Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions today are for the Minister of Finance.
Mr. Speaker, why has the GNWT overspent its computer hardware and software budget for every year during the 19th Assembly, and how does the GNWT intend to more accurately budget its digital infrastructure spending? Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Kam Lake. Minister responsible for Finance.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the Member's observation. There certainly are budget lines that go department by department, which can make it difficult perhaps to look at it from a corporate perspective. I am, however, happy to say the Department of Finance is now putting in practice a way to better review and report on those specific items, computer hardware and software. That should make it easier to look at this from a governmentwide perspective and ensure that we are obviously controlling those costs but also better servicing the public through having better control over what products we have and making sure the departments have what they need. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. And I appreciate the department is taking note and putting in better controls to look at the spending on digital infrastructure. And just to be clear, I'm not opposed to digital infrastructure. I want to be clear as to what my interest is in this. Since the very beginning, I've been asking about integrated service delivery of the public service, and this is one of the barriers to being able to do that properly.
So given the great need for interoperability to properly serve NWT residents, does the NWT intend to create an interoperability framework? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Member must be reading my social media. I had the opportunity to attend an FPT recently where I think my lead word was "interoperability." It is something that, quite frankly, doesn't sound very exciting, not the sort of thing that gets somebody's political blood boiling, but is quite critical to the functioning of the services from the IT perspective and one that we need to do a better job of, Mr. Speaker. There's really no way around that. So I'm pleased to have some attention here. It's been brought to my attention by my officials that lack of attention, lack of awareness and understanding of what it is, of what this is, that doesn't give it the attention and therefore the clout that it needs. So happy to speak to this and happy to also say, in light of that, Mr. Speaker, we are putting forward, through the Office of the Chief Information Officer, a framework this fiscal year, and that will give guidance to get to a place where we can say that we have proper interoperability with that framework in place to provide the kinds of policies, programs, guidelines that corporate structure that is required for it. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. And, yes, a good message to all Ministers, I am watching your social media very closely.
Mr. Speaker, I'm wondering how this framework will help reduce silos and how will it be ensured that departments are coordinating in their software and hardware purchases? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in many ways this is the culmination of why ISSS was created in the first place under the last administration and now is coming more and more to its fruition. Again, I know we've said this more times than I would like to count, COVID was not a help in this particular regard. It was certainly a big draw on this particular division to pause some of the transitions required during COVID. But now turning back to what should be regular business, the chief information office does create a business partner approach with departments. This is meant to have that crossjurisdictional committee effort, bringing departments and representatives from departments in, to be able to discuss and look at what are the IT needs, not dissimilar to how it happens over on the capital planning side where ADMs from all departments come together to work on these requests. Now we'll be doing that on the IT side better as well. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, one of the things that the government is doing is currently evaluating all of the redundancies and efficiencies of its programs and services through government renewable. And so I'm wondering if ISSS itself is involved in its own government renewal process focused on the interoperability of GNWT digital infrastructure and redundancy reduction between GNWT departments. Right now there is a lot of silos happening, there's a lot of fragmented digital systems, there's a lot of purchasing that's happening individually within departments, and so I'm wondering if they're doing kind of their own capture of inventory of systems throughout the government and evaluating how to bring those together? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Again, Mr. Speaker, very timely. This is something that I think a lot of the provinces and territories are becoming very aware of and the importance of. It's a table that provinces and territories sit at together as a symposium because it's an issue that doesn't necessarily get the attention until something goes wrong. So very happy to be able to speak to it now, to give it that kind of attention it deserves in advance so we can try to be more proactive going forward. As I've said, Mr. Speaker, the Office of the Chief Information Officer at the helm of Information Shared System Services is now in a position to start to put those pieces together, to develop this kind of framework. We're not outside the government renewal process. ISSS is part of government renewal just as is every other division, and they've gone through the process of having their inventory done and can now get down to the work of ensuring that they are providing a framework for all of government to improve the IT services. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.
