Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
As chief information officer, I am responsible for the IT strategies and plans for the Canada Revenue Agency and the maintenance and development of all national infrastructure and applications in support of CRA's program delivery in its various lines of business. This role includes risk management with regard to the sustainability of infrastructure and applications as raised in chapter 1 of the Auditor General's spring 2010 report, in which the CRA's personal tax and benefit systems were reviewed.
The CRA data centres are the largest in the Government of Canada, hosting more than 450 applications, processing 4.5 million transactions per hour, and managing almost 6,000 terabytes of data storage. They also host all Canada Border Services Agency's infrastructure.
The CRA has an excellent track record for executing large re-engineering projects to ensure long-term sustainability: for example, in 2000, the implementation of the corporate tax redesign for $180 million over five years; in 2003, implementation of the other levies system to replace the old excise commercial system, $20 million over two years; and in 2007, implementation of the redesigned GST/HST system, which cost $200 million over five years. These re-engineering projects were undertaken to address the technical sustainability of these solutions as well as to modernize financial controls and improve services through enhanced functionality.
The personal tax and benefit systems reviewed in this audit were developed in the 1980s and 1990s respectively. They form the largest suite of applications in the CRA, comprised of 31 million lines of code that undergo hundreds of system changes every year in response to legislative changes and service improvements.
CRA is vigilant in keeping these systems running and makes every effort to ensure that quality services are available for Canadians to file their taxes and receive benefits. Re-engineering these systems is in the planning phase and will take a significant investment and several years to complete. We are currently engaged in discussions with central agencies regarding funding to initiate this work.
To monitor and plan for infrastructure sustainability, the CRA creates an annual asset management plan for each technology platform, managing within the custodial budget allocated for infrastructure maintenance. In addition, an annual information technology infrastructure investment plan is tabled to the chief financial officer of the agency, identifying longer-term financial pressures that do not fit within the custodial budget over a 10-year planning window for inclusion in the priority setting of the agency strategic investment plan.
For application sustainability, we conduct an annual review of the sustainability status of each application from the perspective of system architecture, maintainability of operations, and business needs. The priority setting that is the outcome from this process then drives sustainability fund allocation within our application sustainability plan.
The CRA thanks the Auditor General for her report and findings.
And I thank you, Mr. Chair, for providing the opportunity to appear here today and to answer any questions the committee members may have.