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6. ProgrEss Report on IT audit recommendations RAPPORT D’ÉTAPE SUR LES
RECOMMANDATIONS DE LA VÉRIFICATION D’it |
COMMITTEE RECOMMENDATION
That Council receive this report for information and
approve that the City retain flexibility to allocate budget most effectively as
recommended by staff of both Information Technology (IT) Services and other
departments; and, that all significant IT Capital projects be reviewed by the
Information Technology Sub-committee, with joint reports from both IT and affected
departments.
Recommandation du ComitÉ
Que
le Conseil prenne connaissance du présent rapport et approuve que la Ville continue à disposer d’une certaine
latitude afin que le budget soit réparti le plus efficacement possible selon
les recommandations du personnel des Services de technologie de l’information
et de celui d’autres services; et que tous les projets d’immobilisation liés à
la technologie de l’information soient examinés par le Sous-comité de la
technologie de l’information, avec des rapports conjoints émanant des Services
de technologie de l’information et des services concernés.
DocumentationS
1.
Deputy
City Manager, City Operations report dated 10 May 2010 (ACS2010-COS-ITS-0008).
2.
Information
Technology Sub-committee Extract of Draft Minutes of 17 May 2010.
Information Technology Sub-committee
Sous-comité
de la technologie de l’information
and / et
Corporate Services and Economic Development Committee
Comité
des services organisationnels et du développement économique
and Council/ et au Conseil
10 May 2010 / le 10 mai 2010
Submitted by/Soumis par : Steve Kanellakos, Deputy City Manager/Directeur
municipal adjoint, City Operations/Opérations municipales
Contact
Person/Personne-ressource: Guy Michaud, Director/directeur
Information Technology Services
Department/ Services
de technologie de l’information Information Technology Services / Services de
technologie de l’information
613‑580‑2424,
ext./poste 12880
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Ref N°: ACS2010-COS-ITS-0008 |
SUBJECT:
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OBJET :
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RAPPORT D’ÉTAPE SUR LES RECOMMANDATIONS DE
LA VÉRIFICATION D’it |
That the Information Technology Sub Committee recommend
that Corporate Services and Economic Development Committee recommend that
Council receive this report
for information.
Que le
Sous-comité de la technologie de l’information recommande au Comité des
services organisationnels et du développement économique de recommander à son
tour au Conseil de prendre connaissance du présent rapport.
The Audit, Budget and Finance Committee (ABFC) received the 2005-2009
Audit Recommendations – Action Status Report and Progress for Reporting Ongoing
Audit Status Tracking Report (ACS2010-CMR-OCM-0003) on Tuesday, April 20, 2010. This report provided the ABFC and
Council with the 2009 year-end action status tracking report for the 2005 -
2009 audit recommendations requiring implementation and recommend that future action status tracking of audit
recommendations be included in the Auditor General’s annual follow-up audits as
part of the regular audit reporting process.
The purpose of this report is to respond to Councillor Wilkinson Inquiry (06-10 – Progress Report on IT Audit Recommendations) and provide a progress report to the IT Sub Committee on all the audit recommendations from past audits by the Auditor General related to Information Technology Services.
DISCUSSION
Document 1 provides the Information Technology Sub Committee with an update on the status of the implementation of the 109 audit recommendations related to Information Technology Services as of December 31, 2009. These audit recommendations relate to 29 audits conducted by the Office of the Auditor General from 2005 to 2008. Of the 109 audit recommendations that related to ITS, 86 are complete, 22 are in progress and 1 requires resolution.
The one recommendation that still requires resolution is related to Recommendation 14 from the 2008 Audit of the IT Capital Expenditures and Project Approval Process:
Recommendation 14:
Management
centralize the Corporate IT Capital budget within a single funding envelope and
ensure that annual IT Capital budgets are presented for approval on a
consolidated basis.
Management Response:
Management
disagrees with this recommendation.
For the past
two budgets (2007 and 2008), the capital budget has been presented and status
reports were prepared by service area.
From an IT perspective, this means that if an IT-related project relates
to a specific service area such as Long Term Care, that project will be
presented in the Long Term Care service area.
This was recommended and approved by Council in 2004 in the "It's
About Accountability" document prepared by Plamondon and Associates. Corporate IT budgets that do not relate to a
specific service area are presented together.
More
recently, the Mayor's Task Force on e-Government conducted an external
best-practice assessment of the IT budget, and specifically noted that
combining IT capital funds into one budget confuses accountability. The City's SAP system can easily produce a
consolidated report of IT spending from numerous cost centres and internal
orders.
Since IT
exists to make other branches more effective and efficient, it is important for
Council to ensure that departments exploiting the technology are accountable
for the benefits. To that end, the LRFP
Sub-Committee recently recommended to Council that "staff be directed to
incorporate anticipated efficiency savings from investments in technology in
the efficiency column of the budget pages for affected branches for future
budgets". ITS will support
Financial Services to implement this recommendation for the next budget cycle.
There are no specific rural implications associated with this report.
Audit status tracking documents were prepared by applicable departments and recommendations related to Information Technology Services have been summarized within this report.
There are no legal implications associated with
this progress report.
