The purpose of this departmental overview presentation is to:
Describe Shared Services Canada and the role of the Minister responsible for
Shared Services Canada.
Outline the department’s priorities, structure, and regional distribution.
Shared Services Canada at a Glance
Shared Services Canada has a mandate to modernize and consolidate the federal government’s information technology
infrastructure, including email, data centres, network and end‐user devices.
Text description – Clients and partners
59 Optional Clients
45 Partner Departments/ Agencies
43 Mandatory Clients
Services
Shared Services Canada provides a full range of shared information management and information technology
services to 45 mandated partner departments/agencies (including Shared Services Canada itself), and a subset
of those services to all other customer Government of Canada departments and agencies
Shared Services Canada supports information management and information technology security in partnership
with Communications Security Establishment Canada, including the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security, and
other partners.
Shared Services Canada supports a disparate portfolio and is working to reduce/consolidate the number of systems
50 Networks
21 Email Systems
385 Data Centres
12, 000 Government of Canada Applications
SSC and the Development of the GC IT Portfolio
2011
SSC was created to integrate the GC IT infrastructure and some IT support services (email, telecommunications).
SSC took over an aging patchwork of IT systems and networks that were created independently of each other and lacked interoperability.
Early work involved consolidating and maintaining the newly designated SSC IT infrastructure.
Once that was done the Department prioritized improving service delivery.
2019
GC supported significant investments in digital services under the strategic direction of SSC 3.0 – an Enterprise model.
SSC has made progress repairing and replacing critical hardware infrastructure, including:
decommissioning costly legacy data centres.
Implementing modern cross-government information technology solutions.
Progress to support departments to modernize their applications has been slower.
COVID-19 Response
COVID-19 highlighted the critical role of SSC in the delivery of federal services. The pandemic accelerated SSC 3.0 rollout which resulted in:
Network and Security upgrades leading to new services
Migration to Cloud-based hosting solutions to ensure capacity and reliability
Onboarding departments to MS Teams and a general standardization of Enterprise Applications across GC.
Improving SSC priority setting practices
SSC has worked to address the ‘technical debt’ that resulted from decades of under-investment as information technology infrastructure ages faster than the pace of repairs or replacements.
Older infrastructure is costly to maintain, performs poorly, and can be more prone to service interruptions.
Aligning Priorities Across Horizons
SSC is a service delivery organization that must balance meeting the needs of clients today while ensuring that the organization is prepared to respond to the challenges of tomorrow.
Digital Landscape
Image description – Key Federal Departments
The Government’s Digital Landscape involves key organizations playing roles in four separate layers. These
are the business layer, information layer, application layer and technology layer (BIAT). The Treasury Board
Secretariat (TBS) Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO) provides leadership, strategic direction and
oversight on data, information management, information technology, security, privacy and access to information
across the layers.
The business layer contains stakeholders, access channels, business capabilities, services and processes.
The information layer contains information models and flow.
The application layer contains business applications and data.
The technology layer contains integration, platform and infrastructure.
In the business layer, TBS and the Canadian Digital Services work with departments and agencies to improve
service and program delivery to Canadians., and the departments and agencies in question who manage and deliver
the services and program to Canadians.
The role of departments and agencies who manage the delivery of their digital services and programs to Canadians
spans BIAT.
Shared Services Canada’s role focuses on the application and technology layers given its mandate to provide
modern digital services and some enterprise solutions to departments and agencies.
Image description – Other Federal Partners
This Venn diagram shows the overlapping aspects among the federal organizations actively engaged in digital change at scale. The four circles in the diagram are (1) Government Operation and Services, (2) Privacy and Cyber Security, (3) Economy and (4) Data.
Government Operations and Services includes Public Services and Procurement Canada and the other service delivery departments (e.g. Employment and Social Development Canada, Canada Revenue Agency, and Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada). Their work involves government applications and delivering critical national economic and social well-being services.
Privacy and Cyber Security includes Public Safety Canada, Justice Canada, the Communications Security Establishment (CSE) and the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security. They coordinate and make strategic policy on national cyber security matters (Public Safety), Privacy Act reform (Justice Canada), and cyber expertise (CSE and Cyber Centre).
Economy includes Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, which leads Canada’s digital economy and charter.
Data includes Statistics Canada and Library and Archives Canada who collect, compile, analyze and publish statistical information and preserve data.
Shared Services Canada by the Numbers
SSC is committed to improving information technology service delivery and management and is constantly evolving its service management practices and processes across the organization, with the goal of delivering service excellence to its customers
SSC Financials
$3.2 billion Total Expenditures (and trend has been growing)
$867 million Revenues from other departments/agencies for services
$2.5 billion Appropriated
$892 millionTotal Net Financial Assets
Image description – Annual expenditures by Service
Internal Services $301 million
Customer Relationships and Service Management $317 million
Cyber and Information Technology Security $143 million