Departmental Results Report 2020-21

Minister’s message

Results at a glance and operating context

SSC is responsible for operating and modernizing the Government of Canada’s (GC) information technology (IT) infrastructure across the public service. The Department’s mission is to work with partners to provide secure, reliable networks, modern tools and client-centric digital services for Canadians. SSC provides networks and network security, data centres and Cloud offerings, digital communications and IT tools to enable the public service to effectively deliver services to Canadians.

Since its inception, SSC has been working to modernize the IT infrastructure and systems that departments and agencies rely on. In 2019, SSC 3.0: An Enterprise Approach was launched and provided a strategy that guides SSC in shaping its service delivery model towards one that is focused on serving the common needs of the enterprise at speed and scale, while still allowing enough flexibility to address unique departmental requirements. Specifically, SSC 3.0 focuses on enhancing network operations, delivering new digital government tools, supporting IT capacity for departments, and modern enterprise services, to enable its partner departments to deliver their programs and services effectively.

With this work already underway, SSC was well-positioned to focus service delivery through an enterprise lens during the COVID-19 pandemic. This past year, the global response to the pandemic required SSC to adapt and adjust to a truly unprecedented set of changes and challenges. The work-from-home order marked the first time in history that the majority of public service employees used their digital workspace as their primary workspace. SSC refocused its priorities to respond to the demand on networks and bandwidth, remote access capabilities, collaboration and communication tools, and other support services for all GC employees. New programs to support Canadians and businesses during these challenging times also had to be rapidly designed and implemented by departments.

The actions undertaken to support critical services for departments in response to the pandemic have accelerated the transformation and modernization of the GC IT infrastructure. They have highlighted how important SSC’s services are for the continuous delivery of federal services to Canadians. As such, many ongoing initiatives are critical to support our partners in their ability to operate and deliver programs, information, and user-centric services securely and effectively, now and in the future.

In addition, the response to the pandemic highlighted the interdependencies existing between GC organizations and how success is dependent on GC-wide support and collaboration. Moving forward, efforts to advance modern, reliable, digital service delivery for Canadians will continue to rely on enterprise approaches to information technology infrastructure. An enterprise approach uses coordination and cooperation between SSC and its GC partners, in particular around updating and upgrading legacy applications, driving cloud adoption, and developing applications for use across the government of Canada. In addition, the pandemic has highlighted the importance of  leveraging fast and secure network infrastructure already put in place by the private sector and this will continue to be an essential component to SSC’s approach going forward.

Results highlights

Over the years, SSC has worked to move away from the current patchwork of systems and networks towards an enterprise approach to managing digital infrastructure and services. The objective is to simplify and standardize the IT platforms used by our partners to allow the GC to move at speed and scale to better serve Canadians. SSC 3.0’s priorities – robust networks, modern collaboration tools, reliable applications and enabling factors – allowed SSC to take a leadership role in delivering government-wide digital transformation. The existing enterprise approach ensured the GC IT ecosystem was stronger, more agile, and capable of responding to the requirements emerging as a result of the pandemic. The graphic below outlines some of the key pandemic-related accomplishments realized.

Text description – Supporting the GC Through COVID-19

Networks and Security

Fast, reliable, and secure Networks

• Rapidly improved Bandwidth by 66% to ensure there was a reliable network
• Increased Secure Remote Access capacity by 111% to support public servants connecting from home
• Managed Secure File Transfer to ensure payment files were encrypted and decrypted properly
• Enabled Wi-Fi on smartphones for almost 183,000 mobile accounts to allow employees in remote areas to work without cell service

Collaboration Tools

Tailored set of options based on users needs

• Accelerated Implementation of Microsoft Teams from 2 departments in May 2020 to 35 in September 2020 to provide a secure environment for digital communication and collaboration
• Added conferencing and contact centre services capacity and improvements that enabled a 320% increase in use
• Procured devices to support the GC Emergency Communication System for urgent COVID-19 response related needs

Application Health

Migration to Cloud and Enterprise Data Centres

• Helped develop ArriveCan to support border controls, contact tracing and ensure travellers arriving in Canada receive timely and accurate information
• Set up a new 1-800 hotline to help Canadians abroad get home safely
• Enabled 385 call centre operators to work remotely — representing a 1,000% increase in users of the service in less than a month

Enabling the Enterprise

Revised services, new standards and funding model

• Quadrupled Bandwidth and tripled remote connections to support CRA delivery of CERB and other emergency benefit programs
• Quickly negotiated contracts with approximately 80 vendors without a break in service and at a 50% cost savings
• Significantly increased the CRA and ESDC programs’ infrastructure to support the increased demand and eliminate backlog

For more information on SSC’s plans, priorities and results achieved, see the “Results: what we achieved” section of this report.

Results: what we achieved

Core Responsibilities: Email and Workplace Technology

Description

SSC procures, manages, and protects email services for its customer organizations. SSC also acquires and provides hardware and software for workplace devices.

