OMB outlines e-gov goals for 2005
In the coming year, the Office of Management and Budget wants to see major improvements in systems security and the quality of the business cases agencies submit.
By Sept. 30, the Office of Management and Budget wants agencies to increase their systems security by 20 percent and receive approval on an additional 19 percent of their business cases.
These were two of five goals the administration laid out in its new report, Expanding E-Government: Partnering for a Results-Oriented Government.
In the past year, agencies secured 70 percent of their systems, and the administration approved 56 percent of all business cases, OMB said. By the end of fiscal 2005, the White House wants agencies to secure 90 percent of all systems, have them accredited by the agencies' inspectors general and receive approval for 75 percent of their business cases.
"This lays the foundation for what agencies will accomplish on the President's Management Agenda for the coming year," Karen Evans, OMB's administrator for IT and e-government, told GCN. "This e-government report builds from the August management report."
OMB also wants at least 50 percent of agencies to use earned-value management to manage IT portfolios and to make sure they have no IT skill gaps. Only 32 percent of the agencies meet the EVM requirement, Evans said.
She did not say what percentage of agencies are lacking employees with the right IT skills. The CIO Council will develop guidelines for assisting agencies in identifying their workforce needs so agencies can draft new workforce strategies.
The council also will continue its work on the 25 e-government initiatives by integrating them with the appropriate lines of business and recommending funding, enhancements and dispute resolution.
"As these goals are achieved and the Federal Enterprise Architecture framework and departments' and agencies' enterprise architectures are utilized, IT investments will be made and managed wisely," Evans noted in the report.
The report also gave a high-level glimpse of OMB's e-government focus for the coming year:
* Develop common systems to deliver simplified and unified services
* Promote interoperability through the adoption of data standards and modernization efforts or cross-agency services
* Improve service levels
* Adopt best practices and shut down ancillary and duplicative systems.
"We have huge potential and opportunities for growth," Evans noted. "The federal government is managing its IT more professionally as a resource for improving results."