Electronic Government
Potential Exists for Enhancing Collaboration on Four Initiatives Gao ID: GAO-04-6 October 10, 2003In accordance with the President's management agenda, the Office of Management and Budget has sponsored initiatives to promote expansion of electronic government--the use of information technology, particularly Web-based Internet applications, to enhance government services. Each initiative demands a high degree of collaboration among organizations. For four of these initiatives, GAO was asked to determine, among other things, their implementation progress and the extent of collaboration among agencies and other parties involved.
All four of the e-government initiatives that GAO reviewed have made progress in meeting the objectives and milestones of their early phases. Two of the initiatives have established Web portals--www.geodata.gov for the Geospatial One-Stop initiative and www.BusinessLaw.gov for the Business Gateway. The projects face additional challenging tasks, such as e-Payroll's objective of establishing governmentwide payroll processing standards and Geospatial One-Stop's goal of compiling a comprehensive inventory of geospatial data holdings. All four initiatives have taken steps to promote collaboration with their partner agencies, but none has been fully effective in involving all important stakeholders. For example, for the e-Payroll initiative, the Office of Personnel Management has taken steps to promote close collaboration with its four designated e-Payroll providers, but has not addressed the concerns of a key stakeholder that will be required to make changes to its payroll processes and policies. For Geospatial One-Stop, Interior has established a board of directors with broad representation, but has not taken steps to ensure that key stakeholders at the state and local levels are involved in the initiative. For the Integrated Acquisition Environment initiative, the General Services Administration is using a variety of tools to promote collaboration, but has not involved partner agencies' chief financial officers (CFOs). Finally, for the Business Gateway, the Small Business Administration has not taken key steps to facilitate effective collaboration with its partners and stakeholders, such as establishing a collaborative decision-making process and reaching formal agreements on partner roles and responsibilities. All four initiatives have faced short time frames to accomplish their major tasks, so that competing priorities have sometimes hindered full collaboration. However, without effective collaboration on the tasks that remain to be completed, these initiatives may be at risk of not fully achieving their objectives or the broader goals of the President's management agenda.
RecommendationsOur 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.
Director: Team: Phone:GAO-04-6, Electronic Government: Potential Exists for Enhancing Collaboration on Four Initiatives
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Report to Congressional Committees:
October 2003:
ELECTRONIC GOVERNMENT:
Potential Exists for Enhancing Collaboration on Four Initiatives:
GAO-04-6:
GAO Highlights:
Highlights of GAO-04-6, a report to the Committee on Government Reform
and the Subcommittee on Technology, Information Policy,
Intergovernmental Relations and the Census, House of Representatives
Why GAO Did This Study:
In accordance with the President‘s management agenda, the Office of
Management and Budget has sponsored initiatives to promote expansion
of electronic government”the use of information technology,
particularly Web-based Internet applications, to enhance government
services. Each initiative demands a high degree of collaboration among
organizations. For four of these initiatives, GAO was asked to
determine, among other things, their implementation progress and the
extent of collaboration among agencies and other parties involved.
What GAO Found:
All four of the e-government initiatives that GAO reviewed have made
progress in meeting the objectives and milestones of their early
phases (the four initiatives, their goals, and the agencies that act
as their managing partners are shown in the table). Two of the
initiatives have established Web portals”www.geodata.gov for the
Geospatial One-Stop initiative and www.BusinessLaw.gov for the
Business Gateway. The projects face additional challenging tasks, such
as e-Payroll‘s objective of establishing governmentwide payroll
processing standards and Geospatial One-Stop‘s goal of compiling a
comprehensive inventory of geospatial data holdings.
All four initiatives have taken steps to promote collaboration with
their partner agencies, but none has been fully effective in involving
all important stakeholders. For example, for the e-Payroll initiative,
the Office of Personnel Management has taken steps to promote close
collaboration with its four designated e-Payroll providers, but has
not addressed the concerns of a key stakeholder that will be required
to make changes to its payroll processes and policies. For Geospatial
One-Stop, Interior has established a board of directors with broad
representation, but has not taken steps to ensure that key
stakeholders at the state and local levels are involved in the
initiative. For the Integrated Acquisition Environment initiative, the
General Services Administration is using a variety of tools to promote
collaboration, but has not involved partner agencies‘ chief financial
officers. Finally, for the Business Gateway, the Small Business
Administration has not taken key steps to facilitate effective
collaboration with its partners and stakeholders, such as establishing
a collaborative decision-making process and reaching formal agreements
on partner roles and responsibilities. All four initiatives have faced
short time frames to accomplish their major tasks, so that competing
priorities have sometimes hindered full collaboration. However,
without effective collaboration on the tasks that remain to be
completed, these initiatives may be at risk of not fully achieving
their objectives or the broader goals of the President‘s management
agenda.
What GAO Recommends:
To enhance the effectiveness of their efforts at collaboration and
help achieve the initiatives‘ goals, GAO is making recommendations to
the managing partners of the four initiatives that address the
specific collaboration issues revealed by the review.
In commenting on a draft of this report, all four agencies generally
agreed with our discussion of the collaboration challenges facing e-
government initiatives. In addition, each of the agencies provided
additional information about collaboration activities associated with
their initiatives as well as technical comments, which have been
incorporated into the final report where appropriate.
www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-04-6.
To view the full product, including the scope
and methodology, click on the link above.
For more information, contact Linda Koontz at (202) 512-6240 or
koontzl@gao.gov.