Results

SSC has been delivering modern digital tools that are accessible by design, enhance productivity and allow federal public servants to collaborate across departments to deliver essential services Canadians rely on. Before the pandemic, SSC promoted the need for a GC-wide platform to enable employees to work in a more connected way using integrated, digital collaboration tools, instant messaging, enterprise-wide networks, videoconferencing and web applications. In 2020-21, SSC accelerated this planned rollout of the Digital Communications and Collaboration platform (DCCP), enabled by Microsoft Teams, and worked with partners to enable federal public servants to continue working collaboratively as they moved quickly to a mostly virtual working environment.

Customer organizations receive modern and reliable email services

Following the work-from-home order, there was a greater need for remote access, requiring more than 5,600 new contracts and licences to maintain critical government services. SSC quickly negotiated contracts with approximately 80 vendors without a break in service and at a 50% cost savings. To handle the increased call volumes from Canadians seeking information regarding international travel, SSC procured 200 agent licences and 450 phone lines for Global Affairs Canada.

In addition, SSC offered workplace technology support services as well as the provisioning of laptops, tablets and related office software on a cost-recovery basis to four customers (Public Services and Procurement Canada, SSC, Canada School of Public Service, and Infrastructure Canada). Despite the disruptions due to COVID-19, SSC continued to provide workplace technology support services for 27,000 end users, ensuring the continuity of services for those organizations.

In support of COVID-19 response activities, SSC worked with clients in 2020-21 to provide additional devices to meet their evolving needs. As an example, SSC provided over 1,000 devices to senior government officials to support the emergency communication system. By the end of 2020-21, the performance indicators for five of the six targets were met. Three of the values showed slight increases from the previous year, while customer satisfaction with hardware and software provisioning increased by 7% to meet and surpass the target for the first time. However, rising global demand for industrial supplies resulted in reduced availability and increased timelines for hardware delivery. The increased waiting time for the delivery of test units from the vendor to the client facility for testing had a negative impact on SSC’s ability to fulfill hardware requests within established service level standards.

Core Responsibilities: Data Centres

Description

SSC provides modern, secure and reliable data centre services to customer organizations for the remote storing, processing and distribution of data, including cloud storage and computing services.

Results

As part of its efforts to modernize IT infrastructure, SSC has focused on consolidating data centres and moving applications from existing older data centres to modern Enterprise Data Centres (EDC) or cloud options that give partners the capacity to develop modern digital services for Canadians. The pandemic drove an increase in demand for cloud brokering services in 2020-21 as departments leveraged the Secure Cloud Framework Agreements to use the Cloud to deploy services that supported Canadians during the COVID-19 response. Examples include:

• Employment and Social Development Canada for the Canada Emergency Revenue Benefit
• Canada Revenue Agency for call centres
• Public Health Agency of Canada for the national vaccine
• Natural Resources Canada for COVID-19 geo-tracking

Programs and services to Canadians are supported by modern and reliable data centre services

In addition, SSC has created an inventory management system, the Operational Data Store (ODS), that monitors and tracks the state of the assets under its control. The system collects data from multiple sources and provides a centralized view of the state of assets, which helps SSC understand the vulnerabilities and prioritize the replacement of those end of life assets at greatest risk of failure. In 2020-21, the ODS captured operational information for about 70% of all assets.

The pandemic helped highlight the importance of transitioning to modern hosting solutions. For example, the 1-800-O-Canada contact centre, led by Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC), is the primary point of contact for general information on federal government programs, services and initiatives. Since 2018, the 1-800 service has been transitioning to the use of a central virtual desktop infrastructure managed by SSC, and hosted in EDCs. The virtual desktops in the data centres enable agents to connect from home instead of having to go to a set physical location. As a result, when the lockdown occurred in March 2020, ESDC was able to operate the 1-800-O-Canada service remotely. This was crucial as Canadians were seeking assistance and guidance about the pandemic, and call volumes were at an all-time high. In 2020-21, SSC finalized the transfer of the operation from its original location to two new call centres. As a result of the collaborative effort, the virtual desktop infrastructure solution has been stable with zero outages since its official launch and is very scalable, as 200 new agents were able to be added overnight.

In 2020-21, migration of the Aviation Parkway Data Centre to a hybrid approach, including both a state-of-the-art EDC and Cloud was completed. This was SSC’s largest workload migration project to date, hosting 52 partner departments, including several critical applications and services. The data centre housed a total of 2,478 servers, 598 were moved to the Cloud and the remaining services were migrated to EDCs. SSC closed 23 legacy data centres since the beginning of the pandemic, bringing the total number of data centres whose workload has been migrated and closed to 335.

All four of the performance indicators associated with this departmental result exceeded their targets. Customer satisfaction with data centre services continued its upward trajectory, meeting and surpassing its overall target. The significant increase can be attributed to collaboration with stakeholders in implementing a corporate reporting system that manages the reporting of services better and ensures they are timelier.

Cloud services meet the needs and reliability expectations of customer organizations

As the federal government advances its modern digital government agenda, departments are increasingly seeking to move data and applications to the Cloud in alignment with the Cloud Adoption Strategy. This is being done by using public cloud services, which are hosted by third-party cloud service providers. This environment necessitates the transmission of GC information in a secure and efficient manner, that complies with the legislative and policy requirements related to privacy and security. As demand for cloud-based digital services increases, it is essential SSC ensures the IT infrastructure required to enable them is maintained and upgraded to keep pace with these demands.

