Office of Management and Budget
News Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 2001-54
OMB Outlines New Federal E-Government
Strategy
23 Initiatives Will Help Improve Customer Service and
Efficiency
Washington, DC, October 25, 2001 -- Office
of Management and Budget Director Mitchell E. Daniels, Jr.
outlined today a new E-government plan that will accelerate
federal government improvements in effectiveness, efficiency, and
customer service. The strategy, adopted by the
Presidents Management Council (PMC) in October, implements
the Expanding Electronic Government reform outlined
in the Presidents Management Agenda.
As a nation were already the leader in global
information technology. With these reforms, citizens will
be able to demand and expect the same level of IT quality
from their government that the private sector provides its
customers, said Director Daniels.
The plan, developed by the E-Government Task Force established in
August by Director Daniels, will create multi-agency teams to
develop and deploy 23 major E-Government initiatives. These
measures will use Internet-related technologies to accelerate and
streamline service delivery to citizens, reduce paperwork burdens
on business, improve management and responsiveness of joint
federal-state-local programs, and apply commercial best practices
to improve government operating efficiency. Another
initiative will focus on computer security, disaster response,
and intergovernmental communications for public safety.
The 23 E-Government initiatives cut across many federal agencies
and reflect partnership with state and local governments.
The initiatives are designed to maximize federal government
productivity gains from technology, eliminate redundant systems,
and significantly improve governments quality of service
for citizens and businesses over the next 18 to 24 months.
Mark Forman, executive director of the task force, said We
had more than 70 experienced, knowledgeable, and high-level
individuals from 30 agencies working to identify high payoff
initiatives that can be rapidly deployed. We now have an
action plan and roadmap to E-Government that the PMC has
endorsed. Each initiative reflects multiple current
investments, and I look forward to working with agencies in a
partnership approach to reduce redundancy and improve
citizens return on investment. I am proud of the
accomplishments of this task force, which provided a strong
beginning to this important effort.
The E-Government Task Force kicked off the project on August
9. By September 5th, 80 interviews were conducted with
senior federal and state officials, including political
appointees and career civil officials. More than 175 e-mail
responses were also received, and more than 269 information
technology projects were uncovered.
The task force also identified that the federal business
architecture comprises 28 major lines of business and discovered
that nearly 500 business lines are operating in the agencies,
which equates to an average of 19 agencies performing each line
of business. Therefore, the task force is developing a
high-level business case to evaluate each initiative. As a
result of simplifying business processes and unifying government
operations around citizen needs, each E-Government initiative
creates an order of magnitude improvement in efficiency and
effectiveness of government operations. Overall, the
initiatives represent an opportunity to free-up billions of
dollars of federal spending, while accelerating government
response times from weeks down to minutes.
The task force identified five key areas that require executive
attention to enable federal E-Government success: agency
participation; lack of architecture decisions; security and
privacy concerns; resource availability; and resistance from key
stakeholders. The PMC agreed to provide the executive
leadership and management attention needed to overcome these
barriers. In addition, the PMC endorsed the task
forces federal computer security and architecture
recommendations.
Agencies will now begin the difficult work of finalizing
business cases and implementing the recommendations through a
governance structure that includes managing partners
working in cooperation with other partner agencies, measuring
progress, and coordinating with interagency councils/steering
groups on a portfolio of improvements cutting across the federal
government.
Crosscutting Initiative: e-authentication, Managing
Partner, GSA