01.

Executive Chairman’s Statement

The start of 2021 saw the commencement of a new three-year strategic plan that builds upon our years of public sector experience and know-how in implementing digital solutions and services to Government. We aim to transform our insight into new opportunities to improve service delivery and strengthen client trust, lifting our Agency to new heights of excellence.

We continued with our investment to modernise our facilities and tools to meet the demands of a modern Data Centre facility. Following the launch of the new Security Operations Centre, 2021 saw the completion of new offices for our Network Operations Centre. It is our priority to equip ourselves with innovative and efficient tools to ensure the smooth operation and maximum security of the Government digital infrastructure and services.

MITA is proud to have been nominated by Government to act as the National Coordination Centre, representing Malta within the network of coordination centres within the European Cybersecurity Competence Centre. This demonstrated the worth of trust that the Agency has earned within specialised competency areas such as cybersecurity.

We were also pleased to be chosen by Government to host the Prime Minister and the President of the European Commission, during an official visit in relation to the recovery and resilience facility NextGenerationEU and the national Recovery and Resilience Plan. MITA was allocated almost €23M in terms of recovery and resiliency funds.

This is by no coincidence, it is because of our people’s commitment toward rendering professional services and our pledge to support the Public Administration reach new heights in public service delivery.

TONY SULTANA Executive Chairman

Board Members

2021 was another challenging year because of the COVID-19 pandemic. We are however grateful as we still were able to achieve our goals for the year. We maintained our momentum thanks to every one of our employees. Not only did we guarantee our services but continued with our investments in areas such as information technology and systems modernisation, shared platforms, cybersecurity posture, as well as on communication and collaboration tools.

This included a new enterprise agreement for the provision of licences and other related services, providing accesses to the latest product versions. The agreement was reached following the issuance of a competitive public call for licence solution providers to submit their quotes. This involved an investment of €20M, covering a period of three years. The availability of these latest tools further supported the public service commitment to provide a strong and effective collaboration suite to support employees to virtually collaborate remotely from anywhere. This was further supported with an online training programme aimed at making sure that the end-users are properly trained to maximise the use of the solution.

We also launched a voice solution using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), an ambitious initiative that will offer the public service an easy and cost-efficiency unified communication platform. MITA has successfully pioneered a reverse electronic auction as part of the procurement process for the provision of data connectivity services for the Public Service, marking a “first” for the Agency and indeed for Malta’s public procurement. Through this reverse e-auction, operators competed aggressively to reduce their prices and seize the chance to provide data connectivity to a share of the Public Service.

It is our pride to continue to be part of the public service success, through the continuous investement in the use of technologies. Through our central role in public service delivery, we aim to accelerate the digital transformation to help the public service further optimise service quality and delivery.

Executive Committee

In July 2021, MITA awarded the tender for the provision of a Corporate Enterprise Resource Planning Solution, including the implementation and configuration of all modules of the solution as well as the provision of training, together with service subscription and support services. MITA sees this project as an opportunity for business process automation, in areas such as accounting, procurement, project management and human resources, that will provide more insight and internal control for the better management of the Agency.

We are also looking into our email service offerings by moving also to the provision of a cloud-based enterprise-grade email service, offering ample mailbox space and online calendaring capabilities. This will allow our clients to have multiple devices maintained synchronised, ensuring continuous access to personal emails, calendar, and contacts accessible from anywhere.

In line with the implementation of new technologies, such as the hybrid cloud environment, our teams are modernising their practices in order to provide services more efficiently through DevOps concepts. This includes the automatic provisioning and management of servers, operating systems, database connections, storage, and other infrastructure components. On a day-to-day support we are also implementing automated processes that see through the intelligent provisioning to guarantee capacity and reduce resource consumption to ensure solution scalability, as well as workload monitoring and balancing to prevent potential issues.

This change process is a demonstration of our Agency’s commitment towards its workforce, as we believe that our employees propel our Agency ahead with their knowledge, commitment, and distinct viewpoints. We are an organisation that believe in learning and continuous transformation, as this makes us more resilient, more agile, and more responsive to public service needs.

