SSC’s newest workers are experts in contracting for computers, networking gear and email – and they’ve arrived just in time for an historic transformation of the government’s electronic backbone.
SSC is spearheading the acquisition of government-wide systems for email, data centers and networks. While this could involve the expenditure of hundreds of millions of dollars for the new technology, this promises to be a different kind of procurement — SSC intends to reduce spending so much on operations that it will actually save taxpayers’ money overall.
Heard this before? It wouldn’t be surprising. The idea of saving money by convincing federal departments to standardize on key communications technologies has been around since the late 1980s. Individual ministers resisted previous attempts to force their departments to accept a standard system, out of concern the universal solution might not meet the particular needs of their employees. The result today is that 43 federal departments and agencies operate 63 separate e-mail systems and hundreds of data centres. A small army of tech firms regularly bills the government for services related to making disparate technologies work together, or for tweaks designed to customize communications.
Nearly everyone concerned acknowledges it is a grossly inefficient way to manage IT networks.
Nevertheless, it took the recent passage of the government’s omnibus budget bill to put an end to the resistance by individual departments. Since its formation a year ago, SSC has acquired the computer assets from the main federal departments and agencies, along with 6,700 IT workers and an annual budget of $1.5 billion. The omnibus bill provided SSC with the authority to begin its mandate for real.
SSC, which reports to Public Works Minister Rona Ambrose, intends to kick things off early in the new year by issuing a request for proposals for a government-wide email system. Ambrose expects to award a contract by May. Judging by the letter of intent SSC published last month, Ambrose will sign an initial five-year contract with a possible three-year extension. Separate competitions for consolidating data centers and networks would follow. The new email system is to be in place by March, 2015.
Of course, that’s if everything goes well. The risks are many, starting with the fact the new department has been bolted together in astonishingly quick fashion. It’s far from clear the organization will function smoothly.
There’s also technical risk. While it’s true that government will not be asking suppliers to invent anything, a new email system will have to work with the myriad different networks already in place, at least for awhile. The SSC’s letter of intent makes it clear the government doesn’t want to simply discard billions of dollars’ worth of computer infrastructure, even if it is old.
Considerations such as these led to the hiring of Grant Westcott, the banker and former bureaucrat brought in to run SSC’s operations.
During an eight-year run as executive vice-president of CIBC, Westcott led the project to consolidate 22 data centres and 8,000 servers into just 2 data centres and 6,000 servers. In doing so, the bank invested $100 million in new technology and managed to save $45 million per year in operations.
At the same time, Westcott also blended the bank’s 15 voice-and-data networks into a single voice-over-Internet network. The result was an additional $57 million in annual savings. Since Westcott has previously run computer networks on behalf of Industry Canada and the government of Ontario, he just may have the right background for the job of rewiring the federal government.
Nevertheless, some suppliers are concerned that he and SSC have suddenly acquired a little too much power. For instance, SSC has invoked the national security exemption under Canada’s various trade agreements, which gives it the right to pre-select suppliers who have the appropriate security clearance.
SSC issued a list of the technologies potentially subject to the security exemption, prompting a response from the Canadian Information Technology Providers Association. “This exemption basically allows SSC to procure any IT product and or service even remotely connected to email,” the association noted in a recent letter to Ambrose. “The potential for abuse or misuse is substantial.”
The association is also less-than-comfortable with the shift of contracting employees to SSC from Public Works — not least because it suggests Westcott’s workers will be writing the specifications for new gear, as well as negotiating the contracts.
“In creating their own procurement arm, SSC would circumvent the existing procurement infrastructure.” the association noted in its letter to Ambrose.
Under current government rules, nearly all procurement contracts are negotiated by Public Works. A notable exception is the Canada Revenue Agency, which can do its own contracting — except now for IT projects.
The technology providers’ association represents smaller firms, so is naturally concerned that its interests could be brushed aside in the rush to create a single, national communications system. In procurements such as this — and especially if there is no provision for small business — large suppliers such as Bell, Telus and Rogers, and their potential partners such as Microsoft and Google, have a natural advantage.
Westcott almost certainly would disagree with the notion that Public Works should be involved. After all, at CIBC, his employees managed to write bids and negotiate contracts under the same roof without running into problems.
Having his own procurement team simply gives him one more element of control. After a quarter century of false starts, it’s long past time the federal government got its act together in buying and using communications technology.
Original Article
Source: ottawa citizen
Author: James Bagnall
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