Government Operations committee  Studying the location of future data centres was not part of our mandate.

Government Operations committee  No. That was not part of our mandate.

Government Operations committee  We believe that a balanced approach is important. There are a lot of good examples of very competent delivery within the Government of Canada. Our recommendation is that you should leverage those areas. There is also a significant trend in the private sector in this space. I mentioned that earlier.

Government Operations committee  The indirect benefits of consolidation and standardization have not been included as one of the benefits in the report, but we anticipate that as you standardize across government, the service levels will be harmonized and you will be able to deliver a consistent quality, which will have spill-over impacts on the performance of other users of these systems.

Government Operations committee  Certainly that would be nice to have, but we have no data from that kind of analysis.

Government Operations committee  To me, on the human resources, a significant portion of the IT spent.... Of the roughly $822 million spent on IT that we highlight there, almost half is human resources. Just under—

Government Operations committee  Our mandate was not to comment on the skills of the IT professionals within the Government of Canada. What we will say, though, is that the structure that is in place, this federated model that's in place, has resulted in performance ratios, and we do quote that in one of the pages here.

Government Operations committee  No. One of our recommendations, and one of the critical success factors in this journey, is to have a human resources plan. We clearly recommend that as one the next steps.

Government Operations committee  I don't understand your question.

Government Operations committee  Again, we were not engaged to comment on the competency of IT professionals in the Government of Canada. We acknowledge that human resources are a critical component of IT service delivery, and that any time you make a transformational program or take up this type of journey, it's critical that you involve those folks who are affected by it.

Government Operations committee  We were very careful to ensure that what you're describing as expertise, architecture, or key decision-making types of functions remain within the Government of Canada. That was one of the requirements given to us, so when we did the analysis, that 54%, as mentioned earlier, really includes the commoditization on utilities that is potentially available in the marketplace.

Government Operations committee  The other thing that I just want to point out is that the 54% you're talking about is a potential end state somewhere into the future. You're going to get there very slowly. There are going to be some bundles that are 5% or 10%. I think one of the members here mentioned email as a service that potentially they might want to look at.

Government Operations committee  Sure, and that's one of your requirements, so as you design the actual architecture for a data centre and you enter into this journey of consolidating facilities, you will end up there, because that's one of the conditions you're using in doing it.

Government Operations committee  One of the key benefits is to actually deliver on the requirements that we gathered when we engaged in January 2010. We gathered these through interviews and surveys with many stakeholders in the Government of Canada and we came up with 65 requirements. We've categorized them into 11 categories, which you see in that report.

Government Operations committee  Well, the benefits are going to be realized when it's executed successfully. Let me put it that way. Our report is directional, and it's on paper. Our five case studies and many other examples all speak to realizing benefits through a successful execution and not repeating some of the mistakes that others have provided before.