Human Resouces

The human aspect has always been high on the Agency’s Agenda. The pandemic introduced new challenges and norms in everyday life that counteracted the prevalent health crisis. During 2021, the Agency enhanced the promotion of a work environment that was inclusive, adaptive, and understanding whilst at the same time pushing and challenging the capabilities of its workforce. This was necessary to ensure that the workforce remained capable, engaged, and motivated.

With all this in mind, the Agency continued to support Remote Working in addition to the long-established flexible work arrangements that included Teleworking, Reduced hours, and Flexi-Time policies. The Agency also piloted and implemented a new Flexi-week work arrangement that permits employees to compress or extend a work week from four to six days. In addition, the Agency strengthened the Wellbeing function to help employees who were facing personal challenges. Operational COVID-19 mitigation protocols were retained and enhanced to address risks associated with the spread.

The Agency also received the prestigious accreditation of the Investors in People standard. This accreditation meant that the Agency was evaluated for its people management competences and quality of leadership and was proven to meet recognized standards.

The training function continued to provide existing and new training platforms to promote industry related certifications with its workforce. A new recognition platform was also introduced to recognize and reward those employees who go out of their way in self-development, customer care, corporate and social activities. This platform is crucial to steer the climate and culture of the Agency toward becoming livelier and ever improving.

04.1 MITA Awards for Excellence

On Tuesday, 7th December 2021, the Agency hosted the annual MITA Awards for Excellence. In-line with established COVID-19 related health measures the majority of the workforce met under one roof for the first time after the COVID-19 pandemic. Awards were given to those employees who were voted as having embraced the MITA Values, and achieved the highest levels of teamwork.

The Awards conferred were as follows:

In addressing the everchanging developments of today’s technologies and in order to effectively monitor the ICT operations within our data centre facilities, MITA has undertaken an extensive embellishment project to upgrade the Network Operations Centre (NOC) to meet today’s business requirements.

The NOC operates on a 24x7 basis to ensure ongoing proactive monitoring and provides a first line of support outside office hours.

The design principles adopted at the newly refurbished NOC aims to address the operational needs, visual impact, lighting scheme, environmental consideration, as well as portraying a professional image of the Agency. In addition, the NOC footprint was increased by 25% to provide greater flexibility and functionality.

One major improvement within the NOC was the deployment of wide Video Wall Display specifically intended to improve the visual ICT monitoring tools and consolidate the various dashboards into one holistic Video Wall Display.

The NOC upgrade project is another tangible commitment from MITA to provide high-quality data centre services as well as MITA’s dedication to retain improved uptime and economic value.

06.1 Reverse Bidding for Data Connectivity across the Public ServiceA First for Malta

We may all be familiar with a traditional auction process where competitors raise bids to acquire the object or property that is up for sale. The same concept can be applied to public procurement, in an electronic manner and also in reverse.

An eAuction is a real-time dynamic procurement procedure conducted online between a buying Contracting Authority and a number of pre-qualified suppliers who compete against each other to earn the Contracting Authority’s business. This procedure is appropriate for categories with strong competitive environments among numerous qualified suppliers or when there is a low level of procurement complexity, and specifications are well-defined industry standards.

In a ‘first’ for the Agency and indeed also for Malta’s public procurement, MITA has successfully pioneered a reverse electronic auction as part of the procurement process for the provision of data connectivity services for the Malta Public Service. The imminent coming into force of Government’s remote working policy led to the need to equip remote workers with the equipment and data connectivity necessary to carry out their work remotely. For this reason, in collaboration with the Office of the Prime Minister – Office of the Permanent Secretary (People & Standards) and the Office of the Permanent Secretary within the Ministry for Energy, Enterprise and Sustainable Development (MESD), MITA sought to conduct a reverse e-auction, during which operators competed aggressively to reduce their prices and grab the chance to provide a substantial portion of the Public Service with data connectivity.

