Grant Westcott said as part of consolidating the IT operations of 43 government departments, Shared Services Canada will inherit "a whole series of contractual arrangements."
"We know already that there is a wide variance in pricing - by consolidating them together, we can then go to the lowest price by the aggregation of the contractual obligation and thereby reach savings that way," he said.
Mr. Westcott made the remarks while appeared before the House of Commons committee on government operations and estimates, along with SSC president Liseanne Forand and Public Works Minister Rona Ambrose. He was explaining how the department will generate short-term savings as it works to consolidate and modernize the bureaucracy's IT portfolio.
The agency also plans to overhaul the government's telephone systems, Mr. Westcott said, adding that by upgrading to Voice-over-Internet-protocol phones, the government can cut its expenses for each phone by 50 per cent.
Although SSC is a new government agency, Ms. Ambrose said that it will be required to find cost savings of five and 10 per cent, like other government departments.
Other areas of focus for the agency include the consolidation of approximately 100 e-mails systems into one, and reducing the number of data centres from 300 to less than 20. Those initiatives are expected to cost $375 million, Mr. Westcott said.
The presentation before the committee was the first detailed glance at the consolidation project. Prior to Thursday, SSC and other government officials had made no public mention of the cost and process of the modernization.
Ms. Ambrose said the department will engage in public-private partnerships where appropriate, but did not elaborate.
"We are not only looking for expertise within the public service, but also meeting with the (small and medium-sized enterprises), and the (information and communications technology) sector," she said.
SSC was given the mandate to consolidate e-mail services, data centres and IT networks, and took responsibility for the infrastructure in mid-November.
---
Autor(en)/Author(s): Greg Markey
Quelle/Source: Ottawa Business Journal, 09.12.2011
Bitte besuchen Sie/Please visit:
