NSW overhauling cloud procurement practices

The Department of Finance, Services and Innovation's digital.nsw is working on a new short form agreement for procuring cloud services as part of its initiative to transform the state government's ICT procurement practices for the modern era.

The first draft of the planned new Cloud Agreement has been completed, and is now open for consultation.

The agreement has been designed to work in conjunction with the buy.nsw government marketplace for cloud services, which launched in May.

The Cloud Agreement has been modelled after the recently introduced Core& Agreement for low-risk ICT procurement contracts worth up to $500,000.

Core& has been designed to combine standard core terms with solution requirements — as as-a-service, licensed software, professional services or hardware — to establish simple contracts with providers.

The new agreements are expected to supplant the NSW Department of Finance, Services and Innovation's Procure IT procurement framework, which was developed for an era when ICT solutions were largely delivered on premise rather than — increasingly — in the cloud.

Meanwhile, the department has announced it plans to update buy.nsw to allow cloud sellers to update their profile and product details, and to allow buyers to shortlist, compare and evaluate products within the platform.

The department plans to next tweak the Cloud Agreement based on stakeholder feedback, and establish supporting material such as checklists and guidelines around best practice security requirements for cloud services.

After the new cloud procurement processes are in place, the department plans to turn its attention to other areas of procurement such as professional and consulting services, managed services and as-a-service. Eventually, all these areas will be integrated into a single contracting and procurement framework.

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