Thank you.
Good morning, Mr. Chair and members of the committee.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak to Public Services and Procurement Canada's outsourcing procedures in my role as associate assistant deputy minister of procurement.
I am joined today by my colleagues. Kim Steele is PSPC's assistant deputy minister of digital services and chief information officer, and Ron Cormier is director general, business and technology solutions sector.
As you are aware, Public Services and Procurement Canada, or PSPC, procures goods and services on behalf of departments and agencies throughout government. These procurements range from office supplies to military equipment and everything in between. The department buys, on behalf of other federal organizations, some 24 billion dollars' worth of goods, services and construction each year from nearly 10,000 suppliers.
Public Services and Procurement Canada works in conjunction with Shared Services Canada to procure information technology services for departments and agencies that offer digital services to Canadians, and we do this in the context of the laws, regulations, policies and directives that govern procurement; including those set by our Treasury Board Secretariat colleagues.
As with all of our contracting actions, Public Services and Procurement Canada seeks to enhance access, competition and fairness in a way that aims for the best value to the Crown and the Canadian people.
The department’s procurement processes are implemented with the goal of accountability and integrity, and there are checks and balances in place to ensure government contracting withstands the highest scrutiny.
Additionally, every effort is made to make sure that our processes are open and fair to bidders.
That scrutiny extends to contracting out for services, including professional services and information technology services. The decision to make-or-buy, which is often referred to as outsourcing, is made by our clients, and can be done for several reasons. They include accessing specialized skills or knowledge that may not exist in departments, including skill shortages in information technology areas of expertise, which are in high demand across the government and the private sector.
These services may also be contracted out if there is a need to transfer knowledge that is not available within the public service, or to provide surge short term capacity that cannot be met with the human resources in place in departments.
Before IT services are contracted out, the client departments are responsible for making all reasonable efforts to use existing or new employees of the public service. They are, therefore, responsible for making the make-or-buy decisions. Once they have made that decision, we manage the procurement process.
In doing so, PSPC has mechanisms in place to ensure that cost estimates and contract values reflect actual expenditures. For example, for task-based contracts, such as the contracting of human resources, expenditures are tracked against submitted time sheets, which the clients review to ensure that the hours worked are accurate and reflect the work completed. For solution-based requirements, such as conducting studies and producing advisory reports, contracts are often based on firm prices, and competition establishes pricing and provides the assurance of value for money.
I should note that small to medium enterprises make up the vast majority of Canadian suppliers that receive government contracts, approximately 88%. Along with the department's work to ensure that small and medium enterprises are engaged in federal procurement, PSPC procurement specialists are leveraging the government's buying power to support social and economic goals. This includes helping to generate jobs and growth and to increase the participation of under-represented groups. For example, to help the government meet the target of awarding 5% of federal contracts to indigenous businesses, procurement specialists may choose to restrict their supplier search to only those suppliers who have identified as indigenous. This is in line with the procurement strategy for indigenous businesses.
PSPC is also developing a supplier diversity program, which is a core component of the supplier diversity action plan announced by the government in January of this year. I know that these topics will be explored by this committee at upcoming meetings.
To conclude, I would like to emphasize that PSPC remains committed to ensuring that our procurement processes are open, fair and transparent. This extends to contracts for human resources and IT services. In the end, this will ensure the best outcomes and best value for Canadians.
Thank you.