In Spring 2021, two pathfinder applications were successfully migrated to the Cloud Operating Model public cloud platform in collaboration with Transport Canada and Global Affairs Canada. Leveraging the features and functionality of the operating model also enabled release of the National Vaccination Management Information Platform by the Public Health Agency of Canada, which helped manage the vaccine rollout, administration, and reporting.

These arrangements enabled SSC to support partners in the development of new digital services, including ArriveCan, a cloud-based mobile application developed to provide timely and accurate COVID-related information to passengers and travellers arriving in Canada. Dedicated teams from SSC allowed the application to be securely housed in the Cloud and have its network traffic routed through a secure infrastructure in order to protect the sensitive data of Canadians.

In 2020-21, the significant increase in demand for cloud brokering requests (from approximately $10M in consumption to over $112M) impacted SSC's ability to fulfill requests within established service level standards. Additional dedicated resources have been assigned to this function to meet the growing demand. In addition, while still below the target level, customer satisfaction with cloud brokering services increased in 2020-21 compared to the previous year. This increase was largely the result of efforts to establish common cloud service arrangements that partners could leverage.

Core Responsibilities: Telecommunications

Description

SSC delivers data, voice and video communication services within and across the Government of Canada. SSC also provides the Government of Canada’s contact centre IT infrastructure, cellular and toll‑free services.

Results

In the digital age, a network is fundamental to government operations and just as essential as other utilities. Like the electricity grid, the network needs to support users when and where they need it. SSC’s number one priority is to build a network that is always on, available anywhere, reliable, fast and can address changing needs. SSC considers the entire end-to-end system and all factors that touch upon the IT network infrastructure, such as computers and their applications, to ensure peak performance is obtained.

In 2020-21, SSC worked to continue modernizing the IT network infrastructure, improve connectivity issues, and improve mobility. It supported departments in efforts to eliminate non-essential phone lines, and developed a playbook for the delivery of commercial Wi-Fi. These initiatives support SSC 3.0 Enterprise Approach – Collaboration Tools, which seeks to deliver modern digital tools that are accessible by design and enhance productivity. These tools will allow federal public servants to collaborate across departments to deliver the essential services Canadians rely on.

Customer organizations receive modern and reliable network and telecommunications services

Prior to the pandemic, SSC was already working to improve network speed, reliability and capacity, and this work has only been accelerated in 2020-21. During the pandemic, SSC focused efforts to ensure that enterprise networks were secure, reliable, accessible, and capable of supporting digital service delivery. SSC employees worked tirelessly with telecommunication vendors to increase network capacity by implementing massive upgrades to bandwidth and remote access capacity. SSC accelerated bandwidth improvements to maintain the quality of service and upgraded network performance to compensate for the extra Internet traffic load. The service bandwidth was increased by 66% in only four weeks, an activity which under normal circumstances would have taken approximately eight months.

To support partner operations during the pandemic, SSC enabled modern telecommunications and features like Wi-Fi calling on smartphones, allowing employees living in remote areas with unreliable cellular service to continue working. SSC also provided support for conferencing services in response to a three-fold increase in usage due to the pandemic response and remote working conditions, including dedicated operator support to ensure essential communications were maintained. SSC worked with vendors to significantly upgrade infrastructure and capacity to support the unprecedented load on CRA and ESDC’s contact centre systems. To ensure agents and supporting staff had the appropriate equipment to work from home, over 7,000 mobile phones were delivered to agents across Canada. SSC also implemented 15 new contact centres, including a new CERB contact centre, with the capacity to handle 6,000 simultaneous calls.

Five of the performance indicators associated with the result met or exceeded their targets with customer satisfaction with telecommunications improving significantly in 2020-21. The percentage of circuits migrated to the GCNet Wide Area Network (WAN) exceeded its target by 14.35%. Results from previous years are not available as the indicator was revised in 2020-21. However, an end-of-life equipment failure affected one partner’s WAN, which resulted in a decrease in percentage of time critical enterprise internet outages are restored within established service level standards, falling below the target level. In order to prevent a similar situation from occurring, SSC has updated its processes and now maintains a replacement set of hardware that is configured for the partner’s specific services to ensure rapid replacement in the event of a future failure.

Core Responsibilities: Cyber and IT Security

Description

SSC works with other Government of Canada departments to provide secure IT infrastructure services to ensure the confidentiality, integrity and availability of electronic information stored, processed and transmitted by the Government of Canada.

Results

To improve the GC’s ability to react and adapt to the threat of cyber attacks, the government requires a modern, reliable, and secure IT environment. With an ever-evolving IT landscape and increasing reliance on technology for our day-to-day work, cyber threats and cyber attacks have also become increasingly sophisticated, creating threats to GC data and information, and by extension, Canadians’ data and information. Working with partners at Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat (TBS) – Office of the Chief Information Officer and Communications Security Establishment, SSC continues in its efforts to ensure robust cyber security measures are in place to respond to the growing number of increasingly sophisticated cyber attacks.

