By Tony Collins
HMRC has signed a deal with Skyscape Cloud Services for centralised data storage in the Cloud, says UKAuthority.
It quotes HMRC’s CIO, Phil Pavitt, as saying that the shift to cloud, “will save over £1m a year in running costs and will increase reliability and security of HMRC’s internal IT services”.
“The Skyscape contract is a major step for HMRC in moving away from traditional ways of working with large service providers. And it’s a great example of how we’re exploring smarter, more innovative solutions that make life simpler for us and help us provide a better deal for our customers.”
Data currently stored in local offices will be moved to cloud storage by early spring 2013 using the Public Services Network (PSN) as a conduit – a first in the use of cloud over PSN.
The Government Digital Service has signed a cloud deal with Skyscape too.
Campaign4Change 
http://www.skyscapecloud.com/ appears to be a shell company owned by Qinetiq, VMWare, Cisco, EMC and Ark.
So, unless there are covenants in the contact HMRC has outsourced to a company as David has suggested or alternatively this is not an SME and the whole thing is a cynical exercise. Surely not?
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According to Companies House Skyscape Cloud Services Ltd is a £100 company (no.07619797) in Corsham incorporated on 3 May 2011 which has yet to file any accounts, please see http://wck2.companieshouse.gov.uk/1e06e5536ddebe9055a65f267f83eee6/compdetails and http://wck2.companieshouse.gov.uk/1e06e5536ddebe9055a65f267f83eee6/wcprodorder?ft=1
Too big? Too small? Let’s hope the next SME contract goes to Goldilocks Cloud Services Ltd.
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Are we sure HMRC could measure its IT costs to a resolution of £1m?
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