G-Cloud programme director Denise McDonagh has slammed criticism of the CloudStore sales figures and suggested that unsupportive comments were"less accurate in their use of the data".
Commentators have labelled the CloudStore's recent slump in transactions as proof that its aim–of changing the way that ICT services suppliers and buyers do business in the public sector–is failing.
In April,the total spend at the CloudStore was£555,817,in May this dropped to£163,049 but in June expenditure increased to£459,730.However,G-Cloud's latest sales figures have plummeted to just£98,182.
But McDonagh claims that some commentators have not been supportive of the G-Cloud's goals and that these people may not understand the landscape that the CloudStore is working within.
"People may well look at that figure and assume that it has had very little impact on the estimated£16bn a year that government spends on IT.This simply highlights that they don't understand the relationship between£1 spent with a G-Cloud supplier,and£1 spent with one of the 20 corporations responsible for delivering 90 per cent of government IT at present,"she said in a blog post.
She added:"That is why the fact that after only four months of completed data we can clearly see the shift away from the traditional suppliers to the SMEs[in CloudStore]is such a good thing."
McDonagh was quick to note that 75 per cent of spend through the framework has been with SMEs and that since it launched in February,£1,276,780 of purchases had been conducted through the first G-Cloud framework.
She also squashed rumours of a drop in interest in supplying to G-Cloud,labelling them as"just plain wrong".
"As it stands today there have been 407 expressions of interest from new suppliers into G-Cloud-2 to add to those already on G-Cloud-1 who are re-applying,"she argued.
She added that this was only the beginning of the journey and that the G-Cloud programme would appreciate it if"people weren't trying to trip us up just as we're getting into our stride".
