Shared Services Canada: 2022 to 2023 Supplementary Estimates (B): Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates—November 24, 2022
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Shared Services Canada: 2022 to 2023 Supplementary Estimates (B) overview
Shared Services Canada (SSC) is seeking a net increase of $8.5 million (vote 1: $84.1 million; vote 5: ($75.6) million) through Supplementary Estimates (B), increasing its available funding from $2,881.1 million to $2,889.6 million, net of revenues.
The overall increase of $8.5 million is due to: an increase of $18.2 million in new funding for the costs of core information technology (IT) services, offset by a decrease of ($9.7 million) for transfers with other government departments.
New funding: $18.2 million increase
A total of $18.2 million (vote 1) for funding for the costs of providing core information technology services. This funding will be used to support the onboarding of new full-time equivalents (FTE) in the Government of Canada.
Transfers between government departments: ($9.7 million) decrease
An total increase of $0.1 million (vote 1) from the Treasury Board Secretariat (TBS) to support projects, which will reduce greenhouse gas emissions in federal government operations as part of the Greening Government Fund. This funding will support a joint proposal with the TBS Office of the chief information officer that aims to measure and reduce federal greenhouse gas emissions embedded in the Government of Canada’s informational technology infrastructure.
A total decrease of ($7.7 million) (vote 1) to the Department of National Defence (DND) for the continual operation of its static military C2 systems. When SSC was established, these services were included as part of the permanent funding transfer from DND to SSC. It was subsequently determined that these services were outside of SSC’s mandate. As a result, a transfer is being made to DND to support these systems. .
A total decrease of ($1.7 million) (vote 1) to the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) for the Enhanced Passenger Protection Program. This funding is to cover costs related to the new target state solution architecture that will migrate the automated solution to CBSA’s secure Protected B cloud platform.
A total decrease of ($0.3 million) (vote 1) to CBSA for the security screening automation project. This funding will support maintenance related to an asset transferred to CBSA on March 31, 2022.
A total decrease of ($0.1 million) (vote 1) to TBS for the Government of Canada GCpass service. This funding, for 1 FTE, will support TBS’s business function roles and responsibilities for the service.
Internal transfers: Nil impact
A total nil net effect for the realignment of funding from the capital vote (vote 5) to the operating vote (vote 1) of $75.6 million to support the advancement of the mission critical projects, workload migration projects and maintenance costs.
A total nil net effect for the realignment of funding from SSC’s regular operating vote (vote 1) to its special purpose allotment (SPA) of $2.6 million (vote 1) for the secure communications for national leadership (SCNL) initiative. This transfer will ensure all funding related to SCNL remains within its designated SPA.
Vote-netted revenue: Nil impact
A net increase of $74.1 million in operating vote (vote 1) to SSC’s vote-netted revenue (VNR) authority due to the continued increase in demand for IT services, including investments and transformations aligned with Canada’s Digital Government Strategy. This increase is based on the most recent forecasting exercise for fiscal year 2022 to 2023.
Supplementary Estimates (B) narratives
Funding for core information technology services
Supplementary Estimates (B): $18,177,411 in 2020 to 2023
Funding profile
| Fiscal year | 2022 to 2023 |
|---|---|
| Supplementary Estimates (B) | 18.2 |
Summary
Shared Services Canada is seeking access to $18.2 million (vote 1—operating expenditures) in 2022 to 2023 for core information technology services.
Purpose of the funding
This funding is to support the onboarding of new government full-time equivalents with core IT services, including standardized network services, procuring software and hardware for workplace technology devices, as well as providing technology-related services.
SSC's partner organizations must include an amount equal to 4% of new/renewed FTE salary costs to cover certain ongoing IT services costs (for example, mobile device service plans, standard software, email, internet, audioconferencing, etc.).
Background
Budget 2016 required SSC partner organizations to include a request in their funding proposals for an amount to cover a suite of standard SSC services required to support new / renewed FTEs, at a cost of $700 per FTE.
For Budget 2021 proposals and onward, following an assessment of past funding levels and associated costs, the Department of Finance’s direction was modified. SSC’s partner organizations must now include an amount equal to 4% of new/renewed FTE salary costs to cover certain ongoing IT services costs.
The standard suite of services has evolved over time with changing IT technology and as SSC moves to an enterprise suite of services. The change from $700 per FTE to 4% of FTE salary costs was made to provide a more appropriate level of funding aligned to the true cost of providing these services.
