against. To overcome this we use Agile methodology and strong programme management. 

Integrations are always difficult, and the Cloud is no different. Skills are also a challenge, but we have resource plans to address this.

Qs 4 and 6.

According to McKinsey, worldwide, on average, large IT projects run 45 percent over budget and 7 percent over time, while delivering 56 percent less value than predicted: see https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/mckinsey-digital/our-insights/delivering-large-scale-it-projects-on-time-on-budget-and-on-value for an example of one of the many articles on the subject on-line.  

At the same time at ONS all of our initiatives meet the commissioning project's requirements at the point of delivery. 

This is possible because every IT delivery is an ongoing negotiation between those commissioning the work, those using the new service and those doing the build, and there is an iterative delivery cycle involved where the course is corrected to ensure the best outcome for all stakeholders at the point of delivery.  

There is no real difference in delivery complexity between On Prem and Cloud.

Q5. 

The ONS is an ambitious department with a Digital strategy that reflects this. Similar to Cloud, our biggest challenge is getting a solid agreement about what tooling is needed at a sufficiently granular level for us to deliver against. To overcome this we use Agile methodology and strong programme management. 

Integrations are always difficult and skills are always a challenge, but we have resource plans to address this and we work closely with our suppliers to plug gaps as necessary.