[End of section]
Contents:
Letter:
Results in Brief:
Background:
E-Government Initiatives Have Made Progress in Their Initial Stages:
Key Practices Facilitate Interagency Collaboration:
Initiatives Have Achieved Varying Degrees of Collaboration:
Conclusions:
Recommendations for Executive Action:
Agency Comments and Our Evaluation:
Appendixes:
Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and Methodology:
Appendix II: Source Materials for Key Collaboration Practices:
GAO Reports:
Federal Agency Studies:
International, State, and Local Agency Studies:
Private Sector Studies:
Tables:
Table 1: Key Collaboration Practices and Their Major Elements:
Table 2: e-Payroll Implementation of Key Collaboration Practices:
Table 3: Geospatial One-Stop Implementation of Key Collaboration
Practices:
Table 4: Integrated Acquisition Environment Implementation of Key
Collaboration Practices:
Table 5: Business Gateway Implementation of Key Collaboration
Practices:
Figures:
Figure 1: OMB Management Structure for e-Government Initiatives:
Figure 2: Partners and Affected Parties for the e-Payroll Initiative:
Figure 3: Partners and Affected Parties for the Geospatial One-Stop
Initiative:
Figure 4: Partners and Affected Parties for the Integrated Acquisition
Environment Initiative:
Figure 5: Partners and Affected Parties for the Business Gateway
Initiative:
Abbreviations:
CFO: Chief Financial Officer:
CIO: Chief Information Officer:
DFAS: Defense Finance and Accounting Service:
EPA: Environmental Protection Agency:
FEMA: Federal Emergency Management Agency:
GIS: geographic information systems:
GPEA: Government Paperwork Elimination Act:
GSA: General Services Administration:
IRS: Internal Revenue Service:
IT: information technology:
OMB: Office of Management and Budget:
OPM: Office of Personnel Management:
SBA: Small Business Administration:
VA: Department of Veterans Affairs:
Letter October 10, 2003:
The Honorable Tom Davis:
Chairman, Committee on Government Reform:
House of Representatives:
The Honorable Adam H. Putnam:
Chairman, Subcommittee on Technology, Information Policy,
Intergovernmental Relations and the Census:
Committee on Government Reform:
House of Representatives:
The term "electronic government" (or e-government) refers to the use of
information technology (IT), particularly Web-based Internet
applications, to enhance the access to and delivery of government
information and service to citizens, to business partners, to
employees, and among agencies at all levels of government. The
President has identified the expansion of e-government as one of the
five priorities of his management agenda; accordingly, the Office of
Management and Budget (OMB) has sponsored 25 initiatives to implement
this agenda. This report specifically reviews the challenge of
achieving effective interorganizational collaboration within 4 of these
25 OMB-sponsored initiatives:
* e-Payroll, an initiative to standardize payroll operations across all
federal agencies;
* Geospatial One-Stop, an initiative to help coordinate the collection
and maintenance of geospatial data across all levels of
government;[Footnote 1]
* Integrated Acquisition Environment, an initiative to create
electronic tools to improve federal agencies' acquisition of goods and
services; and:
* Business Gateway, an initiative to reduce the paperwork burden on
small businesses and help them find, understand, and comply with
federal, state, and local laws and regulations.
Each of these initiatives demands a high degree of interorganizational
collaboration. Both e-Payroll and Integrated Acquisition Environment
need to work with a broad array of federal agencies. Geospatial One-
Stop depends on broad state and local government participation, and the
Business Gateway aims to serve the small business community.
As agreed with your office, our objectives were to review four OMB-
sponsored e-government initiatives and determine (1) the progress that
has been made to date in implementing the selected initiatives, (2) the
major factors that can affect successful collaboration on e-government
initiatives, and (3) the extent to which federal agencies and other
entities have been collaborating on the selected initiatives. To assess
the progress of the initiatives and the extent to which agencies were
collaborating on them, we reviewed capital asset plans, communications
strategies, and other project documentation; conducted interviews with
project officials; and assessed electronic services made available to
customers to date. We identified key practices affecting collaboration
on e-government initiatives through a review of government, academic,
and private sector literature on interorganizational collaboration.
Details on our objectives, scope, and methodology are provided in
appendix I. Our work was conducted from December 2002 to September 2003
in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.
Results in Brief:
The four e-government initiatives we reviewed have made progress in
meeting the objectives and milestones of their early phases. For
example, Web portals were established for two of the initiatives--
www.geodata.gov for the Geospatial One-Stop initiative and
www.BusinessLaw.gov for the Business Gateway. In addition, the
Integrated Acquisition Environment initiative established an online
capability that federal customers can use to access a variety of
available interagency contracts. To continue building on these early
achievements, the projects need to successfully address additional
challenging tasks, such as those associated with e-Payroll's objective
of establishing governmentwide payroll processing standards or
Geospatial One-Stop's goal of compiling a comprehensive inventory of
geospatial data holdings. In July 2003, OMB refocused one initiative,
the Business Gateway, which had been making slow progress on its
previous objectives. OMB tied the project's objectives and milestones
more closely to the Small Business Paperwork Relief Act's[Footnote 2]
goal of reducing the burden of federal paperwork on small businesses.
Based on a review of government, private sector, and academic research,
we identified five key broad practices that were found to have a
significant impact on collaboration across disparate organizations:
* Establishing a collaborative management structure that provides for
shared leadership and involvement at all levels and defines roles and
responsibilities so that each participating organization is accountable
for the initiative's success.
* Maintaining collaborative relationships among participants within a
climate of trust and respect, including mechanisms for feedback and
debate, based on formal agreements that document a shared vision for
the project.
* Contributing resources equitably among all participants to reinforce
the shared commitment to achieving common objectives.
