Coast Guard

Strategic Focus Needed to Improve Information Resources Management Gao ID: IMTEC-90-32 April 24, 1990

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Coast Guard's: (1) management of major automated systems; and (2) development of information resource management (IRM) policies and procedures.

GAO found that: (1) the Coast Guard had difficulty getting basic information that it needed to carry out its mission, since information was not readily available or easily transferable among Coast Guard units; (2) the Coast Guard spent over $500 million on the development, purchase, operation, and maintenance of its information systems, but automated systems continued to impede program operations and management; (3) the lack of top-level leadership and a strategic IRM plan made it difficult to ensure that current and proposed system development would support Coast Guard missions and goals; (4) inadequate policies, standards, and procedures jeopardized the development, evaluation, implementation, and review of information systems; and (5) the Coast Guard focused its system modernization efforts on correcting technology problems without reassessing the basic purposes and uses of its information systems.

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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