Partner organizations include 45 government departments for which SSC is mandated to manage IT-infrastructure services related to email, data centres and telecommunications, including SSC itself.
The process for SSC to access funds that have been centrally withheld is through the annual Supplementary Estimates process. It represents an accumulation of Treasury Board decisions taken throughout the fiscal year for partner organizations which have FTE implications, and also for partner organizations who have specific IT service requests.
Office of primary interest
Samantha Hazen
Chief Financial Officer
Chief Financial Officer Branch
Shared Services Canada
Transfer from the Treasury Board Secretariat to support projects reducing greenhouse gas emissions
Supplementary Estimates (B): $150,000 in 2022 to 2023
Funding profile
| Fiscal year | 2022 to 2023 |
|---|---|
| Supplementary Estimates | 0.1 |
Summary
Transfer from the Treasury Board Secretariat of $0.1 million (vote 1—operating expenditures) to support projects which will reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in federal government operations as part of the Greening Government Fund (GGF).
Purpose of the funding
This funding transfer is to support a joint initiative with TBS—Office of the Chief Information Officer—(OCIO) that aims to measure and reduce federal GHG emissions embedded in the Government of Canada’s (GC) information technology infrastructure.
A key driver for this project is a lack of GC data on the emissions attributed to its IT operations. Currently, data collected by Canada’s GHG emissions inventory is reported at the department-level, which does not disaggregate the sources of the emissions themselves, such as IT. Without a means to generate this data, the GC remains unable to identify the GHG emissions currently associated with its IT and, in turn, reduce GHG emission associated with government operations.
As part of this project, the following steps will be carried out concurrently by TBS‑-OCIO and SSC Enterprise IT Procurement:
- TBS-OCIO: Quantify GHG emissions and environmental impacts of the highest-impact IT categories (data centres, cloud computing, and IT hardware)
- TBS-OCIO and SSC: Quantify GHG emissions associated with IT hardware, data centres, and cloud computing through a full category life-cycle assessment
- TBS-OCIO and SSC: Leverage IT industry best practices and institute mandatory green requirement for GC procurements of IT goods and services
- TBS-OCIO: Implement mandatory GHG reduction targets for GC procurements by holding industry to disclose, report and benchmark environmental performance on high-impact IT categories beginning in fiscal year 2022 to 2023
- SSC: Pilot a circular procurement strategy for IT hardware to assess feasibility and industry / GC readiness of circularity, starting in and, due to the life-cycle of IT, this pilot would extend to approximately fiscal year 2028 to 2029. Pilot specifics would be determined by a study during fiscal year 2022 to 2023
Background
In fiscal year 2017 to 2018, the GGF at TBS was established in recognition of the significant greenhouse gas emissions that result from government air travel as well as to incent lower carbon forms of travel or meetings.
The Centre for Greening Government of TBS issued a call letter to departments for expressions of interest for the GGF inviting eligible departments to submit applications for funding.
The objectives of the GGF are to support and share the results of projects, which will reduce GHG emissions in federal operations. The GGF seeks to fund projects that achieve at least 2 of the following objectives:
- large-scale emissions reductions
- solutions in areas where GHGs are difficult to reduce
- solutions that can be replicated within or across government departments
In fiscal year 2021 to 2022, SSC expressed interest in applying to the GGF. In order to be eligible, SSC made an annual voluntary contribution of $25,000 for the 3 fiscal years 2021 to 2022, 2022 to 2023 and 2023to 2024 to the GGF.
Subsequently, SSC and TBS-OCIO collaborated on a joint submission to the GGF. The submission, “Driving GC’s IT towards a measurable, low-carbon, circular future”, was approved for full funding by the GGF, for a total of $1,252,000 of which $350,000 will be allocated to SSC over 3 fiscal years.
The submission reflects a 3-year project congruent with the GC plan to fight climate change and achieve a net-zero emissions economy by 2050.
Office of primary interest
Robert Ianiro
Assistant Deputy Minister
Enterprise IT Procurement and Corporate Services Branch
Shared Services Canada
Transfer to the Department of National Defence for the continual operation of the static military C2 systems
Supplementary Estimates (B): $ (7,700,000) in 2022 to 2023
Funding profile
| Fiscal year | 2022 to 2023 |
|---|---|
| Supplementary Estimates | (7.7) |
Summary
Transfer to the Department of National Defence from Shared Services Canada of $7.7 million (vote 1—operating expenditures) to return funding to DND related to the static military C2 systems.