* Facilitating communication and outreach that provide complete and
timely information for all stakeholders to promote trust and reinforce
commitment to achieving common objectives.
* Adopting a common set of standards for use by all project partners to
provide a basis upon which otherwise independent entities can agree to
share or integrate data or services.
While the four initiatives we reviewed have all taken steps to promote
collaboration with their partner agencies, none of the initiatives has
been fully effective in adopting these practices to fully involve
important stakeholders. For example, for the e-Payroll initiative, the
Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has taken steps to promote close
collaboration with its four designated e-Payroll providers, but it has
not addressed the concerns of one of the key stakeholders that will be
required to make changes to its payroll processes and policies. For
Geospatial One-Stop, although Interior has established a board of
directors with broad representation, it has not taken steps to ensure
that a large number of the potential stakeholders at the state and
local levels are involved in the initiative. For the Integrated
Acquisition Environment initiative, the General Services
Administration (GSA) is using a variety of tools to promote
collaboration, but it has not involved partner agencies' chief
financial officers. Finally, for the Business Gateway, the Small
Business Administration (SBA) has not taken key steps to facilitate
effective collaboration with its partners and stakeholders, such as
establishing a collaborative decision-making process and reaching
formal agreements on partner roles and responsibilities. All four
initiatives have faced short time frames to accomplish their major
tasks, and they generally have not fully adopted these collaboration
practices because of other competing priorities. However, without
effective collaboration on the tasks that remain to be completed, these
initiatives may be at risk of not fully achieving their objectives or
the broader goals of the President's management agenda.
We are making recommendations to the managing partner agencies for each
of the four e-government initiatives to enhance the effectiveness of
collaboration as a tool to use in achieving their objectives.
We received written comments on a draft of this report from the
Director of OPM; Interior's Assistant Secretary, Policy, Management and
Budget; and SBA's Program Executive Officer for e-Government. We also
recieved oral comments from the Administrator of GSA. All four agencies
generally agreed with our discussion of the collaboration challenges
facing e-government initiatives. In addition, each of the agencies
provided additional or updated information about collaboration
activities associated with their initiatives, as well as technical
comments, which have been incorporated into the final report where
appropriate.
Background:
In the context of electronic government, collaboration can be defined
as a mutually beneficial and well-defined relationship entered into by
two or more organizations to achieve common goals. It is an in-depth,
managed relationship that brings together separate and distinct
organizations into a new structure. Recent management reform efforts
within the federal government have focused on collaboration as a way to
reduce duplication and integrate federal provision of services to the
public. Collaboration is a key theme of the President's management
agenda, published in 2002, which aims at making the federal government
more focused on citizens and results.
One of the key provisions of the management agenda is the expansion of
electronic government. To implement this provision, OMB identified and
is working on projects that address the issue of multiple federal
agencies performing similar tasks that could be consolidated through
e-government processes and technology. Specifically, OMB established a
team, known as the E-Government Task Force, that analyzed the federal
bureaucracy and identified areas of significant overlap and redundancy
in how federal agencies provide services to the public. The task force
found that multiple agencies were conducting redundant operations
within 30 major functions and business lines in the executive branch.
Further, each line of business was being performed by an average of 19
agencies, and each agency was involved in an average of 17 business
lines. To address these redundancies, the task force evaluated
potential projects, focusing on collaborative opportunities to
integrate IT operations and simplify processes within lines of business
across agencies and around citizen needs. As a result of this
assessment, the task force identified a set of 25 high-profile
initiatives[Footnote 3] to lead the federal government's drive toward
e-government transformation and enhanced service delivery through
collaboration.
As the lead agency overseeing the management of these initiatives, OMB
developed a strategy for expanding electronic government, which it
published in February 2002.[Footnote 4] In its strategy, OMB
established a portfolio management structure to help oversee and guide
the selected initiatives and facilitate a collaborative working
environment for each of them. This structure includes five portfolios,
each with a designated portfolio manager reporting directly to OMB's
Associate Director for IT and E-Government. The five portfolios are
"government to citizen," "government to business," "government to
government," "internal efficiency and effectiveness," and "cross-
cutting." Each of the 25 initiatives is assigned to one of these
portfolios, according to the type of results the initiative is intended
to provide. Further, for each initiative, OMB designated a specific
agency to be the initiative's "managing partner," responsible for
leading the initiative, and assigned other federal agencies as
"partners" in carrying out the initiative. Figure 1 provides an
overview of the e-government management structure established by OMB.
Figure 1: OMB Management Structure for e-Government Initiatives:
[See PDF for image]
Note: Initiatives marked by arrows are those reviewed in this report.
[End of figure]
Successful implementation of the 25 cross-agency e-government
initiatives--resulting in reductions in redundancies and overlap of
federal programs and services--requires effective collaboration.
Recognizing that collaboration is challenging, the President's budget
for fiscal year 2004 highlighted the continuing need to establish a
collaborative framework for cross-agency e-government initiatives. In
November 2002, we reported that despite the importance placed on
collaboration in OMB's e-government strategy, less than half of the
initial business cases for the OMB-sponsored initiatives addressed a
strategy for successfully collaborating with other government and
nongovernment entities.[Footnote 5] Based on these results, we
recommended that the OMB Director ensure that managing partners of the
25 initiatives work with partner agencies to develop and document their
collaborative strategies.
