The arrival of G-Cloud 15

By Benjamin Rose, Client Partner, GAIN. Join his movement #TakeBackTheEMDash

GAIN has been awarded on to the G-Cloud 15, the latest iteration of the framework due to go live this September. It is the most significant upgrade to the UK’s public sector cloud procurement framework since its inception in 2012.

Having worked with government for the last 15 years, many projects I've worked on have been procured via the G-Cloud route. My personal favourite was a bespoke training course on Service Design I delivered just as the world was returning to normal again post covid, and I was able to travel up to Edinburgh to teach the Registers of Scotland digital team the fundamentals of service design. We ran the session as a hybrid, with attendees split between F2F and online, with me in the room running the course (which used Harry Potter as the subject matter to teach practical service design and user research) and a colleague coordinating the online breakout rooms. Practical activities included creating a Hogwarts student persona, mapping the 'as-is' experience for first years joining Hogwarts, and then sketching ideas about how to fix this fictional broken process. All practical tools and techniques which ROS were able to incorporate into how they deliver their services to citizens. 

We also recently worked with The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) on a Discovery to better understand how ‘joint consenting’ for fish farms could work under a new digital service, exploring the benefits a multi-agency consenting service could bring to applicants. The team were tasked with imagining, prototyping, and laying the foundations for a completely new service — a rare instance in this wave of government transformation.

These examples just show the breadth of services that government buyers can procure easily using G-Cloud, and the value that even small pieces of work can bring. 

GAIN's inclusion on G-Cloud 15 in Lot 2.b (Software as a Service) and Lot 3 (Cloud Support Services) reflects the breadth of our public sector offer — from early-stage Discovery through to embedded delivery support. Buyers can procure our Discovery Phase Research and Scoping Service and Alpha Phase Prototype and Testing Service to understand user needs, test prototypes, and de-risk digital projects before committing to build. We also offer a Beta Development and Pilot Service to design, build, test, and validate services with real users ahead of launch. Our work with organisations also goes beyond launch into Live/BAU, and we provide hosting, support and maintenance, and continuous improvement services to the likes of the Welsh Government and UKHO. Organisations looking for this sort of partnership can procure it via our Web Development and Support Service.

Content remains central to good service design, and our Content Strategy and Governance Consultancy and Content Design and Copywriting Service help departments move away from static documents toward structured, user-centred content.  

Accessibility is a particular strength: our Accessibility Audit and Remediation Service, WCAG 2.2 Accessibility Consultancy, and Accessibility Training and Awareness Service are underpinned by in-house ability at the very top of the field — including a Director of Accessibility who co-authored the WCAG guidelines themselves. Organisations such as DWP have used our accessibility expertise since 2023 to audit many of their digital services, including Universal Credit, and ensure they are compliant with strict public sector regulations.

We also have our own in house Fieldwork Recruitment team (GAIN Fieldwork), which from my own experience upon countless Discoveries, Alphas, and Betas is a major USP and ensures that having suitable users to test your service with as you iterate does not pose a risk to delivery timelines. Sourcing, screening, and managing participants across diverse user groups can be procured through our Research Participant Recruitment Service. We are currently working with The Pensions Regulator to help them source a range of profiles, including those with access needs, to ensure their digital services work for everyone who needs them.

For teams building skills internally, our Digital Training and Capability Building Service and GDS Training and Awareness Service cover a range of disciplines (including Service Design and User Research), while our Local Government Drupal Development Service draws on a bank of experience in this area, including work with Essex County Council, Colchester City Council, and Active Travel England.

Finally, GAIN also brings Lupine, our autonomous conversion rate optimisation and experimentation assistant, to the Digital Marketplace as a Software as a Service offer — giving public sector buyers a route to ongoing, AI-supported experimentation once a service is live, without needing to procure a separate specialist team.

Together, our 100+ service listings mean GAIN can now be engaged directly through the Digital Marketplace via G-Cloud 15 for the full public sector digital transformation lifecycle and beyond — whether that's a discrete project, embedded UCD capability within an existing team, or an ongoing SaaS tool to keep improving a service after launch.