Treasury Board President Scott Brison said Canada’s public servants could be testing new prototypes to replace the calamitous Phoenix pay system within weeks.

Brison, who is also the newly named minister of digital government, said it was too early to predict how much a a new system could cost, or when it could take over from the troubled Phoenix. He said the government could end up with more than one system, however.

He also said the Liberal government would not repeat the mistakes of the previous Conservative government by rushing a new system into operation without end-to-end testing.

“We will have working prototypes in the hands of public servants soon, in the coming weeks. And we hope to have more clarity … by spring, but, again, we are not rushing to conclusion until there is exhaustive testing of multiple working prototypes,” Brison told reporters.

The government is tackling more than a pay system in this go-around. It is building an HR-to-pay system, which means a major overhaul of how human resources are managed in the public service. The government now has a patchwork of human resources systems that have trouble talking to Phoenix.

Brison said the next system will be built to meet the needs of employees and managers; it could include a mobile-app pay system they could access 24/7, whether from home or work.

He said the new system is being planned, designed and built with a new “agile procurement process” that will allow vendors to build prototypes that will show the government what they can do.

“It’s less tell and more show,” he said. “We are trying before buying, and, in the coming weeks and months, public servants will have opportunities to actually test working prototypes of the various alternatives.”

Brison has long argued that the days of big “IT zombie projects” like Phoenix, built on detailed specifications with government telling vendors what they want, are over. They don’t work and take so long, the technology is often outdated by time they’re completed.

Instead, he wants IT projects tackled in pieces. Projects will be short and small, with industry and government collaborating to work out solutions piece by piece.

Brison has also promised to consult employees and departments on what they want in a new system.

Brison said the in-house system at Canada Revenue Agency, which two unions are pushing as a pilot project to replace Phoenix, could also be considered.

The unions representing the 40,000 employees at the tax system have long argued that the tax agency’s corporate administrative system, known as CAS, could be a Phoenix replacement with some modifications.

The government has been unwilling to try it, but Brison said the system’s suppliers could put forward a proposal as part of the new procurement process.

Brison made his comments as the government kicked off its search for a new pay system to replace the disastrous Phoenix with an “industry day,” which attracted more than 120 industry representatives from across the country. It will hold another such day in Vancouver.

The information session laid out the new “agile” procurement strategy, which the government calls Next Generation.

The project is being led by Chief Information Officer Alex Benay, who, along with the newly appointed Chief Human Resources Officer Nancy Chahwan, explained the human resources and pay challenges the government faces that it wants fixed in a new “HR to pay” system.

Treasury Board was given $16 million in the last federal budget, to be spent over two years, to explore replacements for Phoenix, which is still dogged by errors and a large backlog of outstanding pay transactions.

Since the Phoenix debacle, the government has been swamped by vendors touting possible approaches or solutions to deal with its pay crisis.

The daylong session answered vendors’ questions and provided information on how they can best respond to the new agile procurement process that the government announced last month when it released a proposed procurement notice.

It also briefed industry on how it manages its human resources and pay operations, and the many problems and challenges it faces in doing that.

At the session, industry raised concerns such as: the cost of building prototypes; whether the 80,000 rules governing pay would be streamlined; whether one vendor would “take all”; and how the project will be broken into small pieces.

Brison said the government has consulted with unions, HR managers and CIOs in departments to establish what’s needed for the future. He said he advised unions, as they gear up for the next round of collective bargaining, that the government wants to “simplify” collective agreements to reduce the number of transactions created. The government has about 85 collective agreements with employees.

Many argue the complexity of federal pay is a root cause of the calamities that have dogged Phoenix. Privy Council Clerk Michael Wernick signalled, after Auditor-General Michael Ferguson’s last Phoenix report, that a major cull of pay rules, special allowances and 630 job classifications was needed before a new pay system is built.

Technology experts argue that the number of rules should have been reduced and simplified before the government even started work on Phoenix, and those rules remain a significant challenge for a new system.