E-Government Initiatives Have Made Progress in Their Initial Stages:
All four of the e-government initiatives that we reviewed have met
milestones for the early phases of their planned activities. For
example, Web portals were established for two of the initiatives--
www.geodata.gov for the Geospatial One-Stop initiative and
www.BusinessLaw.gov for the Business Gateway. In addition, the
Integrated Acquisition Environment initiative established an online
capability that federal customers can use to access a variety of
available interagency contracts. However, while the projects are
continuing to make progress, some of the tasks they face are
increasingly challenging, such as e-Payroll's objective of establishing
governmentwide payroll processing standards or Geospatial One-Stop's
goal of compiling a comprehensive inventory of geospatial data
holdings. In July 2003, OMB refocused one initiative, the Business
Gateway, which had been making slow progress on its previous
objectives. OMB tied the project's objectives and milestones more
closely to the Small Business Paperwork Relief Act's goal of reducing
the burden of federal paperwork on small businesses.
e-Payroll:
The goal of the e-Payroll initiative is to substantially improve
federal payroll operations by standardizing them across all agencies,
integrating them with other human resource functions, and making them
easy to use and cost-effective. To achieve this goal, plans are to
consolidate the operations of 22 existing federal payroll system
providers; simplify and standardize federal payroll policies and
procedures; and better integrate payroll, human resources, and finance
functions across federal agencies. OPM, the managing partner for e-
Payroll, chose four agencies to be providers of payroll services to all
116 executive branch agencies. The four selected providers are GSA and
the Departments of Defense, Interior, and Agriculture. The initiative
is divided into two major phases: (1) migrating each of the 18
nonselected payroll system providers to one of the four selected
providers by September 2004 and (2) defining an enterprise architecture
consistent with the Federal Enterprise Architecture model and
identifying technology solutions to replace legacy systems. Figure 2
shows the partners and affected parties for the e-Payroll initiative.
Figure 2: Partners and Affected Parties for the e-Payroll Initiative:
[See PDF for image]
[End of figure]
Of the 22 executive branch agencies that currently operate payroll
systems, 6 also provide payroll services to other agencies. The four
providers selected by OPM--GSA, Defense's Defense Finance and
Accounting Service, Interior's National Business Center, and
Agriculture's National Finance Center--handle more than 70 percent of
all federal civilian payroll processing and accommodating more than 190
different pay plans. According to OPM, many of the 22 current providers
use custom-built systems that have been in operation for many years and
need to be replaced. Two of the largest providers needing system
replacement estimated the costs of implementing new systems at $46 to
$600 million per system. Conversely, OPM estimates that consolidating
current federal payroll systems would yield savings of approximately
$1.1 billion over the next 10 years. These savings would result from
reducing operating costs, eliminating duplicative systems investments,
and simplifying payroll processing.
According to OPM project management documents, major phase one
objectives of the initiative include (1) defining governance for the
initiative, (2) standardizing payroll policies, (3) establishing an e-
Payroll enterprise architecture, and (4) overseeing consolidation of
agency payroll operations. The first major project deliverable--
establishing governance--was completed in June 2002, as scheduled. The
providers have been selected and a migration schedule established for
nonselected agencies. However, the other actions have been delayed.
Standardization of policies, originally scheduled for completion in
June 2002, is currently ongoing. The enterprise architecture planning
task and the initial phase of agency consolidations were both scheduled
to begin in October 2002 but were not initiated until January 2003.
According to the project manager, these schedule deviations have not
led to a significant delay in the overall progress of the initiative
toward the goal of consolidating the 22 payroll providers to 4 by
September 2004. However, migrating the operations of the 18 nonselected
providers to the selected providers, which began in February 2003,
could pose new challenges, because previously unidentified
discrepancies among agency policies may come to light.
Geospatial One-Stop:
Geospatial One-Stop is intended to promote coordination of geospatial
data collection and maintenance across all levels of government.
Geospatial data--data associated with a geographic location--can be
analyzed and displayed through geographic information systems (GIS) to
aid decision makers at all levels of government. For example, the
Department of Health and Human Services uses GIS technology to analyze
data on population and topography (including roads, streams, and land
elevation) in order to track the spread of environmental contamination
through a community. Using the power of GIS to coordinate and integrate
disparate kinds of geospatial data can lead to better-informed
decisions about public investments in infrastructure and services--
including national security, law enforcement, health care, and the
environment--as well as a more effective and timely response in
emergency situations. The specific objectives of the Geospatial One-
Stop initiative include (1) deploying an Internet portal for one-stop
access to geospatial data; (2) developing a set of data standards for
seven types of geospatial data; (3) creating an inventory of federal
data holdings; and (4) encouraging greater coordination among federal,
state, and local agencies about existing and planned geospatial data
collection projects.
The Department of the Interior is the managing partner agency for the
initiative. Other federal partners include the Departments of
Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Homeland Security, and Transportation;
the Environmental Protection Agency; and the National Aeronautics and
Space Administration. Stakeholders include nonpartner federal
agencies, the International City/County Management Association, the
Intertribal GIS Council, the National Association of State Chief
Information Officers, the National States Geographic Information
Council, the National Association of Counties, the National League of
Cities, and the Western Governors Association. Figure 3 shows the
partners and affected parties for the initiative.
Figure 3: Partners and Affected Parties for the Geospatial One-Stop
Initiative:
[See PDF for image]
[End of figure]
The Geospatial One-Stop initiative has made progress toward achieving
its four objectives. In June 2003, the first publicly available version
of the Internet portal was made available online at www.geodata.gov.
The portal is intended to serve as a single access point for users
seeking links to geospatial data that were previously online but not as
easily accessible. The portal was originally scheduled to go online in
2004, based on work being performed by the Open GIS
Consortium.[Footnote 6] However, OMB accelerated this schedule by
requiring that the portal be operational by May 2003. In order to have
a portal operational within this time frame, the board agreed to turn
near-term work over to ESRI, Inc., which developed the portal based on
modifications to an existing portal it had built for Interior's Bureau
of Land Management.[Footnote 7] Project officials now plan to make use
of the Open GIS Consortium's development work to enhance
www.geodata.gov in 2004.
