Electronic Government

Selection and Implementation of the Office of Management and Budget's 24 Initiatives Gao ID: GAO-03-229 November 22, 2002

In the President's Management Agenda, a key element for reforming the federal government is the expansion of electronic government (e-government)--that is, the use of technology, particularly the Internet, to enhance access to government information and services. Accordingly, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) established a task force to select and manage strategic e-government initiatives. GAO was asked to review the completeness of information used for choosing and overseeing these initiatives.

OMB's e-government task force developed abbreviated ("mini") business cases on which to base its selection of initiatives. GAO compared the content of these mini business cases with best practices for the content of e-government business cases. Based on this comparison, all the business cases contained at least some of the key information needed, but many elements were missing. In particular, fewer than half addressed collaboration and customer focus, despite the importance of these topics to OMB's e-government strategy and the President's stated goal: to "champion citizen-centered electronic government that will result in a major improvement in the federal government's value to the citizen." Similarly, the work and funding plans associated with the initiatives all contained at least some key information necessary for OMB oversight. However, based on GAO's analysis, OMB did not have all the information needed to fully monitor the progress and development of the initiatives. For example, only 9 of the initiatives identified a strategy for obtaining needed funds. Also, the accuracy of the estimated costs in the funding plans may be questionable: since May 2002, estimated costs for 12 of the initiatives have changed significantly--by more than 30 percent. Without accurate cost, schedule, and performance information, OMB cannot ensure that its e-government initiatives are on schedule and achieving their goals of providing value to customers and improving government efficiency.

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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