Purpose of the funding
This funding will be permanently transferred to DND for the continual operation of DND’s static military command and control (C2) systems. C2 systems are used by the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) to carry out their operations. These systems require common information management/information technology (IM/IT) services like hosting, compute, storage, and networks.
Military operations fall under the National Defence Act and the CAF must retain authoritative control over its command and control services. Funding for these systems was included in the initial funding transfers to SSC. However, it has been determined that these systems are not within SSC’s mandate. This transfer returns this funding to DND on a permanent basis.
Background
When SSC was established in 2011, $7.7 million for the operation of DND’s static military C2 systems was included in the calculation of the permanent funding transfer from DND to SSC.
In September 2011, the static military C2 services were outside the scope of the services that SSC could provide. Therefore, the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat advised DND that an arrangement should be established with SSC to recover $7.7 million for the provision of such services. As such, SSC has been paying $7.7 million to DND annually since 2012 to 2013.
To enhance financial management and planning, both departments have agreed to formalize this transfer through the 2022 to 2023 Supplementary Estimates (B) and permanently through the 2023 2024 annual reference level update (ARLU).
Office of primary interest
Samantha Hazen
Chief Financial Officer
Chief Financial Officer Branch
Shared Services Canada
Transfer to the Canada Border Services Agency to support the Passenger Protection Program
Supplementary Estimates (B): $1,717,374 in 2022 to 2023
Funding profile
| Fiscal year | 2022 to 2023 |
|---|---|
| Supplementary Estimates | 1.7 |
Summary
Transfer to the Canada Border Service Agency from Shared Services Canada of $1.7 million (vote 1—operating expenditures) to cover project costs associated to the new solution architecture for the Passenger Protection Program (PPP).
Purpose of the funding
This funding is to cover PPP costs associated with an additional required project scope, for which CBSA assessed that further funding is required for them to be able to implement the new solution. SSC will therefore transfer $1.7 million from its PPP funding to CBSA to cover their costs related to the new scope.
Background
The PPP project seeks to introduce an automated Canadian no-fly list lookup. The PPP project is a Canadian government initiative to identify individuals who may be an "immediate threat to aviation security" and prevent them from boarding a flight.
Under the current PPP model, the Secure Air Travel Act (SATA) list screening process is performed by air carriers and there is currently no redress system for individuals who have the same or a similar name to an individual on the SATA list.
The enhanced PPP project will enhance national security by bringing the screening of all passenger manifests against the SATA list under government control, leveraging the advanced passenger information tools of CBSA. The enhanced PPP project also seeks to improve fairness for individuals with the same or a similar name to those on the SATA list through an automated redress system.
The scope of the enhanced PPP project has since been updated to include IT enhancements to maintain the high availability of CBSA’s automated board/no-board solution in response to electronic IT outage issues causing operational disruptions that impact the commercial airline industry, airport authority partners, and airline passengers taking international and Canadian domestic flights. The new target state solution architecture will migrate the automated board/no-board solution to CBSA’s secure Protected B cloud platform.
Following a costing review, CBSA has determined that an additional $1.7 million (vote 1—operating expenditures) is required to cover costs associated with completing the project change request for 2022 to 2023.
SSC’s financial position at period 6 indicated a project surplus. This surplus was largely due to the cancellation of the purchase of net new processing power (also known as million instructions per second (MIPS)), as well as the reduced costs for ongoing MIPS. It is from this surplus that SSC is transferring the $1.7 million to support the new scope to CBSA.
Office of primary interest
Louis-Paul Normand
Senior Assistant Deputy Minister
Project Management and Delivery Branch
Shared Services Canada
Transfer to the Canada Border Services Agency for the security screening automation project
Supplementary Estimates (B): $ (307,200) in 2022 to 2023
Funding profile
| Fiscal year | 2022 to 2023 |
|---|---|
| Supplementary Estimates | (0.3) |
Summary
Transfer to the Canada Border Services Agency from Shared Services Canada of $0.3 million (vote 1—operating expenditures) to fund costs associated to the security screening automation (SSA) project.
Purpose of the funding
The transfer of funds is to cover an additional year of maintenance and support related to an asset transferred to CBSA on March 31, 2022. SSC agreed to pay ongoing maintenance until March 31, 2023, and with this transfer, SSC will pay maintenance costs for an additional year, up to March 31, 2024. Ongoing maintenance costs after this date are the responsibility of CBSA.