Regarding the second objective--data standards development--project
officials developed draft versions of each of the planned standards on
schedule in 2003. In most cases the drafts are simplified version of
older standards developed by and for federal agency use. The draft
standards were provided for informal public review and comment on the
Geospatial One-Stop Web site. By the end of September 2003, project
officials had submitted these drafts to the American National Standards
Institute, where formal public review will be conducted and the
standards will be finalized. Project officials expect the standards to
be approved in 2004.
Progress in developing an inventory of federal geospatial data
holdings--Geospatial One-Stop's third objective--has been limited. OMB
Circular A-11 required that by the end of February 2003, agencies make
accessible and searchable for posting on the Internet metadata[Footnote
8] about all data sets with a replacement cost exceeding $1 million.
Potential users of geospatial data sets need metadata to determine
whether the data are useful for their purposes and to be aware of any
special stipulations about processing and interpreting the data. An
initial inventory of 256,000 existing federal data sets was assembled
and made available through the Geospatial One-Stop portal when it was
implemented in June 2003, and the Geospatial One-Stop Web site provides
an online tool to assist agencies in documenting their geospatial
metadata. However, the extent to which agencies have met requirements
for submitting metadata is unknown. According to the project's metadata
coordinator, agencies may not be aware of their responsibilities for
posting metadata about their geospatial submissions. To address this
issue, the project team is planning to take steps to improve
communication with federal agencies to help ensure that they understand
their responsibilities for making geospatial data publicly accessible.
To encourage greater coordination among federal, state, and local
agencies about existing and planned geospatial data collection projects
(the initiative's fourth objective), an intergovernmental board of
directors was established. The purpose of the board is to help ensure
collaboration among potential stakeholders from all government sectors.
In addition, a Geospatial One-Stop Web site (www.geo-one-stop.gov) was
created to provide information about the project, its progress, and its
benefits; the project's management staff and executive director provide
briefings across the country to facilitate coordination with states and
localities; and an outreach coordinator was appointed to further
communication and coordination among partners and stakeholders.
Integrated Acquisition Environment:
The overall goal of the Integrated Acquisition Environment initiative
is to create a secure suite of electronic tools to facilitate cost-
effective acquisition of goods and services by federal agencies, while
eliminating inefficiencies in the current acquisition process. To meet
this goal, plans are to (1) consolidate common acquisition functions
through a shared services environment; (2) leverage existing
acquisition capabilities within agencies to create a simpler, common,
integrated business process for buyers and sellers that promotes
competition, transparency, and integrity; and (3) develop cross-agency
standards to eliminate duplication of effort and redundancy of data.
GSA is the managing partner agency. In addition, 31 other federal
agencies are considered participating partners in the initiative.
Figure 4 shows the partners and affected parties for this initiative.
Figure 4: Partners and Affected Parties for the Integrated Acquisition
Environment Initiative:
[See PDF for image]
[End of figure]
Regarding its first objective of consolidating common acquisition
functions through a shared services environment, the project was
generally on schedule at the time of our review, although several
interim milestones were completed later than scheduled. An example of
one of the tasks within this objective is the development of
"eMarketplace," an online capability intended to provide federal
customers a single access point to interagency contracts and electronic
catalogs for goods and services. In July 2002 an initial operational
directory structure for interagency contracts was completed, and in May
2003 the directory was made available online for agencies to populate
with their contract data. The development of the directory structure
had been scheduled for December 2002, but it was delayed because the
approval process required to make changes to federal acquisition
regulations was lengthier than had been anticipated.
Overall there have been no significant deviations from the planned
schedule for tasks within the second objective, leveraging existing
agency acquisition capabilities to create a common, integrated business
process for buyers and sellers. For example, the Integrated Acquisition
Environment's Business Partner Network, based on the Department of
Defense's Central Contractor Registration system, is intended to
provide a single point of registration, validation, and access for
grantees, federal entities, and companies seeking to do business with
the federal government. Since March 2002, the project team has been
working to develop this network to serve as a single source for vendor
data for the government, to integrate data with other vendor-based
systems in the government, and to establish a process for verifying
vendor information with third parties, such as vendors' Taxpayer
Identification Numbers with the Internal Revenue Service. In February
2003, as scheduled, the Business Partner Network completed the
development of an online system that allows contractors to enter their
representations and certification information once for use on all
government contracts. Previously, vendors were required to submit
representations and certification individually for each large purchase
contract award.
Initial work addressing the project's third objective--developing
cross-agency standards to eliminate duplication of effort and
redundancy of data--was also on schedule at the time of our review. The
standards to be developed under this objective include data elements,
business definitions, interfaces, and agency roles and responsibilities
regarding government acquisition data. These standards are expected to
serve as a foundation for redesigning the current inefficient process
of government-to-government transactions by streamlining ordering,
billing, and collection and improving reconciliation of
intragovernmental transactions. Since March 2002, the project team has
been working on the first task of the standards development process--
developing a map of current acquisition practices and defining future
acquisition processes. According to project managers, the project team
completed this task by the end of September 2003.
