The failures in the implementation of digital platforms at the Société d’Assurance Automobile du Québec (SAAQ) will have cost at least $2.6 million in overtime to pay the employees called in for reinforcements during the crisis.
Such was the measurement of the costs made by the SAAQ on April 27, said its new CEO Éric Ducharme during the study of the government’s budget appropriations on Tuesday.
Of this amount, $1.4 million was used to pay employees called in for weekend reinforcements in service centers, particularly for taking photos.
Mr. Ducharme and the minister responsible for the SAAQ, Geneviève Guilbault, had to answer a barrage of questions about the crisis that the organization went through for a good part of March.
At the beginning of the month, the SAAQ missed its digital shift when thousands of Quebecers invaded these service centers, unable to transact online with the organization.
Two new platforms were then in question: the Government Authentication Service (SAG) and the SAAQ Clic platform. The latter relates specifically to SAAQ services, while the SAG is a new online service platform intended for the entire government. Ironically, it first had to prove itself at the SAAQ, before being implemented in other departments.
Insufficient branch resources
Asked about the causes of the crisis, Mr. Ducharme, who has just been appointed to straighten out the organization, maintained that “mitigation measures could have been increased” and that there could have been more employees. in service centers.
Minister Guilbault, for her part, argued that the SAAQ had both overestimated the number of people online and underestimated the number of people who were going to show up at the centers.
According to Mr. Ducharme, the average waiting time in service centers has still not returned to its normal rate but continues to drop. It is currently 20 minutes.