Universities are the most forward-thinking public sector organisations when it comes to cloud usage, a report by Eduserv and Socitm has revealed, with more than a third storing data in the cloud.

Public bodies and authorities are also embracing the flexibility that the cloud provides, although the emergency services still lag behind, with only 13% using the cloud because it needs to put cost savings first and cannot afford to switch to a cloud-first approach.

In fact, 91% of public body organisations are still using on-premise servers to store their data – the highest proportion of any public sector sub-sector.

“As the report highlights, the journey will start on-premise and will almost certainly transition into a hybrid phase, possibly for quite some time, as many organisations are insufficiently mature in their IT management and information governance”, said Andy Powell, CTO at Eduserv.

The way IT is managed across different sub-sector of the publicly funded services in the UK is having an impact on cloud adoption. For example, 96% of universities manage their IT in-house, while public bodies and the emergency services tend to outsource IT management.

“During their journey to the cloud, public sector organisation IT departments will need to refine their IT delivery models, based on an improved understanding of cloud technology and its potential, new governance models and opportunities of information and data,” Powell added. “There is no better time to start thinking about those issues than right now.”

Socitm added that public sector organisations need to realise that the cloud is an enabler to better collaboration, enhanced productivity and more effective service delivery.