Auditor General Recommendations on IT Services (April 26)
Mr. Kang: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Auditor General’s most recent report has a list of 19 outstanding recommendations for Service Alberta, most of them to do with IT services.
Some of them are identified as key recommendations, and some are six years old. To the Minister of Service Alberta: why is the minister taking so long to respond to key recommendations, particularly a key recommendation on improving IT services to the rest of the government?
The Speaker: The hon. minister.
Mrs. Klimchuk: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Service Alberta has been working very closely with the Auditor General to ensure that some of the areas that have been raised with respect to IT have been put in place. One of the things we have completed is the chief information officers across all the departments and the chief information officer residing in Service Alberta. We continue to follow through and work with the Auditor General on some of the other recommendations as well.
The Speaker: The hon. member.
Mr. Kang: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. To the minister of the Treasury Board. In 2010-11 Service Alberta’s budget to mine for gold through shared IT services was $15 million. The forecast was nearly double at $29 million. How does the Treasury Board justify this kind of speculative budgeting?
Mr. Snelgrove: Mr. Speaker, we have been working over the last years internally with all of the departments and under the great leadership of the Minister of Service Alberta to make sure that the government of Alberta is operating on a common domain. With regard to any of the specific expenditures I’d be happy to get back to the hon. member if he can identify them.
The Speaker: The hon. member.
Mr. Kang: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. To the minister again: given that Service Alberta is ignoring the Auditor General, is unable to control the cost of services to the government, and overspent on its technology services by 30 per cent last year, does the Treasury Board need to offer more discipline to this ministry?
Mr. Snelgrove: Mr. Speaker, I will have to go reread that section of the Auditor General’s report. The Auditor General gave us a lot of help in moving forward to make sure we had secure sites, that we were providing the right amount of protection, balancing our operational costs, and we’ve done a very good job of that. We simply have spent more time making it better than we have clearing up the old recommendations so they could be reaudited and removed from the Auditor’s report. We have committed to work with the Auditor this year to review as much as possible all of the existing recommendations and clear them off the books.
Alberta Hansard, April 26, 2011