OPS Employer bends to AMAPCEO pressure; will control IT contractor hiring

After years of advocacy, AMAPCEO has successfully convinced the OPS Employer to better control contractor hiring in the area of Information Technology (IT).

The OPS Employer has now instituted new rules that make it mandatory for managers to draft a business case that strongly articulates the need for IT consultants. These business cases require signoff from senior bureaucrats. It is expected that this will curtail the dramatic rise of expenditures on consulting services over the last decade.

In her 2018 Annual Report, Ontario’s Auditor General found that on average, IT consultants cost 30 per cent more than similar full-time staff.

The OPS Employer’s decision is a positive first step for AMAPCEO, as approximately 80 per cent of all spending on consultants is in the area of IT, where consultants are performing on-going or operational work that full-time staff could be doing.

In fact, as part of their ‘line-by-line’ review, auditors EY Canada found that the OPS Employer could even share government IT services with broader public sector entities to lower overall costs—another initiative AMAPCEO has long advocated for.