Following a call for tenders in which a selection of electronic communication service providers were invited to submit the eligibility, technical and financial information, compliant bidders were invited to participate in an auction process. Conducted as a completely electronic process through the Government’s Electronic Public Procurement System (EPPS), bidders were allowed a pre-determined period of time to outbid each other financially, in real time, within defined parameters, and without the possibility of renegotiating or revising the technical specifications and contractual terms as originally agreed upon when submitting their bid.

The outcome of this exercise are savings to the tune of 37.5% from the maximum allowed rate per connection per month. The initiative will also provide a uniform and harmonised service across the Public Service being provided through a framework contract with one Economic Operator, at very competitive rates, to cater for all data connections required for remote workers. Contracting Authorities across Government will now be able to acquire data connectivity services through this centralised purchasing mechanism established by MITA. This goes to show that innovation can be implemented across all areas of Government- with a little creativity and determination even a call for tenders can be designed innovatively and effectively to achieve substantial efficiency and cost savings for Government.

As part of its strategy, MITA endeavours to provide high-quality digital consultancy services to the Public Administration, to develop procurement frameworks, and to work with the Public Administration to understand better how MITA can assist them in achieving their business requirements. In this specific instance, MITA was quick to respond to the request to assist with the implementation of the Remote Working Policy across the Public Service, by providing its technology expertise, designing and managing the entire procurement process as a Central Purchasing Body, within very stringent timeframes and at the turn of the summer recess period.

Having paved the way for the first reverse auction, MITA will reutilise this procurement procedure whenever the particular circumstances of the procurement will allow. MITA will continue to seek out appropriate use cases to implement reverse auctions, and who knows maybe other innovative procurement and electronic procedures, to continue maximising on investments made in electronic tools.

06.2 Government Modern Workplace Initiative - A Continuous Journey

Two years ago the Agency together with the Government of Malta embarked on implementing a modern workplace aiming at meeting the changing business pressures of the workplace. This changed the way individuals communicate and collaborate, becoming more mobile and requiring more flexibility to the way organizations need to adapt to attract and retain talent.

From the moment the modern workplace initiative was conceptualized, MITA did not consider it a pure technology project focusing only on the deployment of Office 365, but created a detailed adoption and change management plan that handled the people side of change and put end-user training at the forefront of this effort.

For the very first time, the end-user training on Office 365 focused primarily on instructor-led online sessions first using Microsoft Skype for Business then later switched to Microsoft Teams. The Institute of Public Service (IPS) complemented the online training that MITA was offering by delivering short courses about Microsoft 365 services in a classroom style training.

MITA in collaboration with Microsoft organised live training events for the public sector on various Microsoft products such as Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Forms, Microsoft To Do, OneDrive, OneNote, Planner, and SharePoint. This training had started before the pandemic but with the onset of the immediate need to remote working, the training sessions took on a more important role where people took the opportunity to attend these training sessions to be able to perform remote working to the best of their abilities. At the same time, MITA offered self-paced online training videos and recorded webinars through an e-learning site, to accommodate the needs of people who prefer this learning style or did not have the chance to attend the online sessions.

Moreover, Microsoft Teams became the main communication tool for relevant announcements, trying to minimise emails and changes to the people’s working styles and mindsets. A Champions virtual network was also created, consisting of employees across all Government organizations, leveraging tools such as Teams for monthly community calls, trainings, and communication.

The early key decisions taken during the design of the implementation plan to facilitate Government employees with different training streams during the rollout process of Microsoft365 services were rewarding. When the central Government at the beginning of the pandemic took the decision of remote working, the transition for Public Service employees was smooth and seamless. Different Government departments benefitted from these new modern online tools, for example the Ministry of Health implemented the Telemedicine platform where doctors could communicate with their patients and conduct remote health checks.

Training and development remain a top priority aiming at enhancing employees’ skills. MITA will continue with its support and collaboration towards the public sector to improve their day-to-day work by ‘empowering Government employees through a digital workplace’.

