Activities/EU_Policies_overview_FS/UK

UK

Contents

  1. UK

In 2010 the UK government reviewed its Free Software strategy but remained pro-active user of Free Software. It states that the UK government will actively and fairly consider Free Software solutions alongside proprietary ones in making procurement decisions. Procurement decisions will be made on the basis on the best value for money solution to the business requirement, taking account of total lifetime cost of ownership of the solution, including exit and transition costs, after ensuring that solutions fulfill minimum and essential capability, security, scalability, transferability, support and manageability requirements. However, Free Software is given a preference, where there is no significant overall cost difference between free and non-free software products.

The UK Government will require suppliers to provide evidence of consideration of Free Software solutions during procurement exercises – if this evidence is not provided, bidders are likely to be disqualified from the procurement. The UK Government will expect software developers to consider where necessary a suitable mix of Free Software and proprietary products to ensure that the best possible overall solution can be found.

The Government adopts Open Standards and uses these to communicate with the citizens and businesses that have adopted Free Software solutions.

In a procurement policy note 2011 the UK Cabinet recommends government departments wherever possible to deploy Open Standards in their procurement specifications.

In Government ICT Strategy, published on 30.03.2011, the UK Government impose compulsory Open Standards for the Government ICT infrastructure for interoperability and security reasons. It expressly states that government agencies should procure Free Software solutions, where appropriate - to help with this, a special toolkit for procurers on the use of Free Software will be published within next 6 months. Also, the UK Cabinet will promote more active participation of small and medium-size enterprises as well as voluntary and social sector, social enterprise organizations in bidding for government ICT contracts.

In 2016, Tech North - a tech hub of the Northern England (Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, Liverpool, Newcastle, Sunderland and the Tees Valley) published a report with recommendations to accelerate the digital growth and to reach the tech potential in the region. The Report suggests to encourage the use of Free Software in order "to enable collaborative innovation, opening software markets up to more local competition".

The UK has experienced a revolution in the state's Free Software over the years between 2011 and 2018, most of which is freed up by the Government Digital Service, HM Courts & Tribunals Service, HM Revenue & Customs, HM Land Registry, the Ministry of Justice, ONS Digital, Education and Skills Funding Agency Team, and the UK Home office: all providing between 100 and 200 instances respectively. The country has created Free Software in government to aid and carry out policies for open government, city infrastructure and digitalisation. On March 19th 2018, the UK may exit the EU as well as the European Economic Area.

Activities/EU_Policies_overview_FS/UK (last edited 2019-12-05 12:21:46 by bonnie)