Government Operations committee  This includes laptop computers, that sort of device. Up till now, we had not rationalized the management of these devices and we have changed nothing with regard to their support.

Government Operations committee  Yes, but the management of these devices is currently the departments' responsibility. Shared Services Canada is not responsible for their management. We provide equipment and make purchases for the departments. The departments really decide what they need among available devices.

Government Operations committee  I would say the biggest impact has been on the transformation plan itself. The amount of spending that has occurred over the period of time versus what was planned has been less. Most of the impact has come on that side. In terms of clients, it hasn't shown up in pricing to them because we established a threshold of service, we're providing that threshold level of service to them, and we're looking to recover for services over and above that threshold.

Government Operations committee  Absolutely.

Government Operations committee  It has affected customer service satisfaction levels, but I don't think the finances are the main issue there.

Government Operations committee  It isn't done solely to minimize costs. We're working closely with industry associations. We have an IT infrastructure round table that we get together with regularly and go through our procurement processes. It's a very collaborative process. We bring our plans to them as early as we can and look to them to provide us with the intelligence and the market savvy that we need to address the market and come into it the right way.

Government Operations committee  I suggest you visit one of the old data centres and one of the new ones.

Government Operations committee  There will be 5 to 7 data centres.

Government Operations committee  Three of them have been established.

Government Operations committee  We have a better grasp of the current situation. As for lessons learned, I will say that if we had proceeded otherwise in the beginning, things would have been different.

Government Operations committee  The plan will be ready. We have to discuss it with the minister and perhaps with the cabinet. I am not sure what I can say at this point, Mr. Blaney.

Government Operations committee  In terms of the $56 million, that has arisen because the email project hasn't gone as quickly as was planned. The $56 million was removed from our reference levels without achieving the savings. That meant we've had to reprioritize activities within the department across the transformation projects themselves, and reduce the scale of the transformation projects, or the amount of expenditure we make on operations.

Government Operations committee  There are more than 500 data centres and we think that ultimately there will be from 5 to 7.

Government Operations committee  I think the project will be a success. We have launched initiatives and they are being implemented. It is difficult to say exactly when all of the data centres will be closed, and as I mentioned, we are preparing the staffing plan. We need to assess the workload carefully if we want to reach our goal.

Government Operations committee  There are two things. First, the transfer of resources took into account, to some extent, the added responsibilities. We've also seen significant growth in demand. For instance, storage growth is growing at something like 50% a year.