Shared Services Canada launches consultations on plan to modernize federal IT services

The Government of Canada announced on Tuesday that it is launching consultations on “modernizing the digital services it provides to Canadians through secure and reliable information technology.”

Judy M. Foote, the Minister of Public Services and Procurement, announced in a statement that Shared Services Canada (SSC) is launching a consultation to seek feedback from Canadians, federal public servants, client departments and industry on its Information Technology Transformation Plan.

“The plan is a roadmap to modernize the Government of Canada’s IT infrastructure and the way it delivers services to departments and agencies, including for email, data centres, networks and workplace technology services,” the statement said. “Along with other initiatives currently taking place across government to improve the use and management of IT, this consultation will inform the next edition of the IT Transformation Plan.”

Canadians can provide their feedback before Oct. 31 by visiting www.ittransformationconsultation.ca. A summary of the feedback received will be released later this year.

“The Government of Canada is committed to providing better service delivery to Canadians through strong, secure and reliable information technology infrastructure,” Foote said in the statement. “Consulting with Canadians is one of the many ways through which we are developing the IT Transformation Plan. The plan will drive the overall modernization of IT in government, and will help Shared Services Canada ensure the successful delivery of online federal services to Canadians.”

Shared Services Canada’s IT Transformation Plan was put in place in 2013. The federal department is updating the plan to reflect its “commitment to modernizing service delivery to Canadians while also accounting for the evolving IT environment and to ensure its sustainability and alignment with government priorities and the IT sector.”

Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat recently awarded a contract to Gartner Canada Co. to provide advice and recommendations on large-scale IT infrastructure and to conduct an external review of SSC’s plans for legacy IT infrastructure and IT transformation, the statement pointed out. This external review will also provide recommendations on how to deliver better, more modern IT services for the Government of Canada and will complement feedback received from the consultation process.

Last month, the Government of Canada announced that it had selected Fortinet, a high performance cybersecurity solutions company headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif. to secure its information technology infrastructure. Fortinet will collaborate with SSC to “provide highly scalable, consolidated security solutions across the government’s distributed network environments,” including more than 100 government departments and agencies, the company said in a press release on Aug. 18.