No national assurance service giving public bodies confidence in open source products

GDS Principal Technologist Phil Rumens stated in May 2026 that there is no formal or standardised process across government for evaluating, recommending, or providing confidence in open source products. Every council, trust and department repeats its own due diligence or skips it, so risk-averse buyers default to proprietary suppliers who arrive pre-assured. GDS Local's Sourcing the Stack is consulting on seven evaluation criteria covering maturity, governance, security, sustainability, cost, operational fit and ethical AI, and it remains early-stage and unfunded as a service. Open Digital Cooperative assures LocalGov Drupal alone.

LocalGov Drupal shows the prize: cost reductions of 30 to 50 per cent and £30k to £90k saved per council website. Only one product ever crossed the assurance barrier. A kite-mark service would unlock those savings across the whole local government and NHS software stack.

Fund GDS Local's assurance process into a standing national service: kite-marked evaluations, pooled security reviews, and a public catalogue of assured open source products with signposting to commercial support vendors, the equivalent of Germany's openCode platform.

// Build together: Counterparty: GDS Local/DSIT, or LGA-coordinated councils pooling kite-marked evaluations into a standing service.

A live GDS Local consultation could become a funded kite-mark unlocking 30 to 50 per cent council savings, and it stays early-stage, unfunded and duplicated department by department.