06.3 Call Centre & Service Desk

At the heart of MITA, the Service Call Centre is geared to provide the best level of service while striving to maintain a positive user experience throughout its operations. With a 34,000 user-base and more than 500 services being supported round the clock, MITA has embarked on a venture to outsource its first line of support with the aim to continue improving the quality of service provided. This initiative was driven by the MITA Call Centre with the backing of all stake holders.

Prior to the outsourcing of the first line of support, the team was struggling to find the right balance between consistently providing the expected level of support while in parallel investing in our people to remain aligned with the latest technologies.

As part of the outsourcing preliminary analysis, it was noted that approximately 50% of the daily incoming calls can be processed by non-technical trained personnel. These calls, which are usually serviced in less than five minutes are mainly related to queries or basic assistance. The steps required to address these calls can be documented in a format of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs).

In view of these results, it was agreed that our partner’s main role is to handle all incoming calls and assist on non-technical matters while transferring calls to the MITA Service Desk when technical support is required. In each case a ticket is logged within the MITA’s Service Management System and processed as per defined procedures. In the event where technical assistance must be invoked, the phone call is transferred to the MITA Service Desk for technical support and follow up. The overall service provided is closely monitored by established metrics and quality related checks are carried out regularly. These exercises allow us to identify related process improvements.

This initiative made way for MITA trained agents to support more complex issues. To reach this goal, specific training has been identified and planned so the team is transformed from a Call Centre to a Service Desk. This transformation has led to a higher resolution of the total reported issues without the need to involve MITA Technical third liners or Project teams. Moreover, the number of abandoned calls has decreased while the number of calls answered in the first 60 seconds has increased drastically. Another benefit is that other specialised MITA internal teams have gained more time on their hands to focus on the development and improvements of services under their responsibility.

The transition and training period was very challenging since we had to align ourselves with COVID-19 directives and hence all training had to be delivered remotely.

In late 2020, MITA set up a new Applied Research function responsible for kick-starting innovative proof-of-concept projects (POCs) that solve existing and practical business problems, and promote the practical take-up of emerging technologies, by both Public Administration and MITA as the beneficiaries.

Through its Applied Research initiative MITA’s role is to select and propose problem areas to research through a POC, and then provide overall project direction to keep collaborators on track with respect to the practical goals set for them.

MITA is collaborating with the University of Malta (UoM) and MCAST as academic institutions and/or technology partners to provide their knowledge, competences and resources needed to experimentally develop the prototype and test it in an authentic business setting.

Together with the Government of Malta, the Agency is investing in this, to increase the practical take-up of digital technology for the benefit of citizens and businesses, as well as increase demands for applied R&D skills and expertise. It also strengthens the beneficiary’s business case and mitigates the risks associated with new technologies, through evidence-based inputs when procuring innovative solutions, or improving current ones.

The importance of pursuing Applied Research projects lies in what makes problem driven solutions attractive. They allow for innovation and the incorporation of emerging technologies as a main instrument for the solution. This is how the Applied Research initiative links with the Emerging Technologies Lab (ETL) within MITA. Where relevant and necessary, MITA is making its ETL available as an additional resource to these applied research projects, given the resources and space available.

06.5 Student Placement Programme - The experience of new employers

The Student Placement Programme (SPP) is an annual, mutually beneficial programme for ICT and ICT related students and employers of all sectors during the summer season.

The programme aims to reduce the mismatch between supply and demand for ICT skills in the Maltese labour market. Through this programme employers can have a more diversified workforce as they employ new generations with new talents and a variety of ideas into their organisation.

With an investment of over €750,000 in student salaries, a total number of 396 students and 113 employers benefited from the programme. To reduce the financial burden that came about due to the pandemic in 2021, MITA reimbursed 75% of the students salary to private employers and 100% of the salary cost to the NGOs and the public sector.

The following shows the statistics in which sectors the students were placed, and how many employers from each sector benefited from this year’s programme.