REGINA — The Saskatchewan government’s information technology systems are under scrutiny again and this time the focus is on the Ministry of SaskBuilds and Procurement.
Provincial Auditor Tara Clemett reported this week on the ministry and “how it monitors the implementation of IT projects across most of government,” she said.
The audit focused on SaskBuilds and Procurement processes for monitoring implementation of IT business application projects.
This audit comes on the heels of the millions in cost overruns seen by Saskatchewan Health Authority for the AIMS system implementation. This time the focus shifted to SaskBuilds and Procurement, which centrally monitors IT projects for ministries and certain government agencies.
While the provincial auditor did find SaskBuilds and Procurement had generally effective processes for implementation of IT projects, there are recommendations for improvement, according to the report.
One is to formalize sufficient reporting requirements to ensure IT governance bodies receive detailed and timely data on each project’s scope, costs and schedules to appropriately assess individual IT projects.
They stated that reporting ought to include metrics to track overall success of IT business application projects, such as percentage of projects on time and within budget, to support responsible IT investment and oversight.
A second recommendation is to ensure timely submission of monthly project progress reports for IT governance bodies and follow up when not received from clients to allow for complete and accurate project status information.
In their test of four projects, the provincial auditor found the ministry did not consistently receive progress reports from clients for two of those, even though both were running late and were over budget.
Clemett said the “ministry lacks formal reporting requirements such as the percentage of projects on time and budget and risks and issues across projects, potentially leaving IT governance bodies without critical data on costs, timelines and risks.”
“Without clear expectations on what to report and when, decision makers may lack data to properly assess an IT project's health and overall success.”
A third recommendation is for the ministry to sufficiently analyze client-submitted project reports to identify project management issues and centrally report them. The auditor’s report stated the ministry did not document its analysis of the reports.
As an example, Clemett said that between April 2024 and March 2025, “the ministry monitored 20 IT projects with a combined forecast of about $40 million. Eight of these projects ended up over budget and 12 projects were delivered late.”
A fourth recommendation, the report stated, was for the ministry to continuously assess key IT project risks and risk mitigation strategies reported by clients so it can provide timely advice and support.
The auditor’s report states they found the ministry did not assess completeness of client-reported risks or consider appropriateness of their risk mitigation plans. As an example, they pointed to one client spending more than $4 million before a project was cancelled, due to the vendor’s inability to meet the client’s requirements.
Finally, they called for lessons learned to be shared with other government agencies implementing similar IT projects.
As an example of this, Clemett pointed to the ministry’s Enterprise Business Modernization Project.
“The ministry also leads and monitors the Enterprise Business Modernization Project, also known as EBMP, a government-wide initiative projected to cost $260 million to fully implement after facing a $130 million budget overrun and a two-and-a-half-year delay at March 31, 2025,” Clemett said. “This underscores the need for stronger planning, ongoing risk management and effective project analysis.”
It was also recommended in the report that a comprehensive ‘lessons learned’ report at the end of projects would help identify successes and challenges throughout implementation and inform improvements for future projects.
