Key facts
Cloud computing services are a centrepiece of the Federal Administration’s digitalisation. The Federal Chancellery’s Digital Transformation and ICT Steering Sector (DTI) has laid the foundations for their use, in particular through a model of cloud levels (public cloud; public cloud based in Switzerland; and the Confederation’s private cloud). The Confederation’s current cloud infrastructure, called Atlantica, will soon be obsolete, and the Federal Office of Information Technology, Systems and Telecommunication (FOITT) has been tasked with replacing it. In December 2024, Parliament approved the commitment appropriation of CHF 246.9 million for implementation of the Swiss Government Cloud (SGC) programme. On behalf of the General Secretariat of the Federal Department of Finance (FDF), the FOITT is managing the rollout of the SGC, scheduled to take place between 2025 and 2032 at a cost of CHF 319.4 million. However, expenditure related to the use of cloud services and application migration are not included in this amount and will be borne by the service users (i.e. the offices using the cloud). For this first audit of the programme, the Swiss Federal Audit Office (SFAO) examined the documentation of needs and the return-on-investment calculations.
Work on the SGC programme has started, and the future solution is under development. Among the issues being addressed, the SFAO notes the cataloguing of the DTI’s skills relating to the programme, the design of the future platform based on a needs assessment, and the digital sovereignty aspect. It points out that the SGC’s economic attractiveness for the Confederation as a whole has yet to be demonstrated. The programme has planned such a calculation for 2026, but this is a crucial issue, and so the SFAO has nevertheless issued a recommendation. Finally, the risks of delays in public procurement and the migration to the new platform must be carefully managed, which the programme is doing at this stage.