Government Operations Committee on June 17th, 2008

[Liliane saint pierre]

Thank you for your questions. I will try to remember and answer all of them.

Regarding your first question, it's important to note that the IT services sector covers a range of specialties. In recent years, the group that I head up has been involved to the tune of over $2.5 billion in IT contracts, either for software or computers. This is a very interesting sector. The professional services sector accounts for over $600 million.

Clearly then, we receive a tremendous number of proposals and subsequent IT contracts, representing various dollar amounts. Some proposals are for lower amounts. At present, we have put in place mechanisms for which firms can pre-qualify to process many of these RFPs.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Can I interrupt you?

[Liliane saint pierre]

Yes.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

It's just that we do not have a lot of time. Were the proposals you mentioned once handled by SMEs?

[Liliane saint pierre]

Thank you for that question. That will continue to be the case. PWGSC and the government are very committed to promoting and increasing the market share of SMEs.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

You're talking about subcontracting.

[Liliane saint pierre]

Not necessarily. We do both, Ms. Bourgeois. We have tools in place. As I indicated in my opening statement, following several years of consultations, we have brought in a very important tool, the Task-Based Informatics Professional Services, which is now available for use by all departments. Firms must pre-qualify for these arrangements. In fact, over 72% of the firms that qualified were SMEs.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

I have another question for you. Has the plan you referred to been put on paper? Are copies available?

[Liliane saint pierre]

No.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

That was the first thing I wanted to know.

My next question concerns Mr. Poole. If I understand correctly, Mr. Poole is your associate. He is not a departmental employee.

Is Mr. Poole a federal government employee or is he part of an exchange program? How did he come to work with you?

[Liliane saint pierre]

Madam Chair, as Assistant Deputy Minister responsible for acquisitions, I provide services to all departments. I also provide contractual services to my own department.

Mr. Poole works for PWGSC. He has IT requirements. My job is to arrange the acquisition process to allow him to obtain these services.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

I see. How long has Mr. Poole been with the department?

[Liliane saint pierre]

Madam Chair, I will let Mr. Poole answer that question, because to be honest, I don't know when exactly he joined the department.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

How long have you been with the department, Mr. Poole?

[Steven Poole]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I will try to answer in French.

I have been with the federal government since 2003. Prior to that time, I was in the military for 25 years. I travelled around the world.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

And during the years in between, what did you do?

[Steven Poole]

During those seven years or so, for much of that time, that is for five and a half years, I worked for the Canada Post Corporation.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Mr. Poole, apparently you developed a plan with firms to provide IT services.

Do you have that plan handy? Can we see it?

[Steven Poole]

We are now at the stage of holding consultations. We are in the process of developing this plan.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Your plan has not yet been finalized, but you have already announced on your site, in the Request for Information, or RFI, that...

[Steven Poole]

You are talking about a RFI, not an RFP.

[Liliane saint pierre]

To date, we have published requests for information which reveal the government's plan to go ahead with an initiative. This is done through telecommunications networks. We invite people in the private sector to comment on the project. That represents the third request.

If you're in fact referring to the shared services initiative that would combine certain contracts, then that initiative was developed jointly with the Treasury Board Secretariat.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

What prompted you to do this? You wanted to improve things. Theoretically, you must have had some performance and time indicators.

I would imagine your planning was based on something concrete.

[Steven Poole]

I'd be more comfortable answering that question in English, Madam Chair.

In 2003 there were significant studies around the expenditure review committee, and there were many conclusions from that. One was that information technology could be managed much better in government.

There were several studies that allowed us to pursue various proofs of concept and approaches to confirm a general approach. We are in consultation with industry about that general approach at this time.

There are significant indicators from research, from professional firms like Gartner, as well as information from other provinces like B.C., Quebec--Centre de services partagés du Québec--that show there are significant benefits to pursuing this line of procurement and services.

There are many public policy forums that all say this direction is worthy of pursuing. We're pursuing it, but we're trying to do it in the most consultative way we can so that we know we're doing the right thing for Canadians. There are many benefits. We're talking about not only very significant efficiencies.

Let me briefly explain to you what's involved here.

With regard to network and telecommunications services, everybody knows that when you plug in your telephone or your computer, a whole bunch of things happen. There are wires, there are boxes, there are switches, there is software. When we are replicating all of that, because the departments have a lot of it in a stovepipe-duplicated way, it makes for way too much expense.

We can go to some federal buildings where there is more than one department, and there will be what we call “multiple wiring closets”, multiple sets of wires. We don't need to do this.

We're trying to get the federal organizations to work together to do IT better. It is very complex.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Madam Chair, I would like to come back to this topic because I have a number of questions that I would like to ask.