Government ‘disappointed’ with Bell’s email-contract delay

The federal government's email consolidation program, slated to begin earlier this year, has yet to get underway and the government department in charge of the project says it’s because BCE Inc., contracted to undertake the initiative, has been slow to the draw. “Bell has not yet been able to meet the committed project deadlines,” Shared Service Canada spokesman Ted Francis said in an email to The Hill Times. “SSC is very disappointed by these unacceptable delays,” he said. The email transformation initiative (ETI) is intended to convert the 63 current government email systems into one, and affect more 600,000 mailboxes and 370,000 users. The first phase, transitioning 15 per cent of federal departments, was scheduled to begin in March, yet the consolidation has yet to begin. Shared Services Canada has adjusted its schedule to begin the email migration “in the coming months,” Stephanie Richardson, SSC's public affairs director, said in an email to The Hill Times, which was later clarified by Francis to be in 2015. SSC had originally said the ETI would be finished by March 2015. SSC would not elaborate further on reasons for the delay to the $398-million project announced last year, awarded to Bell and CGI Group Inc. The Hill Times asked Bell Canada for comment on the contract delays, but a media spokesperson said it does not comment on customer contracts. At the time the contract was awarded, Shared Services Canada said it would save the government $50 million a year once the consolidation was completed in 2015-16. The ETI is part of the plans enacted in 2011 under the newly created federal body, Shared Services Canada, to consolidate the government's IT networks, systems and personnel, in contribution to the Conservative government’s aims of a balanced budget. In addition to the email transformation, SSC has other consolidation plans that coincide with the overall modernization of the government's IT infrastructure. The federal government's web presence is to be streamlined over the next four years to merge about 1,500 websites into one main site under Canada.ca, organized by major themes, Kathleen Martin, a spokeswoman at Employment and Social Development Canada, said in an email. SSC has also begun to provide WiFi services to public servants across federal departments, with the goal of 80 per cent of government employees having WiFi access by 2020. In the Ottawa area, Combat Networks provides this service, and Bell provides it in other areas. SSC also has plans to switch 295,000 landline telephones to voice-over-Internet-protocol (VoIP) connections, which Martin said is estimated to save on average $16 per unit each month. SSC has also said it’s found savings in telephone costs already this year, after it was reported by the Ottawa Citizen that the federal government — predominately SSC — incurred $300,000 in late cellphone and wireless-service fees since 2012, with $250,000 being owed to Bell Mobility. “To eliminate cellphone late fees, SSC took action to consolidate billing down from 75,000 individual phone bills per month, and ensure that nearly 99 per cent of all phone bills are paid on time. We have reduced telephone cost by $57 million in this year alone,” said Martin. — With reporting by Rachel Aeillo at raiello@hilltimes.com and editing by Derek Abma at dabma@thewirereport.ca This is an edited version of a story originally published in The Hill Times on Oct. 6. For more exclusive coverage of federal politics and the federal government, go to www.hilltimes.com.

Government ‘disappointed’ with Bell’s email-contract delay

News | October 7, 2014

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Government ‘disappointed’ with Bell’s email-contract delay

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