The implementation phase for the Integrated Acquisition Environment
project is scheduled for completion by December 2004. While GSA had
successfully completed several scheduled milestones at the time of our
review, other major tasks lie ahead. These tasks include (1) ensuring
that the online directory of contracts is populated and kept up to
date, which will require all federal agencies to submit their data into
the directory in a standardized format; (2) deploying commercial
standards to facilitate interaction among shared acquisition systems,
between shared systems and agency systems, and between shared systems
and vendor systems; and (3) redesigning and deploying government-to-
government transactions, which calls for standard procedures and common
data elements to integrate disparate systems and processes across the
federal government.
Business Gateway:
The Business Gateway[Footnote 9] is a cross-agency, intergovernmental
effort to create a Web services portal that reduces the burden on small
businesses by making it easier for them to find, understand, and comply
with governmental laws and regulations. It is intended to provide small
businesses with one-stop access to information about federal, state,
and local laws and regulations and how to comply with them. More
specifically, the Business Gateway is intended to help businesses find
information on laws and regulatory requirements, provide assistance
through automated tools designed to help businesses understand their
regulatory obligations, and transact business by supporting online
permit applications and licensing tools. The initiative is focused on
four functional areas--environmental protection, workplace health and
safety, employment, and taxes--as well as several specific industries,
including trucking and mining. SBA is the managing partner agency.
Other federal partners include the Environmental Protection Agency; the
Department of Labor and its component agency, the Occupational Safety
and Health Administration; GSA; the Internal Revenue Service; and the
Departments of Transportation, Energy, Interior, and Homeland Security.
Nonfederal partners include trade associations and state chief
information officers from Washington, Illinois, Georgia, Missouri,
Iowa, and New Jersey. Figure 5 shows the partners and affected parties
for this initiative.
Figure 5: Partners and Affected Parties for the Business Gateway
Initiative:
[See PDF for image]
[End of figure]
The initiative was originally planned to be implemented in two separate
phases. Phase one was to consist of implementing www.BusinessLaw.gov, a
Web portal intended to serve as a single place for finding "plain
English" legal guides and legal and regulatory information links from
all 50 states and compliance assistance in 17 areas, such as workplace
safety or environmental protection. This phase was completed when the
portal became operational in December 2001. The second phase was to
make the portal more interactive and broader in focus. More
specifically, phase two objectives included (1) developing a navigation
tool known as a "portal maximizer," intended to enhance access to laws
and regulations by helping users to quickly find relevant information
from large amounts of data; (2) offering a range of automated
compliance assistance tools for specific kinds of regulations, as well
as a "profiler"[Footnote 10] to identify applicable tools; and
(3) prototyping a transaction engine for integrated business
registration, online licensing, and permitting.
Before the project was refocused in July 2003, SBA had made only
limited progress toward achieving phase two objectives and was not on
track to meet its planned 2003 milestones. A pilot version of the
planned portal maximizer had been implemented, but only four of the
planned automated compliance assistance tools had been
developed.[Footnote 11] Project plans called for up to 30 additional
compliance assistance expert tools to be developed during the second
phase of the project. The profiler was also behind schedule, with only
mockups of the planned user interface developed. Work on three
specialized portals for the trucking, food, and chemical industries was
also behind schedule. The project manager attributed the incomplete
progress to a funding shortfall within SBA for fiscal year 2003.
On July 1, 2003, OMB announced that it was refocusing the project to
reduce the paperwork burden on small businesses. The decision was based
on the findings of an interagency task force created by OMB in response
to requirements of the Small Business Paperwork Relief Act of 2002. In
its final report,[Footnote 12] the task force stated that it believed
the initiative showed promise as a means for achieving the purpose of
the Small Business Paperwork Relief Act, since it was intended to
ultimately provide small businesses a single point of entry for
regulatory compliance information. The refocused project is now aimed
at creating a gateway for compliance assistance and online transactions
that would reduce the paperwork burden through integrated electronic
forms. One of the stated goals of the planned gateway is to increase
federal agencies' compliance with the Government Paperwork Elimination
Act[Footnote 13] to at least 75 percent by September 2004. This was to
be achieved by creating, with the help of GSA, a central online
repository for federal forms and by consolidating information
collections and forms with similar data elements. Another goal is to
reduce redundant data and the overall number of federal forms by at
least 10 percent.
According to several participating agency representatives, it is
unclear how the change in the project's focus will affect
implementation of the previously planned modules, such as the profiler
and the compliance tools. At the time of our review, no decision had
been made about what funding or other resources would be made available
to continue development efforts that had been previously under way as
part of phase two of the project.
Key Practices Facilitate Interagency Collaboration:
With the increasing focus on collaboration brought about by the move
toward e-government, there has been a need to identify key
characteristics that contribute to the success of cross-organizational
collaborative e-government projects. Based on a review of government,
private sector, and academic research and guidance,[Footnote 14] we
identified five broad key practices that can have a significant impact
on the effectiveness of collaboration across disparate organizations.
These key collaboration practices could have a significant impact on
whether the 25 OMB-sponsored e-government initiatives are successful.
Taken as a whole, these factors can provide an interorganizational
project team with the fundamentals for an effective collaborative
process.
* Establishing a collaborative management structure. Building a
collaborative management structure across participating organizations
is an essential foundation for ensuring effective collaboration.
According to the literature we reviewed, strong leadership is critical
to the success of intergovernmental initiatives. Involvement by leaders
from all levels is important for maintaining commitment and keeping a
project on track. Defining a comprehensive structure of participants'
roles and responsibilities is also a key factor. For example, according
to a 1998 study by the Intergovernmental Advisory Board,[Footnote 15] a
project to develop a nationwide law enforcement information system was
successful due to the establishment of a policy board responsible for
coordination and partnership within the law enforcement community. The
board's members represented law enforcement organizations at all levels
of government, and the board provided a structure and process to ensure
a voice for each member of the partnership.