Government of Canada data and technology assets are protected by secure IT infrastructure

As more services move to the Cloud, an enterprise approach is required for cyber security. The Secure Cloud Enablement and Defence (SCED) initiative provides an essential, enabling piece of the GC’s security posture by providing a secure and reliable enterprise-wide cloud access service that protects sensitive and personal information while improving availability to the public cloud. SCED is comprised of two elements: network connectivity and the associated network security. It provides the connectivity necessary to access public cloud environments, thereby meeting the growing capacity demands from partners, while also protecting GC data and applications transiting to and from these environments. This is done by establishing trusted interconnection points on the periphery of the government network. This zone enables the secure exchange of data with external organizations, including any cloud environments under contract with the GC. SCED became operational in 2020-21, allowing SSC to onboard 10 partners. The inclusion of Transport Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada in this onboarding ahead of schedule was due to requirements stemming from COVID-19.

SSC continues to invest in tools to detect vulnerabilities across the enterprise and monitor compliance. Enterprise Vulnerability and Compliance Management identifies weaknesses in IT devices and infrastructure based on cyber threats and informs the IT infrastructure by testing existing security compliance when updates are introduced. Deployed in 2020-21, it is now operational, providing an enterprise service to assess, monitor and report on compliance.

As Canadians increasingly relied on essential federal services during the pandemic, SSC worked closely with partners to ensure that their digital infrastructure was able to deliver those services to Canadians safely and securely. For example, the Managed Secure File Transfer ensured that all payment files going to millions of Canadians – including, amongst others, the Canada Emergency Response Benefit , Employment Insurance, Old Age Security, and the Canada Pension Plan – were encrypted and decrypted properly. SSC was on high alert and proactively conducted regular checks on its system and servers to ensure everything ran smoothly.

Both of the 2020-21 performance indicators related to this result have exceeded their targets and are showing improvements from the previous year.

Experimentation

SSC has fostered a workplace culture conducive to experimentation for many years. The most notable recent experiment at SSC was the Security Awareness Phishing Campaign, which began in 2019-20 and concluded in 2020-21. The phishing experiment consisted of fraudulent emails sent by SSC to employees to determine if they would recognize the phishing attempts. Those who correctly identified the phishing attempt were subjected to more challenging emails, and would “pass” the test if they ignored four total waves of phishes. During the final wave, a technique known as spear phishing used detailed knowledge of the targeted recipients to radically increase the difficulty. Results of the exercise were in keeping with industry standards and the lessons learned were integrated into security awareness activities, and are informing a more experimentally mature phishing campaign for the future. The Phishing campaign was recognized as a “Notable Practice” as part of the Treasury Board Secretariat’s 2020 Management Accountability Framework assessment and the lessons learned will be shared with other government departments.

Core Responsibilities: Customer Relationships and Service Management

Description

SSC provides customer relationships and service management functions to ensure customers are supported and engaged and their IT services are well managed throughout their life cycle.

Results

In order to ensure that the CRA’s digital infrastructure could handle this demand, SSC quadrupled internet bandwidth and increased secure remote access capacity from approximately 20,000 to 60,000 connections for employees of CRA and the Canada Border Services Agency (as the two organizations share the same network) for the combined internet infrastructure.

Efforts to support our clients through these challenging times are reflected in the results related to recent customer satisfaction questionnaires, where average client satisfaction ratings exceeded target levels, surpassing the successful ratings achieved in the previous year.

Customers are provided with effective service management

SSC is implementing a modern Information Technology Service Management (ITSM) system to provide SSC with a suite of internal tools to improve planning, delivery, operations and control of IT services offered to customers to meet their evolving needs. COVID-19 resulted in some delays, impacting the initial timelines for ITSM. Nevertheless, in 2020-21, one customer department was able to implement SSC's new ITSM tool solution to replace their legacy ITSM tool. Work continues with other departments to assist them to adopt and onboard to this enterprise service which will drive service management excellence and improve customer experience through greater engagement and better performance reporting.

SSC continued to improve service management practices including developing solutions for enterprise monitoring and application performance management. IT service delivery performance will be enhanced so that customers receive real-time warnings for outages or degradation of services. In 2020-21, a prototype for the application performance management component was successfully completed.

The indicator for this result, the percentage of critical incidents under SSC control resolved within established service level standards, had fallen slightly below target in 2019-20, but is once again on track. It is presently exceeding the target by 5.63%.

IT infrastructure services relied upon by customer organizations are supported by strong project management and efficient procurement

SSC has also simplified procurement by continuing to enhance the Procure-to-Pay (P2P) system. P2P streamlines the delivery of government IT services by electronically administering procurement from initiation to payment. In 2020-21, improvements were made to business processes, functionality and user experience, which resulted in a more efficient procurement process for partners using the system.

COVID-19 related impacts and the associated redistribution of resources affected certain project planning and delivery activities leading to schedule delays. Measures were put in place to prioritize the work to support SSC’s partners. In order to ensure business continuity, many resources were shifted to higher priority initiatives and a few select projects, other projects were delivered on best effort basis, or temporarily paused. Additionally, COVID-19 restrictions such as procurement delays and restricted access to buildings impacted project delivery. This resulted in 64% percent of SSC-led projects rated as on time, on scope and on budget falling below the target for 2020-21 of 70%.

The cost of procurement per each $100 of contracts awarded met its target in 2020-21.

Financial, human resources (HR), and performance information for SSC’s Program Inventory is available in the GC InfoBase.

