HomeMy WebLinkAboutHuron Expositor, 2016-11-23, Page 5Wednesday, November 23, 2016 • Huron Expositor 5
Shared Services fiasco reveals federal sprawl
Shared Services
Canada was sup-
posed to do the
following: Collapse 63
email systems into one;
decommission more
than 500 data centres,
replacing them with a
mere handful; upgrade
50 telecommunications
centres connecting
3,500 federal buildings.
And do this with staff
pulled from 43 different
departments, running
14,000 software
applications.
What could possibly
go wrong?
In a special
report, Ottawa Citi-
zen journalist James
Bagnall has offered a
meticulous examination
of exactly what did, from
the time Shared Services
appointed its first presi-
dent in 2011 to the pre-
sent day, as it staggers
under project delays,
financial challenges and
general mistrust across
government. As signifi-
cant as the Phoenix pay
system scandal is, the
Shared Services chal-
lenge dwarfs it.
As Bagnall points out,
several concrete prob-
lems have undermined
the task of Shared
Services:
• It was born in
secrecy — through an
administrative services
review conducted on the
QT by the Privy Council
Office. From the start,
people who could have
offered additional depth
and expertise were
shaded out.
• As a result, many
experts feel the initial
business case was
flawed or incomplete.
• It was overly ambi-
tious, conceived as the
ultimate miracle fix to
decades of neglect of IT
infrastructure by suc-
cessive governments.
Aside from hardware
issues, some software
applications were so
old, suppliers had
stopped supporting
them.
• Government
departments lacked the
expertise to carry out
the complex changes
planned, and in fact
many transferred only
second-tier IT staffers
over to Shared Services,
keeping their best peo-
ple in-house.
• The government put
the cart before the
horse on savings: trying
to claw back chunks of
the Shared Services
budget when it
imposed austerity
across government.
Shared Services had
hoped any savings it
made would be plowed
back into IT renewal.
• Contracting out of
the email consolidation
relied too heavily on
price point and per-
haps not enough on the
ability of bidders to
execute the plan.
These key findings
should help as Shared
Services presents its
revised plans to cabinet
soon. But we need to
confront what this
fiasco reveals about
government sprawl.
We can conceive of
the size of government
through budgets, defi-
cits and size of work-
force, of course. But
consider this little nug-
get, courtesy of com-
mittee testimony on
Shared Services: PCO
struggled to figure out
how many federal data
centres even existed.
"We thought there
might be about 200;'
one senior official testi-
fied. 'After a year, we
had counted 495, and I
am still discovering
others today."
In other words, the
government itself had
lost track of how all-
encompassing its ten-
tacles are. Therein lies
the real problem.
Words are powerful, choose them wisely
U.S. President
Barack Obama
demonstrated
enormous grace and
restraint when he met
with president-elect
Donald Trump at the
White House, but
Obama's healing
words haven't been
the intended balm in
the aftermath of the
American election, as
demonstrations and
protests continue in
the United States.
The problem is not
the words of the pres-
ident, but the words
spoken by the presi-
dent-elect during a
bombastic and incen-
diary campaign. Dur-
ing his 17 -month bid
for the Republican
nomination and then
the presidency,
Trump issued threats
and used language
that had overtones of
racism and misogyny,
while belittling some
people and bullying
others.
It was an extraordi-
nary display of
venom that has no
equal in U.S. presi-
dential campaigns.
Trump has been
mostly conciliatory
and verbally subdued
since his election, but
it's difficult to forget
-- and not take seri-
ously -- his pre-elec-
tion behaviour, his
words and his
promises.
Words have great
strength and mean-
ing. Trump used a
destructive flame-
thrower when he
could have held a
torch of understand-
ing. He chose the for-
mer because it was a
means to an end --
the White House --
but that choice has
bequeathed its own
peculiar conse-
quences, and they
include a divided
nation and Ameri-
cans who fear their
new president.
Trump's choice was
unfortunate, but
because it helped
deliver the biggest
prize in America, he
will likely use it again
and, sadly, so will
others in the future.
There is a better
way. Leaders, or those
who aspire to leader-
ship, have in the past
used words to
instruct, to edify, to
calm and to rebuke
(but rarely with a lin-
gering nastiness).
Winston Churchill's
words calmed a
nation; Abraham Lin-
coln's and John Ken-
nedy's provided com-
fort and inspiration,
as did Ronald
Reagan's.
Consider the words
of Robert Kennedy,
uttered with no prepa-
ration on a spring
evening in 1968.
Speaking before an
outdoor rally in Indi-
anapolis on April 4,
the aspirant for the
Democratic presiden-
tial nomination was
seaforthhuronexpositor.com
quietly told by an aide
that Martin Luther
King had been shot
and killed. Nobody
else in the audience of
mostly black residents
knew of the tragedy.
Kennedy rose to the
occasion with a
speech remembered
for its eloquent yet
calm plea for peace,
justice and love, in
the face of violence,
injustice and hatred.
He chose his words
wisely.
There were riots in
many of America's
great cities that night,
but none in Indianap-
olis, and it was partly
because Kennedy
used a torch of
understanding.
Peter Epp
www.seaforthhuronexpositor.com
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