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Talking to IT teams and business leaders, it is clear that the benefits of cloud in supporting new business models for the delivery across the public sector is now well understood.

There is also a growing consensus that the different business model for IT operations which is enabled by cloud IT, could add substantial value to the organisations – particularly local authorities – as they shape and reshape services in the future.

So why isn’t the public sector moving to the cloud more quickly and in greater numbers? In our experience this is down to a gap between an organisation’s willingness and its readiness to adopt. Clearly, it is critical for any organisation which wants to reap the benefits of cloud to bridge this gap. IT teams can help the organisation help itself get cloud ready by focusing on these six areas.

Cultural readiness

The first job to do is to assess the level of knowledge around cloud in your organisation. If there are gaps in awareness about it can benefit the organisation, they will need filling – particularly among business leaders. Equally those who understand that cloud is not about technology but helping people work differently will be useful advocates for cloud adoption. Before you talk to people, be clear about how you will articulate your vision for cloud, based on business benefits, not “IT speak”.

Business needs

The next area to focus on is a roadmap for moving to the cloud. For this to be realistic you will need to balance areas of biggest business need against the complexity of moving to the cloud, ease of implementation and other risks. Articulating the priorities for your organisation and how they benefit the organisation and individual service areas is the starting point for your cloud adoption strategy.

Budgetary readiness

A cloud operating model is different from a traditional IT one. This has implications for the way budgets are set and investments are made. You will need to work with your finance team to clarify how this rental-based model of IT works, establish how future and past operating models can be compared on a like-for-like basis as well what you can do to accurately forecast future costs and savings.

People and time

Cloud migration is a major change project which needs its own resource to succeed. Identify what resources and skills you need to deliver a project and whether you can manage this with existing in-house resources.

Risk management

A move to cloud needs to be aligned with your organisation’s approach to risk management. You must clarify what measures you will need to see from potential suppliers and their supply chains to mitigate and manage risk. This will be an important part of the specification you take to market when you look for suppliers.

Technical readiness

You can’t move to the cloud until you understand fully the shape of your current IT estate and the applications which support the organisation. Mapping these will allow you to understand areas which are compatible and incompatible with a cloud operating model ahead of time.

Approaching cloud adoption in this way will prime the organisation for cloud adoption, accelerate the process and ensure you are focusing on business outcomes rather than the simple adoption of a new technology solution.

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If we have learned anything about budget announcements over the past 10 years, it is to prepare yourself for the unexpected. I’d be surprised, however, if anyone predicted the extent to which the 2015 Autumn Statement put such an emphasis on the role of IT in the transformation of government.

Lean government

With substantial job cuts resulting from reduced funding right across the public sector, the Chancellor’s clear objective is that by 2020, processes which still heavily rely on people and ways of working, from the way patient records are shared in the NHS to the way we deal with our tax, will be enabled by new IT.

Invest to save

Far from expecting this to happen within existing budgets, the budget statement recognises that for many of these efficiencies to be realised, there is an ‘invest-to-save’ requirement, to create the right technology platforms for the future. As a result, there are few parts of the public sector which will not experience some sort of IT enabled change programme in the next three years.

Collaboration at the core

Much of this change will be driven by the need to collaborate and share data across multiple organisations. A number of examples spring to mind:

The linking up of social and health care will require investment in infrastructure to enable sharing of personal information by a range of government agencies, charities and private sector providers.

The NHS is being asked to revisit the previously doomed patient records project to cut costs – with £1bn to spend.

The closure of the standalone jobs centre network means the DWP will have to work out how it can move and share information, regardless of where the offices are located.

The reinvention of public sector IT

To deliver all of this change, the public sector will have to fundamentally reappraise and reinvent its approach to IT.

The pressure to free up property, reduce headcount and collaborate in service delivery, means that the patchwork of in-house data centres, development teams and bespoke IT infrastructure which exists in the public sector, will have to be replaced with open, shared technology which can flex around the needs of an increasingly dynamic sector.

Support of the private sector

The Government Digital Service, backed with a new investment of £450m until 2020, is being asked to drive change at the heart of government. However, it is private sector cloud suppliers who are essential to making this change happen across the wider public sector. They need to ensure the capacity for secure data sharing and storage, keep that data secure and the IT infrastructure working effectively, and support the migration from in-house to cloud-enabled IT.

Partnership is critical

For all this to work, both the public and private sector need to learn from and act on past failures.

To meet the pace of change necessary to drive these efficiencies, public sector must speed up its decision making and procurement cycles, ensuring better use of the G-Cloud buying platform. It will also need to lose the ‘crutch’ which has been big IT partnership, and work with a range of smaller partners on shorter, more flexible contracts.

The private sector must step up too: business models predicated on bespoking, supplying hordes of contractors, long tie-ins and onerous service level agreements cannot feature in this future.

It is only by doing this that public and private sector organisations will be able to build partnerships which are capable of sustaining digital government in the years ahead.

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This month the CBI published a major report outlining its vision for the future of public services.

For anyone in local government, it is well worth a read. Not only does it stress the critical importance of getting our public services online but it also points out that while we are making progress, there is much more that needs to be done.

Here there are three clear areas for local government to focus on.

The first is in doing a better job of understanding and meeting the expectations of citizens when it comes to the way services are delivered. While 77% of people go online to find or use services every day, only 41% interact with public authorities in this way. Councils are already falling short of expectations.

The second area for focus is what appears to be a lack of digital literacy among public sector leaders. The CBI’s figures show some 75% of council leaders think their councils embrace technology to improve local services. Ask the public if that is the case and only 29% share that view. Without greater digital literacy among local government managers and leaders, the sector is unlikely to be able to accelerate the delivery of digital services in the future.

The last issue comes from the way the public sector builds digital public services. Here, it is clear that the old ways of procuring services and managing projects aren’t necessarily fit for today’s digital purposes. To reshape local government, we need to take a fresh approach to planning and strategy.So how can local government leaders address these issues?

Organisations need to build knowledge among managers and teams who deliver services so they understand what the digital-first agenda means for them

A first step is for leaders in local government to ensure they and their teams retain a clear understanding of what digital by default really means for organisational strategy.

Strategy which is focused on simply using technology to cut costs will not be sufficient to deliver digital public services in the long term. Digital by default is about putting technology at the heart of the way councils plan and do business, something which demands deeper change than simply ‘lifting and shifting’ existing services online.

A second area to focus on is in bridging the digital skills deficit at all levels of local government.

At the top of organisations, councils need to make sure their leaders have a full appreciation of the role technology must play. This means giving the chief information officer and technology experts a greater role and influence in the planning and delivery of services so that digital is ‘baked in’ to the decision making process from beginning to end.

More broadly, organisations need to build knowledge among managers and teams who deliver services so they understand what the digital first agenda means for them.

By investing in knowledge and skills, a more ‘digital-centric’ culture will evolve. To support this culture it’s important to remember that transformation of public services and the organisations that deliver them cannot happen without investment in technology.

Here, finance directors, chief executives and those leading service areas or directorates need to look at the kind of investments that the likes of Bristol City Council and Maidenhead and Windsor are making to transform and reinvent the way the organisations work in order to understand the crucial role technology plays in service transformation.

There is no doubt that delivering digital public services will stretch and challenge local government in the coming years. But if there is one thing we have learnt during the past four years of budget cuts, it is that local government is a sector with a track record of rising to and overcoming the big challenges when it matters.