Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, thank you very much for the invitation to brief you today on the Department of National Defence's response to the Auditor General's October 2007 audit of security and contracting.
As you know, my name is Scott Stevenson and I'm the acting assistant deputy minister for infrastructure and environment. I'm joined today by Major-General Glynne Hines, the chief of staff of the information management group at National Defence, and our departmental security officer, Lieutenant Colonel Dave Shuster.
As you know, the audit contained two recommendations directed at National Defence. The first recommendation involved ensuring that our industrial security policies and procedures are up to date and complete and that they accurately reflect our roles and responsibilities under government security policy.
The second recommendation states that we should establish an integrated framework for managing industrial security on defence projects.
In the time given me today, I would like to give you an outline of the measures that have already been adopted by National Defence to follow up on those two points.
We have already drafted a new industrial security chapter for our departmental security manual. At the same time, our departmental security officer is working with stakeholders within the department and other government departments to ensure that our adjustable security policy and procedures are consistent with government security policy.
Mr. Chairman, this will help to address any current misconceptions or ambiguities on the part of project authorities.
We have also reviewed our procurement administration manual, which details our departmental procurement procedures. The responsibility of procurement and contracting authorities to identify security requirements in any procurement activity has been explicitly defined. These changes will also be reflected in our project approval guide.
To ensure coherence within the department, we have established a working group, co-chaired by senior managers responsible for material acquisition and construction, to ensure that our procurement policies and procedures are both workable and consistent with government security policy.
In order to improve security awareness at all levels, we are developing a new unit security supervisor course, which will include an industrial security module. The information contained in this module will be widely communicated across the department, which will further mitigate any potential misunderstanding or misapplication of the departmental security policy and the procedures relating to the contracting process.
The department has initiated staffing action to improve oversight and compliance with our industrial security program. The additional manpower will permit us to implement a regular verification program, and we are also investigating improvements to our information systems in order to enhance oversight.
Finally, we are working with Defence Construction Canada, which acts as the contracting authority for the majority of defence construction projects, in order to develop an integrated framework to ensure that security requirements are met during all phases of the contractual process.
I have just outlined a number of specific actions the department has undertaken or will undertake to address the concerns raised by the audit. I can assure you that the Department of National Defence is committed to ensuring that sensitive information and assets entrusted to industry through contracting are properly safeguarded. As a result of the Auditor General's report, the Department of National Defence is making significant improvements to our security provisions.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.