There is still time to enter the running to host products and services on government’s G Cloud platform, ahead of the extended deadline on Monday (December 19), with SMEs urged to make most of a simplified application process and get involved.

Successful bidders will be able to deliver products and services on a ‘pay as you go’ deployment model to all public sector bodies through a centralised private cloud. There is a pot of £60m available over the next three years for contracts.

Originally due to end on November 30, the Cabinet Office announced the extension to the bids deadline last Wednesday (December 7).

The reason put forward for the delay was high demand – the Cabinet Office’s statement said 532 bids had been received up to the time of the original deadline.

Specifically, despite receiving 532 bids up to deadline day, the Cabinet Office said a late flurry of interest from small and medium enterprises (SMEs) convinced it to keep the process open for a further three weeks. A round a third of the bids so far have come from SMEs.

SME input has been a central objective from the start – with a specially simplified procurement process and detailed and jargon free instructions in place. This marries with an initiative across central government to increase SMEs’ stake in public sector contracts, curtailed though they may be while austerity measures and David Cameron’s ‘big society’ provide the backdrop, from five to 25 per cent.

IT provision is, on some fronts, ripe for this goal. Earlier this year a committee of MPs produced a damning report that suggested the big IT firms had built up a long running and embedded culture of ripping off the public purse, charging up to ten times as much as they should for some product and service provision.

So when the G Cloud procurement process came round, government had every incentive to push for SME involvement and has made every attempt to do so. The simplified application process involves no pre qualified questionnaire, as is usually a prerequisite, and less cumbersome terms and conditions to sift through.

There is a another motivation – last year Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude said that IT procurement costs government between £20,000 and £200,000; as Mr Maude also serves in the role of Paymaster General he’ll be hoping that less admin involved here will entail money saved in this department.

Reiterating the call to SMEs when announcing the extension, Stephen Allott, crown representative for SMEs, said: “SMEs have been considered at every point possible, and the excellent response shows it’s the right way to go – with hundreds of suppliers registering interest, many of them SMEs.

“This is the most innovative framework I’ve seen since working at the Cabinet Office.  Thankfully it’s not the only one. A consultancy framework announced just last week had similar features – simple steps that level the playing field for SMEs. Things are really starting to change.”

Application forms and instructions are available at www.buyingsolutions.gov.uk/categories/ICT/GCloud.