Scotland's Digital Future: Report on the current landscape for Data Hosting and Data Centres in the Scottish Public Sector

This report sets out the findings of a review of the public sector data centre landscape. The landscape review was the first phase of the project to deliver the data hosting and data centre strategy published in April 2014. The findings in this report ref


Section 1: Background and Methodology

Background

Scotland's Digital Future: Delivery of Public Services set out an objective of developing a National strategy for the public sector's data storage focusing on consolidation and re-use. This reflected a recommendation in the Review of ICT Infrastructure in the Public Sector in Scotland report by John McClelland which suggested that significant efficiency and energy savings could be achieved through consolidation.

A project under the governance of the Digital Public Services ( DPS) Programme Board was set up to take this forward. In taking the project forward it has been important to take account of the developing role of cloud services and virtualisation to ensure that moving from the current landscape to a future state is maximising the use of new and future technology.

Method

Evidence was gathered from a number of sources including:

  • a survey circulated throughout the public sector
  • Digital Public Services roadshow workshops
  • an advisory group convened for the review
  • meetings with a number of organisations from both the public & private sector
  • discussions with other countries Governments
  • visits to a number of data centres

The survey was issued to public sector organisations through their representatives on the DPS National Board (now the DPS Strategy Assurance Board) and a number of meetings were also held with public sector representatives. The purpose was to understand current arrangements and organisations' thoughts on the future hosting of their ICT services. The survey therefore provides both a baseline and an indication of the organisational and cultural challenge in achieving changed practice.

As indicated, we then took evidence from a range of expert partners and from an advisory group composing public sector and ICT industry members to further develop the way forward.

The full list of organisation can be found at Annex A .

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