Core responsibilities: Internal Services

Description

Internal Services are those groups of related activities and resources that the federal government considers to be services in support of programs and/or required to meet corporate obligations of an organization. Internal Services refers to the activities and resources of the 10 distinct service categories that support Program delivery in the organization, regardless of the Internal Services delivery model in a department. The 10 service categories are:

• Acquisition Management Services
• Communication Services
• Financial Management Services
• Human Resources Management Services
• Information Management Services
• Information Technology Services
• Legal Services
• Material Management Services
• Management and Oversight Services
• Real Property Management Services

Results

Internal services are integral to the success of SSC and will contribute significantly to the goal of having employees that are engaged, enabled, empowered, and accountable. The advent of COVID-19, reinforced the need to support our employees and ensure they were safe, well supported and had the right tools to be successful in doing their jobs.

Human Resources

SSC has put in place human resource strategies and innovative recruitment approaches that are helping to attract and retain a diverse and qualified workforce. In 2020-21, recruitment targets relating to visible minorities, women in IT, Indigenous Peoples, and regional employees were all exceeded.

In 2020-21, SSC created a Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) Strategy for the department. This strategy was developed through a research partnership with Women in Tech World and consultation with women at SSC. Currently SSC does not meet market availability for women in the Computer Science (CS) category. The strategy aims to close this gap through targeted activities under the following pillars: governance, recruitment and retention, learning and development, and awareness.

SSC monitors progress by tracking data to report on impacts of traditionally excluded or underrepresented groups of employees. There is a focus on the development of data collection and analysis tools to report information on the impact of major SSC programs and initiatives. This will enable us to report on more robust performance by programs, through incorporating data broken down by subcategories including sex, gender/gender identity and other intersecting identity factors in the analysis.

Recruitment efforts during the pandemic required that human resource processes be revisited and revised. Onboarding activities were conducted remotely for new employees and contractors, and electronic devices and access cards were shipped directly to home addresses. Participation in a voluntary skills inventory enabled critical skills to be assigned to areas with insufficient capacity through temporary micro missions.

Information Management and Information Technology

In 2020-21, the Department focused on providing personalized, responsive services and tools to SSC employees, enabling SSC program partners to deliver value to their customers, and continuing to modernize service delivery to achieve operational excellence.

Mental Health

To further support mental health within the organization, SSC created a virtual mental health kiosk and provided “Wellness Wednesdays” mental health sessions to address various topics. These wellness sessions have become an ongoing activity delivered on a weekly basis to help employees build resiliency.

Accessibility, Accommodation and Adaptive Computer Technology (AAACT)

SSC is committed to building accessible workplaces with equal opportunities for all employees. To address technological barriers, the AAACT program provides disabled or injured employees with: adaptive technology (hardware and software), workplace adjustments, programs, and training. In the fall of 2020, the SSC AAACT Team received recognition for its efforts by winning the TBS’ Chief Information Officer Community Award for Excellence in Diversity and Inclusion. The members of this team are a driving force in the fields of accessibility, accommodation and adaptive computer technology. Examples of their work include:

• Developing the plan to support the GC’s commitment to hire at least 5,000 persons with disabilities over five years
• Developing an accessible procurement toolkit and training to support this commitment
• Setting up a new Lending Library for Adaptive Technology that will serve the wider GC employees

Learning and Development

During 2020-21, SSC provided 1,571 language training activities attended by 14,691 employees. Group language training sessions were encouraged to provide a greater number of employees with access to language training opportunities. SSC also promoted language training for entry-level positions. In addition to fostering development of language skills for future promotional opportunities, this provided stronger succession planning opportunities.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the delivery of all training courses shifted entirely to a virtual format. The Orientation Session for new SSC employees was delivered as a live virtual event for the first time in November 2020. Training on virtual management was also offered to all SSC managers, to equip them with the tools required to effectively manage a distributed workforce.

Pay Stabilization

MySSC Pay Desk was launched this year to provide employees with departmental support in resolving pay issues. Efforts continue to improve the client pay experience and ensure a holistic, client-centered approach. Focus remains on timely and accurate HR data entry, including meeting timeliness standards to avoid adding to the backlog.

Communication Services

Internal communication with employees allows for an exchange of ideas on topics important to employees and supports a positive organizational culture that promotes our commitment to openness and transparency. In keeping with that spirit, our organization is guided by our Vision, Mission and Values, which were inspired by what we heard from our employees in workshops and consultations conducted across our Department.

In 2020-21, SSC established a series of formal and informal engagement sessions to promote an open dialogue between SSC employees and senior leaders on various key subjects, including COVID-19. Activities included “Ask Me Anything” virtual question and answer sessions, and SSC employee virtual engagement forums during the department town hall meetings.

