UK government signs first BaaS agreement to deploy enterprise-grade distributed ledger services across all levels of government

Baozou Comment : Credits, a blockchain platform provider, has previously worked with the government and provided blockchain-based applications to the Isle of Man government. This time, according to the blockchain-as-a-service agreement reached between the company and the British government's commercial service agency CCS, the British government, including local government agencies in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, will fully adopt its blockchain applications. It will mainly be used in the public service sector to improve the relationship between the government and citizens.

Translation: Annie_Xu

The UK government commercial service agency CCS (Crown Commercial Service) signed the UK's first blockchain platform-as-a-service agreement with blockchain platform provider Credits.

Under the G-Cloud framework agreement, government agencies that want to experiment with distributed ledger technology can purchase it from the Digital Marketplace, an advisory body under the Government Digital Services.

The blockchain technology underlying digital currencies is a distributed ledger that fully records the history of financial and non-financial transactions. They provide a secure, permanent record that cannot be tampered with and does not require a central registration authority.

National government agencies, as well as large and small government agencies in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, can use Blockchain as a Service to build and deploy secure, enterprise-grade distributed ledger services.

Nick Williamson

Nick Williamson, Founder and CEO of Credits, said: “Credits is delighted to be joining the G-Cloud platform. We are excited by the huge potential of distributed ledger technology for government agencies and the public sector. We look forward to working with the UK public sector to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their services to taxpayers.”

Although the development of digital currencies such as Bitcoin has benefited to a certain extent from being free from government regulation, government public service departments are paying more and more attention to their underlying technologies.

In fact, this year, Mark Walport, the chief scientific adviser to the British government, emphasized in the report "Distributed Ledger Technology: Beyond block chain" that distributed ledger technology can be combined with multiple government management areas, including protecting important infrastructure, asset registration, NHS national health data registration, and reducing welfare fraud.

“Distributed ledger technology has the potential to reshape the relationship between governments and citizens by improving data sharing, transparency, and trust.”

Recently, the UK Department for Work and Pensions began experimenting with using blockchain to track the spending of benefit claimants.

The new G-Cloud Blockchain-as-a-Service will run on a secure cloud infrastructure, with Credits previously joining the government as a partner having developed blockchain applications for the Isle of Man government.