* Maintaining collaborative relationships. Once a collaborative
management structure is in place, well-defined, equitable working
relationships must be developed and take root in order to ensure
effective ongoing collaboration. Researchers have found that all the
partners in a collaborative undertaking need to share a common vision
and work in a climate of trust and respect in order to elicit full
participation. An important element of establishing effective
collaborative relationships is to reach formal agreements with each
partner organization on a clear purpose, expected outputs, and
realistic performance measures. For example, in an intergovernmental
project led by the state of Pennsylvania to enhance its vehicle
emissions program, a broad coalition of stakeholder groups representing
government, private businesses, and special interest groups were
directly involved in selecting a strategy and designing the program.
According to a GSA study of the project,[Footnote 16] the participants
worked well together and endorsed the process primarily because all
views were considered seriously and many suggestions were incorporated.
* Contributing resources equitably. The responsibility for meeting a
project's resource requirements needs to be equitably distributed among
project participants. In order to facilitate a collaborative
environment, each participating organization should contribute
resources in the form of human capital or funding to demonstrate its
commitment to the success of the project. In addition, formal processes
to collect these resources from partner agencies--such as written
agreements to document the resource contributions expected from each
partner--are useful to support this practice. According to a study
performed by the Amherst H. Wilder Foundation,[Footnote 17] a
collaborative group needs to consider the resources of its members.
Similarly, partner organizations must be prepared to devote substantial
staff hours to the collaborative effort.
* Facilitating communication and outreach. Another key element of
effective collaboration is developing and implementing effective
communication and outreach mechanisms. Tools that clearly communicate
the project status and needs among all partners should be used
continuously, targeting all partner organizations and their key
decision makers. In addition, effective outreach mechanisms are
important to keep other stakeholders informed who may not be actively
involved in developing systems or business processes, and an outreach
plan may be needed to specify tasks and mechanisms to help promote
interest and participation in the project. For example, while working
on a collaborative project to reduce highway fatalities, the Department
of Transportation implemented a knowledge-sharing management portal to
facilitate the exchange of information and ideas between the Federal
Highway Administration and the states. This communication tool proved
to be effective in ensuring widespread and frequent communication and
was subsequently implemented in other transportation
communities.[Footnote 18]
* Adopting a common set of standards. Developing a common set of
standards that are agreed to and used by all project partners is a key
factor for effective collaboration. Such standards provide a basis for
more seamless systems, data, and business process integration on
collaborative projects, and help to ensure that those systems and
processes can work together. Specifically, ensuring that there are
processes in place by which project partners can select and agree upon
standards and that all partners are adopting them are key factors in
establishing these essential common standards. In GSA's Government
Without Boundaries program, which provided a virtual pool of government
information and services, all stakeholders agreed to a technical
approach for interoperability and implemented a demonstration to prove
the concept.[Footnote 19]
These five key practices and their major elements are summarized in
table 1.
Table 1: Key Collaboration Practices and Their Major Elements:
Key practice: Establish a collaborative management structure; Major
elements: Strong leadership is present among partners.
Major elements: Involvement of all leadership levels is an instituted
practice.
Major elements: Partner/stakeholder roles and responsibilities are
clearly defined, agreed to, and understood by participants.
Key practice: Maintain collaborative relationships; Major elements: A
common vision is shared among partners.
Major elements: A climate of trust and respect is fostered through open
communication.
Major elements: Formal agreements with a clear purpose, common
performance outputs, and realistic performance measures are used to
provide a firm management foundation.
Key practice: Contribute resources equitably; Major elements: Formal
processes to contribute human capital and funds, such as written
agreements, ensure that needed resources are promised and delivered.
Key practice: Facilitate communication and outreach; Major elements:
Communication strategies facilitate two-way communication among the
project team, partners, and other stakeholders.
Major elements: Outreach programs keep those affected by the initiative
informed of new developments and provide structured means for feedback
and questions.
Key practice: Adopt a common set of standards; Major elements:
Processes are in place by which partners can discuss, develop, and
agree to common standards needed for initiative success.
Source: GAO.
[End of table]
Initiatives Have Achieved Varying Degrees of Collaboration:
The four initiatives we reviewed have all taken steps to promote
collaboration with their partner agencies. However, none of the
initiatives has been fully effective in collaborating with important
stakeholders. In comparing the four initiatives' ongoing and planned
activities with the key collaboration practices, we identified
significant accomplishments as well as shortcomings and potential
challenges. For example, regarding two key practices (establishing a
collaborative management structure and contributing resources
equitably) we found that three of the four initiatives--e-Payroll,
Geospatial One-Stop, and Integrated Acquisition Environment--had taken
actions that met planned objectives or that stakeholders found to be
effective. However, regarding another key practice--facilitating
communication and outreach--an equal number (Geospatial One-Stop,
Integrated Acquisition Environment, and Business Gateway) had not taken
all the steps they could. The four initiatives have all faced short
time frames to accomplish their tasks, and they generally have not
fully adopted key collaboration practices because of other competing
priorities. However, without involving important stakeholders, the
initiatives increase the risk that they will not fully achieve their
objectives or the broader goals of the President's management agenda.
e-Payroll:
OPM has taken positive steps to facilitate collaboration among the e-
Payroll initiative's partners, such as (1) establishing a management
structure with well-defined partner agency roles and responsibilities
and (2) including the four provider agencies in its effort to identify
a common set of payroll standards for the federal government. However,
OPM has not fully addressed concerns raised as part of the
collaborative process, including concerns about potential changes to
payroll standards that may be required for the final migration to the
two provider partnerships. Interagency collaboration on developing a
common set of payroll standards is particularly important because
federal agencies operate under a variety of legislative mandates that
have complex requirements for payroll processing, all of which must be
fully addressed in the new standards. In table 2, we provide an
overview of the initiative's implementation of the key collaboration
practices that we identified earlier, followed by a discussion of each
of the practices.