This information report has no additional Technology implications other than those described in the report.
There are no financial implications associated
with this progress report.
SUPPORTING DOCUMENTATION
Document 1: Progress Report on IT Audit Recommendations (Response to Council Inquiry 06-10)
(Issued separately and held on file.)
The City Operations Department will action any direction received as part of consideration of this report.
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information technology sub-committee extract of draft Minutes 7 17 may 2010 |
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sous-Comité de la
technologie de l’information extrait de l’ébauche du
Procès-verbal 7 - le 17 mai 2010 |
CITY OPERATIONS PORTFOLIO
Portefeuille Opérations Municipales
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SERVICES
Services de technologie de l’information
PROGRESS REPORT ON IT AUDIT RECOMMENDATIONS
RAPPORT D’ÉTAPE SUR
LES RECOMMANDATIONS DE LA VÉRIFICATION D’it
ACS2010-COS-ITS-0008 City Wide/à l'échelle de la Ville
Guy Michaud, Director, IT Services and Chief
Information Officer was present to answer questions on this matter.
Councillor Legendre referred to the one recommendation that still requires resolution, the recommendation from the Auditor General that Management centralize the Corporate IT Capital budget within a single funding envelope and ensure that annual IT Capital budgets are presented for approval on a consolidated basis. He noted the report indicates that Management disagrees with that recommendation, that the Mayor's Task Force on e-Government stated that combining IT capital funds into one budget confuses accountability; and that it is important for Council to ensure that departments exploiting the technology are accountable for the benefits. He questioned whether Mr. Michaud was of the same opinion. Mr. Michaud responded there are both advantages and disadvantages to centralization of that budget and that staff will support and implement whatever Council decides on the matter.
The Councillor replied that he could likewise accept either decision provided that IT Capital projects are reviewed by the IT Sub-committee, regardless of which department they pertain to. He thought that practice would likely satisfy the Auditor General’s concerns and would ensure that departments do not operate totally in silos in terms of IT requirements. Mr. Michaud supported that suggestion, noting that the plan for going forward is that when there is a significant investment in technology, the respective Standing Committee is to recommend that the issue be referred to the IT Sub-committee for evaluation, and he would then jointly present the case with the impacted Business Unit to the Sub-committee. He said this is also in line with recommendations from the e-Government Task Force.
Councillor Legendre inquired whether there has been a Council direction in that regard. Rob Collins, Chief Technology Advisor, did not believe that to be the case. He stated that the Task Force had disagreed with the Auditor General’s recommendation because at the time there were too many projects that were being put onto IT and the responsible party to deliver service was washing their hands of it, so there was no accountability.
He felt that having the IT Sub-committee be the point of centralization for IT projects is the solution. He added there should be flexibility for the Sub-committee to work with Mr. Michaud to decide which projects need not be centralized for practical and economical reasons (e.g. costs for cell phones).
In response to Councillor Legendre’s comments about the suggested joint presentation format, as was the earlier case with the Transit Technology presentation, Mr. Collins noted that Service Excellence started out with such a format and he supported using that model because the accountability will always be joint between the parties.
Chair Wilkinson noted, as stated in the report, that the City's SAP
system can easily produce a consolidated report of IT spending from numerous
cost centres and internal orders. She
felt that would be useful so that Council could clearly see total costs for IT
spending and catch any duplication, and she inquired whether that practice is
already in place. David Johnston, Manager, Business Technology
Architecture advised that all of the Capital projects have been tagged in such
a way that staff can report via SAP and show the status of all IT Capital
projects across the Corporation. He
noted there is still some work to be done with respect to individual projects
but that is part of ongoing improvements.
Chair Wilkinson asked the City Treasurer, Marian Simulik, whether there would be an extra sheet in next year’s budget documentation that would show the compilation of all IT projects, their costs and originating department. Ms. Simulik responded that such a sheet was actually provided in the most recent budget and further questioned whether the Chair was referring to works in progress or new authority projects. Chair Wilkinson requested that both be made available. Ms. Simulik offered to provide that information, noting that although the Sub-committee could review and provide comments on the projects, they would still have to be approved by the respective Standing Committees and Council.
Moved by J. Legendre:
Whereas
the Auditor General has recommended centralization of all IT Capital budgets;
and
Whereas
the Mayor’s Task Force on e-Government and City staff
have recommended the opposite to improve accountability;
Therefore be it
resolved that the City retain flexibility to allocate budget most effectively
as recommended by staff of both IT and other departments; and, that all
significant IT Capital projects be reviewed by the IT Sub-committee, with joint
reports from both IT and affected departments.
CARRIED
That the Information Technology Sub Committee
recommend that Corporate Services and Economic Development Committee and Council
receive this
report for information and approve that the City retain flexibility to
allocate budget most effectively as recommended by staff of both IT and other
departments; and, that all significant IT Capital projects be reviewed by the
IT Sub-committee, with joint reports from both IT and affected departments.
CARRIED
as amended
DIRECTION TO STAFF:
That staff be directed to provide in all future budgets a separate compilation of all IT projects, both works in progress and new authority projects, including their individual costs and originating department.