Legacy IT or the cloud?: digital transformation in the public sector

What are Legacy IT systems?

Legacy IT refers to your organisation’s IT infrastructure and systems, their component software and hardware and related business processes. It becomes ‘legacy’ when the technology becomes:

• impossible to update
• expensive and no longer cost effective
• considered an end-of-life product

Across government and the wider public sector, legacy IT systems are a key source of inefficiency and a major constraint to improving and modernising government services. Often at the heart of cyber breach incidents, legacy IT systems can pose a significant risk to an organisation.

However, many public sector organisations will often continue to use legacy systems that are essential to their daily business needs because of the time, cost and general upheaval associated with migrating to an alternative system. This can leave organisations in ‘legacy limbo’.

What challenges do public sector organisations face with legacy IT? 

Day to day processes and procedures can be unnecessarily complex working with an outdated system. With public sector organisations having to do ‘more with less’ and government funding being reduced, the last thing an organisation needs is a legacy IT system that:

• is expensive to run: traditional and legacy IT systems are not cost efficient, they need constant upgrades, increasing operational costs
• increases resource and capacity: needing regular upgrades requires constant attention from the IT department, impacting employee time and resources
• has scalability issues: it can be difficult to increase or improve traditional IT systems quickly to meet demand which can impact user experience and increase system downtime
• poses security issues: if your IT system can’t support compliance standards, such as cyber essentials, it becomes vulnerable to attacks from cyber criminals which can result in a data breach that could cost your organisation more than just money

All data must be protected

General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) states all data must be protected.

For example, local authorities are responsible for the security and privacy of any personal information they hold. Some data will belong to vulnerable individuals, for example, looked-after children. Any breach could result in a significant fine and/or could place your residents and service users at risk.

What is cloud computing?

Cloud computing is the provision of computing services including servers, storage, databases, networking, software, analytics, and intelligence over the internet.

Why is the cloud better than legacy IT?

Across the UK many public sector organisations are moving to the cloud as their main route to digital transformation. Migrating from legacy IT to the cloud can add value and achieve real tangible benefits such as improved value for money and increased security and resilience. Additional benefits also include:

• improved sustainability: with public cloud the vendor’s underlying ICT is located off-premises in large hyperscale data centres which are extremely efficient and reduces carbon
• improved hybrid working: moving away from on-premises infrastructure and towards the cloud, organisations can scale services up or down according to usage – such as lower weekend demand – and replace manual tasks with AI-powered automation

The government’s cloud first policy

The previous government’s Cloud First Policy has produced demonstrable benefits across the public sector. The policy sets out how ‘when procuring new or existing services, public sector organisations should default to Public Cloud first, using other solutions only where this is not possible.’

The policy was reassessed in 2019 and remains a flagship technology policy.

How can you migrate from legacy IT to the cloud?

Choosing the right IT migration strategy ensures you get the best value for money from the cloud. It’s important to balance performance with cost to make the right choice for your organisation.

We know that getting the balance right is difficult for some organisations. For some, cloud migration may be easy and once complete, will lower operating costs. For others, migration may be time-consuming and expensive.

However, migrating to the cloud does not have to be all or nothing. Many IT leaders in the public sector are leaning towards a hybrid strategy. This enables you to benefit from the best of traditional IT, alongside private, community and public cloud.

Crown Hosting: an alternative to public cloud

Our Crown Hosting agreement provides a hybrid option, enabling you to benefit from the cloud without the disruption of implementing a whole new IT system. 

Crown Hosting uses the same campus-based hyperscale data centre technology as the public cloud vendors and shares the same sites. It provides you with a low cost and minimal carbon footprint for traditional IT, private cloud and community cloud.

How CCS can help with your digital transformation

We can help you migrate from legacy IT to cloud computing systems. Take a look at our agreements to see how we can help you start or progress your migration journey:

• Crown Hosting: access secure, reliable and efficient specialist rooms (data halls) and buildings (data centres) which you can use to operate your server, network and security infrastructure (ICT) from
• G-Cloud: buy cloud-based computing services and solutions such as hosting, software and cloud support
• Cloud Compute: access all cloud computing services. Includes Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), Infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) and other additional ancillary services

Digital transformation in local authorities

CCS has developed a free, easy to use 5-step guide to digital transformation for local authorities. Find out more and download the guide from the CCS website.

Find out more

You can now find all of our Procurement Essentials articles in one place on our website. 

More information and guidance for public and third sector buyers, as well as full details of all of our commercial agreements, can be found in the latest CCS digital brochure.