Why are the only options data-slurping cloud ones?

Capgemini could migrate them to LibreOffice for much less!

I know that your comment was meant to be a provocative one but...

Unfortunately, the benefits of not having to maintain the infrastructure to store the data, together with the necessary backup infrastructure will be just too attractive for the bean counters.

By wrapping the entire service up in a cloud provider's offering, with an initially predictable cost per user, they can see savings in skilled staff, systems and premises costs. They're already down this path with the current Google Docs. solution, so going back to an on-prem. solution will not be on the table.

They still have the user's device costs, but putting everything in the cloud also simplifies the type of device and that needs to be deployed and their maintenance.

What they ignore is the additional costs that will be incurred as price gouging kicks in in following years, and the migration barriers and costs if the price gouging eventually gets too much! On top of that, most of the people making the decisions will be taking the providers promises of security at face value, not seeing all of the leaked data stories we see here. One would hope that the Cabinet Office would be more careful, but I doubt it.

All good points.

On top of that, I have three theories as to what's gone wrong - a) A technical debt issue, b) a policy-led own goal, or c) recognition that Azure and M365 might no longer be a suitable platform.

A) Its often assumed that you can move from any provider (cloud or otherwise) to another with minor data transformation or change - this isn't generally the case.

Most platform migrations will require transformation work and its quite possible tha tthe discovery uncovered really serious and costly issues that weren't in the OBC or previously understood.

Cabinet Office have been on Google for nearly 15 years - so any migration challenges could be writ large (and expensive).

During a run-up to a General Election I doubt CO would want to reveal such an unplanned overrun, so a "pause' might be politically preferable.

B) Cabinet Office might have suddenly realised that the changes they introduced on 29th June last year to the HM Government Security Classification Scheme mean that the term OFFICIAL is now really unhelpful. What used to be OFFICIAL isn't OFFICIAL any more in most cases....

Since 2013, when it was written and 2014 when it became approved, government have been happy to shovel pretty much any data into virtually any service and call it 'OFFICIAL'.

If there was a need to know aspect it cold be further described as OFFICIAL Sensitive.

Under that 2013/14 schema all sorts of truly sensitive stuff found its way on to Public Cloud - including material related to criminality (offenders, vulnerable victims, witnesses), configurations or IT systems, HMG policy creation, financial information, plans for HMG sites and buildings, etc., etc.

Data was intentionally devalued by ignoring the implications or impacts of it being compromised. "Business Impact" became dirty words in Gov, and successive policies encouraged (obliged) HMG depts to throw more and more HMG data into commodity IT and Cloud platforms which were never really designed for such a purpose.

The ONLY consideration was that the data did not need to be/would not be protected against a Foreign State or well funded hacker (and that it wouldn't cause mass death, war or international tensions - when it had to be treated as TOP SECRET).

Last June however, Cabinet Office (CDDO) changed the classification scheme pretty radically by re-introducing the consideration of 'Impact'.

Since June '23, OFFICIAL is really three tiers:

"OFFICIAL For Public Release" - data that have ZERO impact if published (and indeed intended for publication)

"OFFICIAL" - data which has neglible or no impact on HMG, public sector or an individual (so really quite unimportant stuff), AND

"OFFICIAL SENSITIVE" - data that has a limited, and specifically short term, impact on Government (i.e. minor impact on public finances, some embarassment or press coverage), or which might have limited impact on an individual if disclosed (such a minor or moderate injury, embarassment, or financial loss).

Cabinet Office gave the entirety of Government till June of this year to re-align ALL their legacy data to this new model...

Maybe their 'discovery' exercise identified that the nature of data to be put into this platform now far exceeds the threshold ceilings of the new three OFFICIAL Tiers?

C) Azure and M365 security has recently been shown to be less than good. Just this week the US, UK, Canadian, Australian and New Zealand IT security bodies published a joint advisory on how Chinese and Russian hackers are now deeply embeded in the platform and are "living off the land" to the extent that a service user may not be able to distinguish between a valid Microsoft message or service or the hackers.

In the US - but interestingly enough not yet in the UK - major news feeds carry lead stories about the US Government's growing security concerns.

Some are even openly suggesting that Azure/M365 is no longer a trustworthy platform.

Remember here that the US Gov sit on a segmented and Federally approved Azure - more likely to be robustly managed and which must operate 100% in the US.

If its possibly compromised by Foreign state actors, then the public Azure must be literally the wild west...

The UK Gov largely sit on that wild west Public Cloud -(we don;t have a major UK alternative nowadays) and its THAT cloud which Cabinet Office have just paused their migration to.

Might be a ctotal oincidence or it MIGHT just be a 15 watt light bulb going on over someone's head.

Capgemini could migrate them to LibreOffice for much less!

Too much sense being made. You must stop this immediately. Gummint needs inefficiency, and this simply will NOT do...

So what was the problem with Google Workspace that Microsoft 365 was supposed to solve?

Is it kickbacks and civil servants looking away in good old Post Office fashion?

The problem was that no consultant can get paid for not migrating to a new platform. Also, choosing not to do something looks like you're not doing anything, which does not look good.

Very Droll, Sir Humphrey!

"no consultant can get paid for not migrating to a new platform"

Except they just did. Admittedly though, feasibility studies are less lucrative than the usual botched migration.

Does this just indicate which shared are owned by the UK's Cabinet Office members?

I probably didn't read the article properly but what did this failed project cost in the end then? I know there will always be commenters who think that some command line Linux and vi is good enough, but that's just not the reality. Instead I've often wondered why more public sector bodies don't band together and get better bulk licensing deals out of vendors? I remember back in the dim and distant past the NHS had one giant licensing agreement with MS that gave them a better discount than hundreds of piecemeal agreements negotiated locally and then the coalition government came along and decided that was a crap idea and scrapped it.

Regardless of your ideologies on software/vendors/etc, you'd think the best policy where taxpayers' money is involved is to get the best possible discount whilst getting the maximum level of coverage.

According to the Contract Finder award the Discovery Phase payment to Microsoft was capped at £1,868,224.

There will have been other costs under the Capgemini wider contract as well.

That contract has a total maximum value of just over £15m, with each phase paid in a series of Purchase Orders (PO's).

If the Discovery and Pilot Phase has a PO figure against it, its been redacted - so not clear what the charges for Capgemini delivery against the Discovery and Pilot were - though comments in the contract and associated documents suggest notional caps per sub-contractor phase of £1.8m also?

UK Cabinet Office hits pause on £9M Microsoft deal ... Microsoft laugh and head for the strip club, to spend the same amount of loose change.