It is nearly 10 years since the term ‘cloud' was first coined for a new model of IT. Despite this, and the fact that five years have passed since the Cabinet Office declared the public sector should take a cloud-first approach to IT, when it comes to use of the cloud in local government, there seems to be more talk than action.

Meanwhile, outside of our town halls – in business, as with our everyday lives – the adoption of cloud technology has become near-ubiquitous, with every smartphone owner making use of many cloud-based apps. So what is holding councils back from adopting cloud computing?