Item - 2018.AU11.3

The Audit Committee recommends that: 

1.  City Council request the City Manager, in consultation with the Chief Information Officer, to establish appropriate governance and accountabilities to ensure that divisions with IT services operating independently from the Information &Technology Division follow Corporate IT policies, procedures, and standards in acquiring and managing IT services.

2.  City Council request the Chief Information Officer to:

a.  Ensure that the inventory in the corporate IT asset management system is updated (including assets directly managed by the Information &Technology Division, as well as assets managed by other City divisions).

b.  Perform periodic reviews and reconciliations of data captured within the corporate IT asset management system to ensure the system is accurate and complete.

c.  Implement available tools and reporting functionality within the corporate IT asset management system to support ongoing asset monitoring.

d.  Use the data available within the corporate asset management system to inform strategic technology planning, including maximizing the use of assets and managing the costs to maintain them throughout their lifecycle.

3.  City Council request the Chief Information Officer to leverage data obtained through various network tools to inform the City’s network and strategic planning teams.

4.  City Council request the Chief Information Officer, in consultation with all relevant divisions, to:

a.  Develop a comprehensive list of applications and identify those applications and systems that have the potential to be consolidated and modernized, eliminating the need to procure, implement, and maintain duplicative systems in the future.

b.  Review existing decentralized IT services and, where possible, consolidate these services with the Information &Technology Division.

5.  City Council request the Chief Information Officer to establish a strategic technology roadmap to modernize and transform the IT environment. The roadmap should clearly set out milestones and performance measures to assess progress in meeting the City’s short-term and long-term IT goals.

6.  City Council request the Chief Information Officer to develop and implement procedures to promote clarity in roles and responsibilities for creating, maintaining, and refreshing the IT infrastructure roadmap.

7.  City Council request the Chief Information Officer to ensure that the Strategic Technology Roadmap identifies opportunities for harmonizing lifecycle management and standardizing technologies in IT infrastructure in order to achieve operational efficiencies, reduce costs, and source assets strategically.

8.  City Council request the Chief Information Officer to conduct periodic architecture reviews to strengthen security, eliminate redundancies, and identify opportunities to modernize the IT environment.

9.  City Council request the Chief Information Officer to expedite efforts to mature its processes and capabilities to support Cloud services.

10.  City Council request the Chief Information Officer to ensure that all IT business cases describe how the new IT project or lifecycle management refresh aligns with the strategic technology roadmap; and include an evaluation of cloud versus on-premise solution.

11.  City Council request the Chief Financial Officer, in consultation with the Chief Information Officer, to develop a tool to communicate the total cost impacts (operating and capital) of IT projects to provide clarity wherever increased operating budget pressures from cloud services are offset by savings in capital costs.

12.  City Council request the Chief Information Officer, to coordinate with the Chief Purchasing Officer on implementing category management for the procurement of IT equipment, services and solutions, utilizing the strategic technology roadmap to lower the total cost of IT.

13.  City Council request the Chief Information Officer, in consultation with the City Clerk, the City Solicitor, and where needed, the City’s Accountability Officers, to include in the data governance model:

a.  Guidance on the City’s enterprise-wide data strategy to provide direction for lifecycle management and classification of data in alignment with the Municipal Code.

b.  A special case data retention policy and procedure to address scenarios where archiving specific data is required, such as litigation needs.

14.  City Council request the Chief Information Officer to enhance the existing process to monitor and update IT policies, procedures and standards on a periodic basis.
  

15.  City Council request:

a.  The City Manager forward this report to agencies and corporations for review.

b.  The heads of the major agencies and corporations review the issues and recommendations included in this report and consider the relevance to their respective organizations for implementation.

16.  City Council request the Chief Information Officer to consider developing a service offering for City agencies where the case exists for cost savings or other benefits.

The Corporate Information & Technology (I&T) Division's role is to provide City-wide leadership in modernizing services through the strategic investment, development and management of the City's IT systems.

In this role, the I&T Division prepared an IT Portfolio Integrated Plan for achieving the eCity goals, which are to ensure the City's businesses, services to the public, and political processes are effectively managed and enhanced by technology. The purpose of this plan was to improve online service delivery, and to update the City's overall IT environment to ensure it is aligned with the City's IT vision.

In 2017, the Auditor General initiated an audit of the City’s information technology infrastructure and assets.

This audit is still in progress. This interim report highlights several overarching issues.

To successfully deliver the eCity Strategy, the City requires centralized IT governance and a Strategic Technology Roadmap to guide the acquisition and deployment of technology.

The Auditor General has made 15 recommendations to enable the I&T Division and the City to make timely progress on the key actions to create and execute the Strategic Technology Roadmap for the IT environment. Additional findings related to this audit will be reported in a subsequent report expected to be issued by mid-2018.