Item - 2021.GL22.18

The General Government and Licensing Committee received the report (April 12, 2021) from the Chief Technology Officer and the Chief Procurement Officer for information.

This report is pursuant to a City Council decision under GL16.5 - Renewal of Proprietary Technology Maintenance Contracts Supporting the City Services from 2021-2025 at its meeting on October 27, 28 and 30, 2020. At this meeting, City Council requested the Chief Technology Officer and the Chief Procurement Officer to report to the April 2021 General Government and Licensing Committee meeting on accountability policies, procedures, and enforcement that ensures proper business plans are provided for the future purchase of proprietary Information and Technology software and systems. 

A proprietary Information and Technology system or software is a system, application or tool that is owned by a private individual or corporation that holds exclusive legal rights to it as an intellectual property under a trademark or patent. Businesses and governments leverage such systems to improve their products and services and deliver a good customer experience.

In 2020, Technology Services Division developed a governance framework and principles to manage city-wide technology procurements. This framework is supported by policies, procedures, and enforcement mechanisms to ensure future city-wide Information and Technology purchases fall within the oversight of the Chief Technology Officer and align with approved Division business plans. This will enable the Chief Technology Officer to provide  an expanded City-wide scope and provide, oversight, alignment and direction on standards, practices and policies to all City divisions with respect to all technology assets, goods, and services as mandated by City Council in October 2019.

Governance Framework:

1. Launch of an Intake Procedure and appointment of an Enterprise Architecture Review Board to control future city-wide purchases of all Information and Technology software and systems: Technology Services has launched an Intake procedure to manage the incoming technology work requests, including procurement, from all clients. This procedure will be utilized to evaluate all business requests and determine if they align to business plans and if the functional requirements can be met by Information and Technology platforms¹ that already exist, are planned or are being implemented. This will manage the reduction of technology sprawl, the over lapping abundance of various technology applications, by limiting duplication of efforts and application systems.

Technology Services has also internally launched an Enterprise Architecture Review Board which is a governing body to evaluate the architecture for new and existing Information and Technology platforms which also includes any integration to City Corporate technology environment from a strategic and operational perspective.

2. Partner with other City Divisions to ensure that their division Information and Technology business plans align with the City's overall technology strategy, plans and goals.

Procedures:

1. Technology Authorization Procurement Procedure (ITAPP) - ITAPP enables the procurement of Technology software and systems. Through this procedure, city-wide technology procurements are reviewed and approved by the Chief Technology Officer and strategically procured with the approval of the Chief Procurement Officer.

2. Technology Rationalization Procedure: Identification of existing proprietary Information and Technology platforms in the City and determination of the platforms that should be maintained, replaced, retired, or consolidated. This procedure will support standardizing platforms within a specific set of business capabilities (such as service delivery management, financial management, risk management, etc.) and associated business processes.

Principles:

The governance framework and supporting procedures will be guided by the principle that future investments in enterprise Information and Technology platforms must ensure stability, scalability, solutioning and sustainability ('4S').

The COVID-19 pandemic provided an opportunity to Technology Services to provide leadership within a city-wide role and demonstrate its corporate value by enabling a remote workforce and accelerating the delivery of digital services. Technology Services Division will continue to broaden and expand its existing processes for city-wide application in accordance with the Council mandate to implement a centralized model for technology.  

¹Platform is any hardware or software used to host an application or service, or any technology on which other technologies are built.