Yes, Public Services and Procurement Canada. It's changed since I left.
My rationale for this is the same reasons as why SSC was formed itself: efficiency, effectiveness, and delivering high-value services.
As mentioned earlier, the Government of Canada has some of the best and brightest and most competent IT/IM workers in Canada. What has happened to these workers who have been transferred to SSC for the most part has been very disconcerting to me. Many employees at the working level have been marginalized, and not consulted or involved in direction setting and/or decision-making. They are uncertain about their future and have been asked to deliver increasing amounts of work under increasing pressure. The Government of Canada employee survey indicated that SSC employees have the lowest morale of all Government of Canada departments. I believe that Government of Canada employees are the most important asset the government has. It is tragic that these issues with SSC employees have occurred. Employees are the most important asset in any organization.
My recommendations, at a very high level, as of June 14, 2015, are: identify SWAT teams to work with each department to resolve outstanding production problems. Once this is done, including ensuring hardware and software, etc., is not obsolete and the necessary maintenance agreements are in place for all IT infrastructure, including data centre support systems etc., identify and agree upon service standards and report monthly on SSC performance. Ensure monthly performance meetings are scheduled with each department and SSC production operations. Establish escalation processes and all necessary production governance processes and procedures. Implement the necessary automation tools to include asset management. I firmly believe that SSC does not know what is in the environment today and what they are managing. Identify all hardware and software, including licence compliancy, network components, application configurations, and interfaces, etc. Then there is server/storage deployment automation; operations monitoring and performance management; an integrated ITSM, building on the largest install base already implemented in line departments. This supports every facet of production operations, from help desk to change management, to configuration management, to access control, and all the required operational support processes.
Freeze, where possible, all transformation activities and reset the plan, with input from line department CIOs and industry experts. Some major IT companies have implemented massive transformations internally and have the required experience, services, and best practices to support the Government of Canada's transformation initiative. Consult and engage with these companies that have proven track records and have lived transformation activities. Align this plan with the Government of Canada's strategic IT/IM plan being done by Treasury Board and also departmental IT/IM strategic plans. Once this plan has been approved, develop an implementation plan that will identify the lowest-hanging fruit and all implications. This plan should include the target architecture that all departments should migrate to and when over the next one to three years so when systems are rebuilt or software is bought, it is bought for the target architecture. Data centre convergence will be simpler when departmental systems are standardized.
Government procurement should negotiate enterprise licence agreements for all software in this target architecture to drive down costs. Business cases should then be developed, including identifying all costs. Approval of business cases will dictate priorities, resources required, and scheduling of implementations. While this is occurring, give departments approval to move forward on IT/IM delivery priorities—because we can't stop delivering the line services, and you did—with SSC acting as a service broker.
Start small. Think big. Treat line departments as real partners and really listen to what they have to say. Involve them in the decision-making and keep them informed moving forward.
The next recommendation is to cancel the email transformation initiative due to the significant schedule delays and cost overruns, and await the results of the strategic plan. There is little credibility left with the ETI as it stands today. Once directions and initiatives are approved, develop an HR plan for all SSC employees, including training, career development, etc. For those employees whose functions may be outsourced or privatized, utilize workforce adjustment and try to place them, through retraining, etc., into other positions or transfer employees to external departments. Minimize any layoffs to the absolute degree possible. Align this plan with departmental HR IT plans and manage IT employees at the Government of Canada level. Keep employees aware of the developments affecting them and make them feel that they are part of the solution.
The next recommendation is to transfer procurement authority and associated resources back to PSPC to create a procurement centre of excellence.
The last one is to establish, augment, and strengthen the required tactical and strategic governance: tactical governance to deal with present IT/IM services and strategic governance to deal with SSC direction and project implementation. Manage expectations and communicate.
Now I'll move on to my final thoughts. It is my feeling that without immediate and direct intervention, SSC will not accomplish and meet the objectives assigned to it, resulting in significantly increased costs and extremely inefficient and ineffective IT/IM service delivery, the end result being that line departments will not only be unable to deliver their existing program delivery services, but will not be able to transform to meet evolving requirements. This will ultimately result in the federal government becoming less and less relevant, and Canada as a country becoming unable to compete in the global marketplace, and a civil service that will be not only no longer the envy of other countries but unable to support the needs of Canadian citizens, businesses, and others.
Canada is the best country in the world. Let's keep it that way.
Thank you for your time today.