Background
For fiscal years 2020 to 2021, 2021 to 2022 and 2022 to 2023, SSC received funding for direct costs to support the enhancement of the integrity of Canada’s borders and asylum systems—SSA project. This funding was earmarked and accessed by SSC to cover direct costs in support of this project.
CBSA was to leverage SSC’s procurement vehicle to procure the data communication technology (diodes) for the project. The capital funds for this purchase were provided to SSC. Therefore, the diodes were procured and captured as an SSC asset in 2020 to 2021, but were subsequently transferred to CBSA on March 31, 2022, as they own and operate these types of devices (out-of-scope from an SSC support perspective). Ongoing maintenance has been paid by SSC until March 31, 2023. The funding for an additional year of maintenance will be covered through this transfer.
Office of primary interest
Louis-Paul Normand
Senior Assistant Deputy Minister
Project Management and Delivery Branch
Shared Services Canada
Transfer to the Treasury Board Secretariat to Support the GCpass service
Supplementary Estimates (B): $ (103,304) in 2022 to 2023
Funding profile
| Fiscal year | 2022 to 2023 |
|---|---|
| Supplementary Estimates | (0.1) |
Summary
Transfer to the Treasury Board Secretariat from Shared Services Canada of $0.1 million (vote 1—operating expenditures) to support its business function role for the GCpass service.
Purpose of the funding
This funding transfer to TBS is for 1 full-time equivalent to support its business function role and responsibilities for the GCpass service. This transfer fulfills the agreement made between TBS and SSC during the project planning phase of the internal centralized authentication services (ICAS) project, now referred to as the GCpass service.
Background
GCpass is a new enterprise service delivered by SSC. Once this service is authorized, SSC will recover costs associated with one-time / onboarding activities (for example, application readiness, hardware infrastructure to host applications, assistance to onboard, etc.) from partner departments.
The GCpass service provides Government of Canada-wide standard credentials (such as, employee usernames/passwords) and, for the first time, a centralized, GC-wide authentication broker service resulting in an authentication solution for web-based departmental and enterprise applications in a cloud-hosted environment. The service enables secure access for all GC workers to any internal applications regardless of department, agency, or organization.
The ICAS Project Management Plan (January 2017) indicated the acceptance by both SSC and TBS of TBS’s 1 FTE (information technology—03) in the project cost baseline section. SSC reimbursed TBS via interdepartmental settlements for this cost.
Now that GCpass is in an operational state and has ongoing funding, SSC can now permanently transfer this funding to TBS. This transfer is for the current fiscal year, while future transfers will be done through the 2023 to 2024 annual reference level update.
The funds transfer was formalized through an interdepartmental settlement in 2021 to 2022 and then through the Estimates process in 2022 to 2023 for a permanent transfer of the funds (Supplementary Estimates (B) for 2022 to 2023 and ARLU 2023 to 2024 for ongoing).
Office of primary interest
Patrice Nadeau
Assistant Deputy Minister
Networks and Security Services Branch
Shared Services Canada
Internal reallocation of resources for mission critical projects, workload migration projects and maintenance costs
Supplementary Estimates (B): $75,642,633 in 2022 to 2023
Funding profile
| Fiscal year | 2022 to 2023 |
|---|---|
| Supplementary Estimates | 75.6 |
Summary
Shared Services Canada will reallocate funding by transferring $75.6 million from vote 5 – capital to vote 1 – operating expenditures in 2022 to 2023 in support of the advancement of mission critical projects and other operational requirements.
Purpose of the transfer
This vote transfer will be used to fund operating expenditures related to:
- SSC-led projects, such as workload migration and mission critical
- costs associated with maintaining and operating legacy infrastructure and services
Background
In 2016, SSC’s plan to modernize IT infrastructure services, known as the Government of Canada Information Technology Infrastructure Plan underwent an external review, led by Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat and conducted by Gartner Canada. The scope of the external review was to provide advice on how to organize large-scale IT infrastructure, assess SSC’s management of legacy IT and its plan for transformation/modernization of that infrastructure.