Analysis of trends in spending and human resources

Actual expenditures

Text description – Departmental spending trend graph

	2018-19	2019-20	2020-21	2021-22	2022-23	2023-24
Statutory	91,207,582	95,769,540	122,017,068	94,672,200	95,038,163	93,871,571
Voted	1,756,601,481	1,877,826,947	2,190,180,205	1,813,382,834	1,771,823,087	1,705,548,607
total	1,847,809,063	1,973,596,487	2,312,197,273	1,908,055,034	1,866,861,250	1,799,420,178

SSC’s total authorities available for use in 2020-21 were $2,554.1 million, an increase of $498.9 million from the Main Estimates amount of $2,055.2 million. The total authorities available for use includes funding received by SSC throughout the fiscal year as a part of the supplementary estimates process, as well as central vote funding and approved carry forward amounts. The main contributors to the overall $498.9 million increase include the carry forward from 2019-20, funding for IT Services, infrastructure and cyber security, communications services during COVID-19, and funding for the replacement and repair of ageing IT equipment. SSC’s actual spending at the end of 2020-21 was less than the total authorities available, resulting in a $241.9 million surplus. The Treasury Board approved a carry-forward to 2021-22 of $180.9 million. The remaining surplus that was re-profiled related to delays SSC identified throughout 2020-21 for initiatives such as Mission Critical projects. Additionally, the COVID-19 pandemic delayed the delivery of planned priorities and impacted SSC’s deliverables.

Actual human resources

The full-time equivalent (FTE) variance of 520 between planned FTEs and actual FTEs for 2020-21 is mainly due to additional priorities, and will better position SSC for 2021-22 and beyond. These additional FTEs were approved by SSC senior management throughout 2020-21 to pursue the growth of SSC’s workforce and to support service delivery improvements.

Expenditures by vote

For information on SSC’s organizational voted and statutory expenditures, consult the Public Accounts of Canada 2020-21.

Government of Canada spending and activities

Information on the alignment of SSC’s spending with the Government of Canada’s spending and activities is available in the GC InfoBase.

Financial statements and financial statements highlights

Financial statements

SSC’s financial statements (unaudited) for the year ended March 31, 2021, are available on the departmental website.

Financial statements highlights

The financial highlights presented within this Departmental Results Report are intended to serve as a general overview of SSC’s Statement of Operations and Departmental Net Financial Position and its Statement of Financial Position. More detailed information is provided in SSC’s 2020-21 financial statements. These unaudited statements have been prepared using GC accounting policies, which are based on Canadian public sector accounting standards.

The unaudited financial statements are prepared in accordance with accrual accounting principles and are therefore different from the information published in the Public Accounts of Canada, which are prepared on an appropriation basis. Sections I and II of the financial statements report contain financial information based on parliamentary authorities, which reflect cash flow requirements. Items recognized in the Statement of Operations and Departmental Net Financial Position and in the Statement of Financial Position in one year may be funded through parliamentary authorities in prior, current or future years. A reconciliation of net cost of operations to current year authorities used is presented in Note 3 to SSC’s 2020-21 financial statements on its website.

The tables below illustrate the March 31, 2021, ending balances for each major financial statement grouping, along with the corresponding change from the previous fiscal year.

SSC’s total expenses for 2020-21 were $3,239.0 million, an increase of $522.3 million over the previous year’s total expenses of $2,716.7 million. In 2020-21, the salaries and employee benefits represented the largest portion of expenses (30%) at $963.0 million ($820.2 million and 30% in 2019-20), followed by the telecommunications expenses (18%) at $570.6 million ($487.1 million and 18% in 2019-20), the rentals expenses (15%) at $481.7 million ($325.0 million and 12% in 2019-20), the amortization of tangible capital assets (12%) at $389.4 million ($334.9 million and 12% in 2019-20), and the professional and special services expenses (11%) at $364.8 million ($276.4 million and 10% in 2019-20). The salaries and employee benefits increased by $142.8 million in 2020-21, mainly explained by the increase in the number of SSC’s employees in 2020-21 and by retroactive payments related to renewals of collective agreements.

The Financial Statement's Note 13 segmented information provides detailed information by major object of expenses and by core responsibility.

Text description – Expenses

	Amount (dollars)	Percentage
Salaries and employee benefits	963,000,000	30%
Telecommunications	570,600,000	18%
Rentals	481,700,000	15%
Amortization	389,400,000	12%
Professional and special services	364,800,000	11%
Repairs and maintenance	263,400,000	8%
Machinery and equipment	118,500,000	4%
Other operating expenses	87,600,000	2%

SSC’s total revenues for 2020-21 were $867.6 million, an increase of $134.1 million over the previous year’s total revenues of $733.5 million. Of these revenues, the majority are respendable revenues related to IT infrastructure services provided to partner organizations and other GC departments and agencies on a cost recoverable basis. SSC’s revenues, net of $30.0 million in non‑respendable revenues earned on behalf of government, consist mainly of the sale of goods and services.

Total liabilities were $974.6 million at the end of 2020-21, an increase of $109.6 million (13%) over the previous year’s total liabilities of $865.0 million. In 2020-21, accounts payable and accrued liabilities represented the largest portion (64%) at $627.7 million ($478.4 million and 55% in 2019‑20). Lease obligations for tangible capital assets represented 12% at $119.3 million ($179.3 million and 21% in 2019-20). Obligation under public private partnership represented 12% at $117.0 million ($120.5 million and 14% in 2019-20).

