The Crown Commercial Service has taken over responsibility for the running of the Digital Marketplace platform.
As of 1 April, leadership was shifted to the procurement agency from the Government Digital Service. Some GDS employees working on the programme will be redeployed to other areas.
What the shift of ownership will mean for current GDS employees who remain part of the Digital Marketplace team has not yet been confirmed. These people may move formally to CCS or, more likely, remain at GDS for now but report into managers in its fellow Cabinet Office agency.
In CCS will lead work to create what the procurement agency’s technology director Niall Quinn describes as “Digital Marketplace 2”. The existing Digital Marketplace platform will serve at least the next iterations of the G-Cloud and Digital Outcomes and Specialists Frameworks.
But, beyond that, the goal is to launch future agreements on its successor.
Once Digital Marketplace 2 is ready, G-Cloud and Digital Outcomes will be the first frameworks to be added to the platform. After which, “a number of other CCS frameworks” will follow in due course.
The move away from the Crown Marketplace name and strategy – which Quinn characterises as a “classic waterfall programme” – comes in recognition of the fact that the public sector has more complex and diverse needs than can be served by a simple online catalogue.
The new frameworks are also likely to implement some different commercial features to G-Cloud, according to CCS.
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