HUD Information Resources

The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) continues to be plagued by poorly integrated, ineffective, and unreliable information systems that neither satisfy management needs nor provide adequate control. It will take years to fully resolve these problems. This situation exists because HUD's information management resources have not been planned and managed to meet the Department's missions and strategic objectives. In addition, HUD has not established adequate security for its computers that process sensitive and privacy data and lacks contingency plans for data processing in the event of a major disruption or disaster. Finally, HUD's efforts to develop and implement integrated financial systems have been impeded by ineffective planning and management oversight. HUD's recent commitment to strategic planning and its initial steps to address strategic planning represent the first substantive actions taken since GAO reported on the absence of strategic information resources planning a decade ago.

GAO found that: (1) HUD information systems are poorly integrated, ineffective, and do not meet HUD management or control needs; (2) HUD ability to fully utilize IRM resources to satisfy its missions and strategic objectives is significantly limited because it lacks strategic IRM planning and has not resolved long-standing information system problems; (3) HUD IRM plans are not based on strategic business plans that identify department missions or the strategies, processes, resources, and information needed to achieve these missions; (4) HUD lacks a departmentwide information architecture and a data management program to govern the management and use of IRM information resources and meet program managers' information requirements; (5) HUD has not established adequate computer security controls to ensure that its sensitive data are protected against unauthorized access and major disruption; (6) HUD efforts to resolve long-standing financial management weaknesses have been hindered by ineffective planning and management oversight; and (7) HUD needs to strengthen its commitment to strategic planning and fully implement actions to address data management, computer security, and financial systems integration weaknesses to resolve its long-standing information management and control problems.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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