Text description – Liabilities

	Amount (dollars)	Percentage
Accounts payable and accrued liabilities	624,700,000	64%
Lease obligations for tangible capital assets	119,300,000	12%
Obligation under public private partnership	117,000,000	12%
Vacation pay and compensatory leave	82,700,000	9%
Employee future benefits	27,900,000	3%

Total net financial assets were $892.5 million at the end of 2020-21, an increase of $367.3 million (70%) over the previous year’s total net financial assets of $525.2 million. In 2020-21, Accounts receivable and advances represented the largest portion (52%) of the net financial assets at $467.4 million ($257.0 million and 49% in 2019-20). The amount due from the Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF) represented 48% at $425.1 million ($268.2 million and 51% in 2019-20).

Text description – Net financial assets

	Amount (dollars)	Percentage
Accounts receivable and advances	467,400,000	52%
Due from the Consolidated Revenue Fund	425,100,000	48%

Total non-financial assets were $1,321.4 million at the end of 2020-21, an increase of $19.9 million (2%) over the previous year’s total non-financial assets of $1,301.5 million. This increase is explained by an increase of $29.1 million in prepaid expenses (from $64.7 million in 2019-20 to $93.8 million in 2020-21) and a decrease of $9.2 million in tangible capital assets (from $1,236.8 million in 2019-20 to $1,227.6 million in 2020-21).

Text description – Non-financial assets

	Amount (dollars)	Percentage
Tangible capital assets	1,227,600,000	93%
Prepaid expenses	93,800,000	7%

Additional information

Organizational profile

Appropriate Minister: The Honourable Joyce Murray, P.C., M.P.

Institutional head: Paul Glover, President, Shared Services Canada

Ministerial portfolio: Digital Government, and Minister responsible for Shared Services Canada

Enabling instrument: Shared Services Canada Act

Year of incorporation / commencement: 2011

Other: Associated Orders-in-Council include Privy Council Numbers 2011-0877;
2011-1297; 2012-0958; 2012-0960; 2013-0366; 2013-0367; 2013-0368; 2015-1071, 2016-0003 and 2019-1372

Raison d’être, mandate and role: who we are and what we do

“Raison d’être, mandate and role: who we are and what we do” is available on SSC’s website.

For more information on the department’s organizational mandate letter commitments, see the Minister’s mandate letter.

Reporting framework

SSC’s Departmental Results Framework and Program Inventory of record for 2020-21 are shown below.

Core Responsibility 1 : Email and Workplace Technology

Customer organizations receive modern and reliable email services:

• Percentage of time the enterprise email service is available
• Percentage of time email service outages are restored within established service level standards
• Percentage of Government of Canada mailboxes migrated to the enterprise email system
• Number of critical incidents impacting legacy email systems
• Customer satisfaction with email services (five‑point scale)

Customers receive high‑quality, timely and efficient software and hardware provisioning services that meet their needs:

• Percentage of hardware requests fulfilled within established service level standards
• Percentage of software requests fulfilled within established service level standards
• Customer satisfaction with hardware and software provisioning (five‑point scale)

Program Inventory:

• Workplace Technology Services

Core Responsibility 2: Data Centres

Programs and services to Canadians are supported by modern and reliable data centre services:

• Percentage of time the new consolidated data centre facilities are available
• Percentage of time legacy data centres are available
• Number of critical incidents impacting legacy data centre facilities

Cloud services meet the needs and reliability expectations of customer organizations:

• Percentage of cloud brokering requests fulfilled within established service level standards
• Customer satisfaction with cloud brokering services (five‑point scale)

Program Inventory:

• Data Centre Information Technology Operations
• Cloud

Core Responsibility 3 : Telecommunications

Customer organizations receive modern and reliable network and telecommunications services:

• Percentage of time critical enterprise internet outages are restored within established service level standards
• Percentage of time the Mobile Device Services Cellular Network is available
• Percentage of time the contact centre service is available
• Percentage of circuits migrated to GCNet WAN
• Customer satisfaction with telecommunications services (five‑point scale)

Program Inventory:

• Networks
• Telecommunications

Core Responsibility 4: Cyber and IT Security

Government of Canada data and technology assets are protected by secure IT infrastructure:

• Percentage of time IT security services are available
• Customer satisfaction with SSC’s cyber and IT security services

Program Inventory:

• Security

Core Responsibility 5: Customer Relationships and Service Management

Customers are satisfied with SSC’s delivery of services:

• Average rating provided in response to the Customer Satisfaction Questionnaire

Customers are provided with effective service management:

• Percentage of critical incidents under SSC control resolved within established service level standards

IT infrastructure services relied upon by customer organizations are supported by strong project management and efficient procurement:

• Percentage of SSC-led projects rated as on time, in scope and on budget
• Cost of procurement per each $100 of contracts awarded

Program Inventory:

• Enterprise Services Design and Delivery

Supporting information on the program inventory

Financial, human resources and performance information for SSC’s Program Inventory is available in GC InfoBase.

Supplementary information tables

The following supplementary information tables are available on SSC’s website:

• Reporting on Green Procurement
• Gender-based analysis plus
• Response to parliamentary committees and external audits

Federal tax expenditures

The tax system can be used to achieve public policy objectives through the application of special measures such as low tax rates, exemptions, deductions, deferrals and credits. The Department of Finance Canada publishes cost estimates and projections for these measures each year in the Report on Federal Tax Expenditures. This report also provides detailed background information on tax expenditures, including descriptions, objectives, historical information and references to related federal spending programs as well as evaluations and GBA+ of tax expenditures.

