Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, I'd be happy to provide that background. The vast majority of our staff are technical experts in the CS category, which is the computer sciences category in the government. There's a wide variety of skill sets ranging from data centres to telephony to networks. They

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, Shared Services Canada always understood that there would be a challenge and risks around capturing savings before they actually materialized. It poses a challenge in terms of the email transformation, for example: $50 million was taken from the reference levels of Sha

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, I was not in the department at the time, so I was not party to the conversations.

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, as Mr. Glowacki noted, we have what I'd say is a very hybrid model between the provision of services by private sector companies and from within Shared Services Canada. Our sourcing strategy is to look at this type of issue on a case-by-case basis to assess the busines

Public Accounts committee  In terms of the email system, the requirements for the system were developed by public servants in co-operation with private industry. Security requirements are determined by the Government of Canada. More broadly, in terms of the services we're providing, you have the networks

Public Accounts committee  Finally, on turnover, we have a suite of data that compares our turnover to that of the broader public service. I believe the most recent data is for 2013-14. At that time, our turnover was somewhat less than the public service average, so based on the evidence to date, I think w

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, in the contracts, for example, there are service level targets that are embedded in the contracts, so the vendors have incentives to perform. We require them to perform as per the contracts that we've established.

Public Accounts committee  There are examples of other countries, perhaps not on the scale that Canada is attempting. There are also examples at the state level in the United States where this type of exercise or project has been launched—

Public Accounts committee  First of all, I would like to say that it is essential to create an enterprise-level service when it comes to government computer services. As for changing or adjusting the plan, should we delay one part in order to move another forward? This is something we are looking at close

Public Accounts committee  We are behind in delivering email systems. That was supposed to be completed in March 2015. As we just discussed, we do not have a specific end date for this project. As for the data centres, perhaps it's better to say that we are at least 18 months behind. For the network cons

Public Accounts committee  There are delays with this project.

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, it has meant that we've had to reprioritize, invest less in different projects, and I think the data shows that to the largest extent, it's contributed to a slower rollout of the transformation initiatives themselves. That's one of the reasons there are delays. The inv

Public Accounts committee  Absolutely. Mr. Chair, I'm going to ask Madame Fillion to talk to that question. It's her area of expertise.

Public Accounts committee  Manon, do you remember?

Public Accounts committee  Chair, just to clarify in regard to the earlier member's comment, we cannot speculate about whether or not there was anything other than the business case behind this $50-million reduction. In response to the member's comment about taking responsibility for the miss in savings,