The external review recommendations, coupled with the release of the 2017 updated Government of Canada Strategic Plan for information management and information technology 2017 to 2021, led to requests for funding related to mission-critical projects. The mission critical projects are key investments in services and enterprise priorities to enable digital services for Canadians. They are deemed critical because they are:
- foundational
- such as the establishment of enterprise data centres or the consolidation of the GC wide area network
- capacity enhancing
- such as the enterprise IT service management (ITSM) tool which will provide greater oversight into IT service delivery issues across the GC
- directly implicated in the delivery of services to Canadians
- such as hosted contact centre service transformation, which allows staff at several departments to provide service to Canadians through telephone queries
- risk mitigation projects
- such as cybersecurity and IT security which protect the data Canadians have entrusted in their government
The mission-critical projects that remain active are:
- workplace communication services
- Enterprise Data Centre Borden expansion IT establishment
- GCNet wide area network (WAN) project
- network device authentication
- secure remote access migration
- secure information and event management
- smart phone for classified
- enterprise ITSM tool
- Integrated Enterprise Command Center
As part of the 2022 to 2023 P03 financial review, it was noted that costing refinements through the project gating process (including bulk buys), changes in project timelines and procurement delays related to certain capital-intensive projects resulted in the reduction of capital requirements for the current fiscal year. Additionally, many of the original mission critical projects are nearing completion. Therefore, SSC needs to shift from capital investments to funding the ongoing operations associated with these initiatives, including operating maintenance agreements.
Office of primary interest
Samantha Hazen
Chief Financial Officer
Chief Financial Officer Branch
Shared Services Canada
Realignment of funding from the regular operating vote to the special purpose allotment
Supplementary Estimates (B): Nil effect in 2022 to 2023
Funding profile
| Fiscal year | 2022 to 2023 |
|---|---|
| Supplementary Estimates | Nil |
Summary
Funding realignment from the regular operating vote to the special purpose allotment for the secure mobile communications for national leadership initiative—nil effect. This adjustment is required to ensure funds are correctly reflected under the SCNL SPA.
Purpose of the funding
This funding realignment is to ensure all funding for the SCNL initiative is reflected under its designated SPA. In fiscal year 2021 to 2022, a reprofile was approved for SCNL. This decision resulted in funds being moved from fiscal year 2020 to 2021 to 2022 to 2023. SSC’s 2022 to 2023 Main Estimates reflected this amount, but in the regular operating vote. This transfer will enable SSC to realign this funding to ensure SCNL funds are kept within its designated SPA.
Background
As part of their day-to-day activities, Canada’s national leaders require the ability to securely connect and communicate on subject matters classified as Secret in a wide variety of locations and circumstances.
The information technology responses to COVID-19 restrictions, including recent investments in secure mobile technologies, have highlighted the need for additional investments in technology as well as the benefits of a streamlined and consistent support model for cabinet ministers.
Led by the Privy Council Office in partnership with the Communications Security Establishment and SSC, the SCNL initiative, approved in June 2018, enables a modern and secure means of communications for ministers and senior officials classified up to Secret.
Office of primary interest
Samantha Hazen
Chief Financial Officer
Chief Financial Officer Branch
Shared Services Canada
Nil impact: Vote-netted revenue
Supplementary Estimates: $74,092,688 in 2022 to 2023
Funding profile
| Fiscal year | 2022 à 2023 |
|---|---|
| Supplementary Estimates | 74.1 |
Summary
Shared Services Canada is seeking an increase of its vote-netted revenue (VNR) authority of $74.1 million (vote 1—operating expenditures).
Purpose of the funding
SSC provides Information Technology infrastructure services to its customers. Through the Shared Services Canada Act, SSC is allowed to charge for services provided and is able to re-spend revenues collected to offset expenditures arising from their provision in the same fiscal year.
The net increase in VNR authority is due to the continued increase in demand for IT services, including investments and transformations aligned with Canada’s Digital Government Strategy. The increase will enable SSC to meet that demand and use the revenue collected to offset its related costs.
Background
The vote netted authority for SSC’s services is established through specific vote wording in the annual appropriations acts, commonly referred to as “Supply Bills”. Sub-section 29.1 of the Financial Administration Act enables SSC to generate revenue for its services and the vote netted authority enables SSC to re-spend the revenue received to offset the incremental costs incurred in the provision of services to partner departments.
The initial SSC vote netted authority of $368.2 million was established in fiscal year 2012 to 2013, after the creation of SSC in August 2011, and with Treasury Board and parliamentary approval.
The Main Estimates VNR authority of $787.1 million ($717.1 million in vote 1—operating and $70.0 million in vote 5—capital) in fiscal year 2022 to 2023 includes adjustments based on historical trends, reflecting increased demand from partner departments for IT investments and transformations in support of Canada’s Digital Government Strategy.
Office of primary interest
Samantha Hazen
Chief Financial Officer
Chief Financial Officer Branch
Shared Services Canada
Document navigation for "Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates: November 24, 2022"
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