Evidence of meeting #16 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 42nd Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was nicholl.
A recording is available from Parliament.
As an Individual
From one department we received more than 1,000 people, with three executive positions.
Conservative
As an Individual
If that's true for IT staff, you can imagine what it was for admin staff. If you can imagine a single organization ever transferring a really crackerjack finance person, or HR person, or auditor—
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
My teenage son says that's funny, because it's happening to you.
This is a really difficult one. The three of you have 12 years, in ballpark terms, with Shared Services.
I know you left a year ago, but do you believe we're on the right path now, and are there any potholes we need to be aware of that maybe the current folks aren't looking at, or...?
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
I would hate to be sitting here in four years going through 18 sessions with Shared Services again, as much as I'm enjoying everyone.
As an Individual
I think that one of the additional learnings that Liseanne referred to was around enterprise planning. There's a recognition right now in the government that for this part of the equation, if SSC was really focused on the supply side of this equation, the demand side had to be worked through. There is a committee now of deputies and ADMs across the government that is looking at how to plan IT differently and much smarter than in the past. It takes those two parts to make a whole. I think that's a big gain that we didn't have at the time when SSC was created.
I think we mentioned the data side.
The other piece I would say is that from the very beginning, whenever we interacted with any jurisdiction or companies, the notion of harvesting benefits before transformations were complete was always put forward as a warning signal. The reason, of course, was that those savings generally are there to actually feed and help transformation; otherwise you have to find the resources from outside of the savings in order to transform, and that makes it very difficult. I think that's another powerful learning about which certainly SSC seems to be on the right track.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
Thank you very much, Mr. Long.
Mr. Ayoub, you have five minutes please.
Liberal
Ramez Ayoub Liberal Thérèse-De Blainville, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I would like to thank the witnesses for being here today.
Since I have just five minutes, I will move along quickly.
If I can provide some basic context, we are judging some of the work you did over the past four or five years. We have an auditor general's report and witnesses have already appeared in this regard. For our part, I hope our objective is to find solutions in order to make improvements and not to lay any blame.
You have already provided some context and I will not go over the same problems. I would like to know if the problems pertain to the business plan. You also spoke about human relations. When people are grouped together, you can try to reassure them, but I'm not sure if it is very helpful. People are smart and no doubt some of them realize over time that their jobs are threatened. I have witnessed this in many other organizations. That's what happens when services are reorganized.
Mr. Westcott spoke to us about this briefly, but I'd like to know the three main things that should be avoided and what we should do to achieve the expected savings?
As an Individual
I will start and perhaps my colleagues would like to add to my answer.
The exercise is always very valuable, to the extent that there are benefits over and above the financial ones.
Human resources are very important. We inherited staff who were able to maintain the current systems but who had not been trained in transformation. If I had known then what I learned later on, I would have launched a staff recruitment program much earlier, in 2012. We could have brought in people who could have provided more support with respect to transformation and new methods. We looked a lot to the way things were done in the private sector.
We did not have human resources data or systems. It took us a year and a half to identify the staff we had and to get job descriptions. The system in government to make this kind of change is complicated, but once it is in place, we can continue. There is no doubt that human resources are important.
I will now give the floor to Mr. Long.
As an Individual
There is an approach that could be taken so as not to repeat the same mistakes.
The basic mandate of Shared Services Canada was threefold: service improvement; cost savings; and security. From the outset, we learned, with the departments, that the security aspect and the tremendous benefits of centralizing certain functions would enable the government to operate as never before. That must be part of a balance and of constantly evolving plans. IT is a very robust sector that evolves quickly. These three aspects must be in balance. You cannot focus on just one aspect; you must focus on all three because they are always in balance. Mr. Westcott mentioned this. It is an ongoing strategic decision for management. You have to make investments and know how to use them to substantially improve services, services or security. You have to bear that in mind at all times.
Liberal
Ramez Ayoub Liberal Thérèse-De Blainville, QC
I have to interrupt as time is passing.
Is there something that could be done midway in the process in order to determine that the objectives will not be reached, whether savings, restructuring or layoffs? Do you have a plan with guidelines that would show that another six months or a year would be needed to make the changes? You must have realized over time that you were perhaps not going in the direction you had wanted.
Conservative
As an Individual
That is why, in the fall of 2014, we wanted to review the whole transformation plan and all the hypotheses we had made to see what changes were necessary. Then we made some changes. From what I have read of other witness testimony, that will happen again in 2016, and that's normal. In fact, that's what everyone was telling us, that we would have to adjust our plan as time went on. That is how we saw the implementation difficulties in terms of deadlines and how we tried to make course corrections.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
Thank you.
Colleagues, before we continue, I'd just ask to have your collective opinion, a consensus if possible from the committee.
We've had our witnesses before us now for about 40 minutes. Would you like to continue with two more five-minute rounds with these witnesses and then go to Mr. Nicholl, or would you like to have Mr. Nicholl up now for approximately 40 to 45 minutes?
Having said that, I would like about five minutes of committee time before we adjourn at 5 p.m.
Liberal
Conservative
Steven Blaney Conservative Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC
We'd like another round with our witness.
Conservative
Liberal
Liberal
Francis Drouin Liberal Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON
If they want to ask a question for five minutes so we respect the time, we can have half an hour with Mr. Nicholl afterwards.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
That's fine. We'll have one more five-minute round.
Mr. McCauley.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Five minutes was mentioned, and again, I know it's difficult because we've passed it on to Mr. Parker, who has had the unfortunate experience of being before us a few times.
Without stepping on his toes or judging what he's doing, can you say from the outside, now that you've stepped away, what a couple of priorities would be that as a committee or as a government we have to keep our eye on so that we're providing the proper support for Shared Services, but also so they perhaps don't go off target.
As an Individual
Thank you. I'll be brief and let my colleagues give this a shot as well.
I would just say, in thinking of this ahead of time, actually, my best advice to Ron and to the government and the support they can provide him is not to lose sight of the tremendous prize that's at the end of this, and not to get scared off by it. There have been delays, but you know what? Compared to what some of you may think of in terms of IT issues that have really gone wrong.... Time is an enemy, and I'll say that, so we need to catch up with that, but otherwise—
