Public Accounts Committee on June 18th, 2007

[A voice]

No.

[Steven Poole]

No? I'm sorry.

[Jim Alexander, Deputy Chief Information Officer, Chief Information Officer Branch, Treasury Board Secretariat]

Mr. Chair, the expenditure management information system, the business case on that, was updated and was submitted to Treasury Board Secretariat and to Treasury Board ministers as well.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

How long ago?

[Jim Alexander]

That was this last fall. I don't have the exact date here.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Just this past fall, okay.

On page two, one of the observations you made, Madam Fraser, is that “Only two of the seven projects we looked at: the 2006 Census Online and My Account, My Business Account projects met all of our audit criteria.”

So I guess one of the questions I'd like to ask Mr. Poole—and I think this is probably going to be my last question—is what worked for those two projects, and what do we need to do to fix the other ones to make sure that they get the good rating, as these two did, with the Auditor General?

[Ken Cochrane]

Mr. Poole is really here to answer questions on the secure channel.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Okay.

[Ken Cochrane]

Those two projects have been, as you know, very successful. There are perhaps some differences between those two projects, which are very targeted. You're talking about the census and “My Account”. They are very targeted, very specific automations of work in a very specific area. I wouldn't say they're narrow, but they're more narrow than if you look at the secure channel, which is a very broad, complex, cross-governmental initiative that requires a different level of overall management.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Brian Fitzpatrick]

Mr. Christopherson.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you very much, Chair.

Thank you, and my apologies also for the first hour and a half, but democracy can be messy.

I want to deal with the issue of the business cases, similar to my colleague.

Paragraph 3.62 in the Auditor General's report states:

The business case is the foundation of every sound investment decision. For IT projects, the business case explains the rationale for the project and the project results that are needed to meet an organization's business needs.

Paragraph 3.22, on page 7, says:

In our previous audits we made recommendations about strengthening governance, business case analyses, project management, and assessments of organizational capacity. The EMF was developed to address these recommendations. Our current audit found that many problems, which our previous reports called attention to, persist because departments and agencies are not following the EMF.

And that, of course, was the result of a previous criticism that was meant to solve it, and then we find out that nobody's following it and that problem persists.

I note—and I'll throw it to whoever feels comfortable or gets the short end of the stick in answer—that in 1995 this came up, “inadequate analysis of underlying business issues”. It came up again in 1998. Paragraph 3.19 of the document says:

Since 1998, the Secretariat has produced little additional guidance on the management of large IT systems.

Let me just caution whoever is going to answer this, I understand all the things that you're going to do and the promises you're making. The answer I want is to know how we got to this point that we could go audit after audit with the same issue being pointed out as a problem, and it still remains a problem today.

Assuming that it gets fixed from this point forward—and that remains to be seen as we get into it more—I want to know how you could have ignored repeated audits that came up with the same conclusion, pointed out the same problem causing the same issues, and here we are again and it's still there. Why?

[Ken Cochrane]

Thank you.

When you look at the enhanced management framework, it is a series of best practices that have been defined. They were first defined in 1995, as you've outlined, and made available to all departments.

In reality, many departments do follow the practices. There are elements when we look at the report of the Auditor General, such as the business cases, where business cases aren't developed as effectively as they should be.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Why?

[Ken Cochrane]

From our perspective, we would agree that it has been an issue that has been a challenge, and the process that we're—

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I'm sorry to interrupt, but hat's not good enough. I want to know why. It's not like this just happened and you're going to say “Hey, sorry about that; that's a mistake.”

These are the things that incense us to no end, when we have repeated audits and the same thing is pointed out, and every time the staff say “Oh, yes, fine, we'll look after it,” and then here we are again, there's another audit and still a problem.

I'm not hearing a sufficient answer as to how we got here, sir.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Brian Fitzpatrick]

That's your three minutes, Mr. Christopherson. I'll let Mr. Cochrane reply to that.

[Ken Cochrane]

Thank you.

The real challenge here, probably, at the end of the day, is the measurement of whether or not departments are following the guidelines, and that's something we are being very focused on through the management accountability framework. So I'll focus on that as a tool that we use with departments to confirm that they're following the policies and the management practices of the Government of Canada.

If you're familiar with the management accountability framework, it does have an indicator that focuses very specifically on project management, and business cases are a key component in overall project management. So that's a tool we will use going forward, that we have been using and we will be using more rigorously going forward, with much tighter policies, to confirm that departments are following the practice.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Brian Fitzpatrick]

Madam Fraser, do you have a comment on this matter?

[Sheila Fraser]

I was just going to add that we noted, for example, on the secure channel project that the Treasury Board made five requests for a long-term sustainability plan, and even when it didn't get them, the funding still came. I think it's one of these things where the projects start, there's money in them, and it's hard to stop them. So unless there's a consequence to not giving complete business plans, people will continue to give incomplete business plans.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Brian Fitzpatrick]

Thank you very much.

We've run out of time—

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

Chair, on a point of order, I just want to put forward a motion that we extend until 6:30. If members don't want to, that's fine; they can vote against the motion. But I believe we should go until 6:30. We wasted a lot of time at the front end.

I put that motion forward. It's a votable motion, and I also ask for a recorded vote.

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Brian Fitzpatrick]

We have a motion to extend the meeting.

[Jean-Yves Laforest, Bloc, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

I would like to propose a friendly amendment, namely that we sit until 6 p.m.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

I put forward a motion for 6:30. It's not debatable. Just go to the vote.