NHS Education for Scotland defends 'decade-long' public cloud take care of AWS

The coaching arm of NHS Scotland has attain underneath fire from contributors of the final public sector IT seller neighborhood over its likelihood to award a 10-twelve months cloud contract to AWS

Caroline Donnelly

Caroline Donnelly,
Senior Editor, UK

Published: 21 Might perhaps most certainly perhaps moreover 2021 12: 47

An NHS Scotland coaching physique has hit aid at accusations that a decade-long cloud deal signed with Amazon Net Companies (AWS) over 12 months ago is anti-innovation, anti-competitive and puts the organisation at high-threat of lock-in.

The £15m contract used to be awarded to AWS by NHS Education for Scotland (NES) in April 2020, however the contract award compare used to be finest made public in early Might perhaps most certainly perhaps moreover 2021. Since then the predominant points of the deal were the subject of much critique interior the authorities IT seller neighborhood, Computer Weekly has learned.

Several contributors of the IT seller neighborhood expressed their misgivings in regards to the deal, on situation of anonymity, to Computer Weekly with much of the criticism they shared specializing within the “unparalleled” dimension of the contract. As acknowledged within the distinctive subtle, the contract is situation to whisk for 120 months.

In step with the complainants Computer Weekly has spoken to, the contracts terms are “anti-competitive” and “utterly out of step” with how public sector cloud contracts are anticipated to be performed.

“We now have a monopoly that has locked in a public sector organisation for 10 years and locked out the competition for 10 years, together with the UK tech market and SMEs,” one seller suggested Computer Weekly.

The UK authorities’s various cloud procurement frameworks restrict the size of contracts to a most of five years on the root that shorter contract terms make it more straightforward for public sector patrons to toughen their know-how stacks as wanted, whereas fostering a competitive ambiance for suppliers – namely SMEs – to feature in.

In contrast context, Consume Anderson, vital analyst for central authorities at compare firm GlobalData, said he understands why the deal dimension is elevating eyebrows.

“Ten years is ridiculously long for a cloud contract for the explanation that [technology] ambiance is changing so like a flash,” he suggested Computer Weekly.

“When the UK authorities’s G-Cloud procurement framework used to be situation up in 2012, basically the most contract timeframe used to be two years. And even supposing the tech has matured, the contract terms now are unruffled now finest three to five years on the Cloud Compute Framework the authorities announced fair recently.”

In an announcement to Computer Weekly, an NES spokesperson performed down the contract’s dimension. “It’s not necessarily for 10 years: there are atomize parts all by that duration if required.”

In step with sources who participated within the procurement route of, the contract with AWS within the muse runs for five years, but there is an likelihood to prolong it by an additional five years with out wanting to re-subtle the deal.

Even with these terms in blueprint, the nature of what NES will be utilizing AWS for manner it’s a long way liable to search out it sophisticated to migrate to a definite net hosting provider must unruffled it must later down the line, claimed one seller, which can perhaps perhaps stifle the organisation’s skill to innovate in future.

“Any financial savings made by changing the net hosting provider, as an illustration, may per chance perhaps well be massively negated by the prices of rewriting the functions [hosted on top of it]. So are the NES atomize clauses necessary? I trust not,” they added.

In maintaining with claims the deal is anti-innovation, the NES spokesperson said the platform does enable for other suppliers to produce performance on high of the underlying AWS infrastructure, that will fair foster innovation and provide a attain in for other events later down the line.

“The functionality for innovation is less about which cloud provider is being outdated, and more about what may per chance perhaps be constructed on high of the platform. We preserve up for exploring this with other suppliers in due route,” the spokesperson added.

Plotting out the route to procurement

AWS is known to have commenced work on the venture in April 2020, but suppliers have queried why it took except 12 Might perhaps most certainly perhaps moreover 2021 for Amazon to be publicly named as NES’s chosen cloud provider.

“It’s customary apply for there to be a lengthen between awarding a contract and publishing the predominant points, whereas we work out the predominant points of how the contract and products and companies will be structured,” the NES assertion added. “The increased time on this event used to be a feature of the unheard of stress that every NHS products and companies were underneath.”

The NES moreover favoured a “competitive route of with negotiation” procurement mechanism for this contract, which has moreover been called into query by suppliers supplied that it’s a long way taken into legend to be an “exhausting and complex” manner of procuring products and companies that will perhaps perhaps indicate off-placing to SMEs.

“It’s miles a route of that is on the total reserved for outsourcing-fashion preparations,” another seller added.

The contract award compare confirms that two unnamed suppliers were moreover within the working for the contract alongside AWS, but none of the bids the subtle garnered were submitted by SMEs.

In step with the Scottish authorities’s Procurement Travel net blueprint, the competitive route of with negotiation procurement mechanism is designed so public sector organisations can account for the submissions they have received with the bidders after they have received a “completely-formed preliminary subtle”.

“You may per chance well unruffled insist this route of if you’re unable to define easy solutions to meet your needs technically and/or you can not specify basically the most lively or monetary requirements of your contract,” the safe blueprint added, earlier than citing that it would also be outdated for “complex purchases” lively “vital data and dialog know-how tools”.

In its assertion to Computer Weekly, the NES spokesperson said utilizing this procurement mechanism is frequent all by NHS Scotland.

“Right here’s a frequent attain all by NHS Scotland, following Scottish authorities pointers, aimed at making an attempt to rep the ethical provider at finest worth for money,” the assertion added.

“This contract used to be awarded in April 2020 following public contract pointers and making an attempt to rep finest worth for taxpayers’ money.”

AWS said it has no comment to make at present.

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