Organizational contact information

General inquiries

Please send your inquiries to the following email address: ssc.information.spc@canada.ca.

Media inquiries

Please send your inquiries to the Media Relations Office by email at ssc.media-medias.spc@canada.ca or by telephone at 613-670-1626.

Appendix: Definitions

appropriation (crédit)

Any authority of Parliament to pay money out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund.

budgetary expenditures (dépenses budgétaires)

Operating and capital expenditures; transfer payments to other levels of government, organizations or individuals; and payments to Crown corporations.

core responsibility (responsabilité essentielle)

An enduring function or role performed by a department. The intentions of the department with respect to a core responsibility are reflected in one or more related departmental results that the department seeks to contribute to or influence.

Departmental Plan (plan ministériel)

A report on the plans and expected performance of an appropriated department over a 3 year period. Departmental Plans are usually tabled in Parliament each spring.

departmental priority (priorité)

A plan or project that a department has chosen to focus and report on during the planning period. Priorities represent the things that are most important or what must be done first to support the achievement of the desired departmental results.

departmental result (résultat ministériel)

A consequence or outcome that a department seeks to achieve. A departmental result is often outside departments’ immediate control, but it should be influenced by program-level outcomes.

departmental result indicator (indicateur de résultat ministériel)

A quantitative measure of progress on a departmental result.

departmental results framework (cadre ministériel des résultats)

A framework that connects the department’s core responsibilities to its departmental results and departmental result indicators.

Departmental Results Report (rapport sur les résultats ministériels)

A report on a department’s actual accomplishments against the plans, priorities and expected results set out in the corresponding Departmental Plan.

experimentation (expérimentation)

The conducting of activities that seek to first explore, then test and compare the effects and impacts of policies and interventions in order to inform evidence-based decision-making, and improve outcomes for Canadians, by learning what works, for whom and in what circumstances. Experimentation is related to, but distinct from innovation (the trying of new things), because it involves a rigorous comparison of results. For example, using a new website to communicate with Canadians can be an innovation; systematically testing the new website against existing outreach tools or an old website to see which one leads to more engagement, is experimentation.

full time equivalent (équivalent temps plein)

A measure of the extent to which an employee represents a full person year charge against a departmental budget. For a particular position, the full time equivalent figure is the ratio of number of hours the person actually works divided by the standard number of hours set out in the person’s collective agreement.

gender-based analysis plus (GBA+) (analyse comparative entre les sexes plus [ACS+])

An analytical process used to assess how diverse groups of women, men and gender-diverse people experience policies, programs and services based on multiple factors including race ethnicity, religion, age, and mental or physical disability.

government-wide priorities (priorités pangouvernementales)

For the purpose of the 2019-20 Departmental Results Report, those high-level themes outlining the government’s agenda in the 2019 Speech from the Throne, namely: Fighting climate change; Strengthening the Middle Class; Walking the road of reconciliation; Keeping Canadians safe and healthy; and Positioning Canada for success in an uncertain world.

horizontal initiative (initiative horizontale)

An initiative where two or more federal organizations are given funding to pursue a shared outcome, often linked to a government priority.

non budgetary expenditures (dépenses non budgétaires)

Net outlays and receipts related to loans, investments and advances, which change the composition of the financial assets of the Government of Canada.

performance (rendement)

What an organization did with its resources to achieve its results, how well those results compare to what the organization intended to achieve, and how well lessons learned have been identified.

performance indicator (indicateur de rendement)

A qualitative or quantitative means of measuring an output or outcome, with the intention of gauging the performance of an organization, program, policy or initiative respecting expected results.

performance reporting (production de rapports sur le rendement)

The process of communicating evidence based performance information. Performance reporting supports decision making, accountability and transparency.

plan (plan)

The articulation of strategic choices, which provides information on how an organization intends to achieve its priorities and associated results. Generally, a plan will explain the logic behind the strategies chosen and tend to focus on actions that lead to the expected result.

planned spending (dépenses prévues)

For Departmental Plans and Departmental Results Reports, planned spending refers to those amounts presented in Main Estimates.

A department is expected to be aware of the authorities that it has sought and received. The determination of planned spending is a departmental responsibility, and departments must be able to defend the expenditure and accrual numbers presented in their Departmental Plans and Departmental Results Reports.

program (programme)

Individual or groups of services, activities or combinations thereof that are managed together within the department and focus on a specific set of outputs, outcomes or service levels.

program inventory (répertoire des programmes)

Identifies all the department’s programs and describes how resources are organized to contribute to the department’s core responsibilities and results.

result (résultat)

A consequence attributed, in part, to an organization, policy, program or initiative. Results are not within the control of a single organization, policy, program or initiative; instead they are within the area of the organization’s influence.

statutory expenditures (dépenses législatives)

Expenditures that Parliament has approved through legislation other than appropriation acts. The legislation sets out the purpose of the expenditures and the terms and conditions under which they may be made.

target (cible)

A measurable performance or success level that an organization, program or initiative plans to achieve within a specified time period. Targets can be either quantitative or qualitative.

voted expenditures (dépenses votées)

Expenditures that Parliament approves annually through an appropriation act. The vote wording becomes the governing conditions under which these expenditures may be made.