A start-up software business in Suffolk has secured a place on a Government panel allowing it to bid for the delivery of cloud technology services across the public sector.

IJYI, which is based in Ipswich, was launched by Chris Pont and John Nicholson in June last year as a consultancy specialising in bespoke software development.

It has now been accepted on to the G-Cloud services framework, an online marketplace designed to open up the procurement process and enable small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to win business in the public sector without having to go through standard time-consuming tendering.

Mr Pont said: “The G-Cloud programme has made significant progress to date in creating a fairer marketplace for all, boosting opportunities for innovative SMEs and supporting the UK public sector with agile and cost-effective IT solutions.

“Tendering for public sector contracts has always been such a labour intensive process and small start-ups were usually muscled out by the big boys. We’re looking forwards to bidding on some work and growing our business as a result.”

The G-Cloud consists of a series of framework agreements with suppliers, from which public sector organisations can call off services without having to run a full tender or competition procurement process.

Businesses accepted on to the framework also feature on an online store – the “Digital Marketplace”, previously known as the CloudStore – that allows public sector bodies to search for services that are covered by the G-Cloud frameworks.

The G-Cloud framework is refreshed every six months at which point new and existing suppliers can submit bids to supply services.

IJYI (which is pronounced E-G) received another boost earlier this year when it achieved a Silver competency rating from technology giant Microsoft.

This means the firm is among only 5% of Microsoft partners able to offer this standard of service.