Table 2: e-Payroll Implementation of Key Collaboration Practices:
Key practice: Establishing a collaborative management structure; e-
Payroll implementation: OPM has successfully established a
collaborative management structure.
Key practice: Maintaining collaborative relationships; e-Payroll
implementation: OPM is more successful at maintaining collaborative
relationships with payroll providers than with other stakeholders.
Key practice: Contributing resources equitably; e-Payroll
implementation: OPM has developed a plan to ensure that resources are
contributed equitably.
Key practice: Facilitating communication and outreach; e-Payroll
implementation: Payroll providers report that OPM's efforts at
communication and outreach have been effective.
Key practice: Adopting a common set of standards; e-Payroll
implementation: OPM has begun an effort to collect views on common
standards but faces potential challenges in reaching governmentwide
agreement.
Source: GAO.
[End of table]
* Establishing a collaborative management structure. OPM has provided
guidance to its partner agencies that defines roles and
responsibilities and specifies those partners' responsibilities with
respect to their collaborative relationships with their payroll
customers. For example, in memorandums of agreement with the four
selected payroll providers, OPM defined the structure that would be
used to manage the project. The management structure includes the four
provider agencies, a payroll advisory council with 11 representatives
from different federal agencies, different functional areas (such as
human resources, IT, and financial management), and OMB. In addition,
OPM developed a plan that outlines the content of service level
agreements between payroll providers and their agency clients.
According to the plan, such agreements should detail both the scope of
client services and performance expectations for the service provider
and should specifically address issues such as change management,
billing procedures, and support services. Officials from the Department
of Agriculture's National Finance Center and the Department of the
Interior's National Business Center, two of OPM's four partner
agencies, cited this project management approach as successful in
promoting collaboration on the e-Payroll project.
* Maintaining collaborative relationships. OPM has taken steps to
develop and maintain collaborative relationships with its partners and
other federal stakeholders. OPM established a group with
representatives from the four payroll providers, which holds regular
meetings to address project status and other initiative issues.
Officials from three of the four provider agencies told us that this
group has been very effective in affording them the opportunity to
discuss common issues and concerns.[Footnote 20] Specifically,
Interior's National Business Center representative told us that this
forum allowed the federal payroll providers to discuss standardizing
and implementing two recent governmentwide payroll actions--the
initiation of flexible spending accounts (a program of optional pretax
health and dependent care savings accounts for federal employees) and a
retroactive federal pay raise for the first part of 2003--resulting in
a consolidated governmentwide time frame for the availability of these
features. In order to elicit full participation, all partners in a
collaborative undertaking need to share a common vision and work in a
climate of trust and respect. One way to create such an environment is
by ensuring that all stakeholder concerns are articulated and fully
addressed. However, according to one stakeholder, OPM has not always
effectively addressed concerns by agencies being affected by e-Payroll
consolidation. Specifically, the director of the Payroll/HR Systems
Service at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) told us that his
department was not allowed enough time to make a complete evaluation of
payroll providers before OPM finalized its decision to align the
department with the Defense Finance and Accounting Service. VA had
advised OPM in writing that it had concerns that needed to be resolved
before the selection of a provider was finalized. According to VA
projections, migrating to the Defense Finance and Accounting Service
would be both costly and inefficient, because VA would have to separate
its payroll system from its human resources system. However, OPM's
written responses did not directly address VA's concerns but instead
emphasized that time available to reconsider the decision was short.
For example, in a letter dated January 14, 2003, OPM informed VA that a
business case justifying VA's position would have to be prepared and
submitted within 2 days. While OPM exercises the ultimate authority in
deciding how payroll operations are to be consolidated, it could put e-
Payroll's overall schedule at risk by not fully considering and
responding to stakeholder concerns.
* Contributing resources equitably. OPM has instituted a collaborative
strategy for financing the e-Payroll project that includes guidance
identifying the responsibilities of partner and other participating
agencies for contributing resources for the e-Payroll initiative. For
example, OPM's plan for financing the consolidation of payroll service
providers and the migration of agency payroll operations to designated
service providers states that the provider agencies are to recover the
costs of their operations from fees levied on their customers as
defined in service level agreements. In addition, OPM's plan relied on
OMB to apportion funds to the providers for migration expenses by
identifying agency funding contributions in fiscal years 2003 and 2004.
The intent was to redirect funding that had been planned for upgrades
or other payroll system operations and maintenance to support the
governmentwide effort. In keeping with this intent, officials from
Energy, Health and Human Services, and the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission reported that they were using funds earmarked for upgrade
and maintenance of payroll systems to finance migration costs.
* Facilitating communication and outreach. The e-Payroll management
team has taken steps to facilitate effective communication of project
status and needs. For example, OPM began by inventorying stakeholders
to identify those affected by the initiative and then developed a plan
for communicating with them. The resulting communications plan
identified a variety of methods for conveying project information to
affected parties, including direct meetings, workshops, telephone
contact, and formal letters to agency heads regarding significant
decisions relating to the initiative. OPM also held a governmentwide
forum intended to provide information about e-Payroll to agencies and
facilitate interaction among the executive branch agencies and the
selected providers. In addition, three of the four designated payroll
providers reported that attending the quarterly provider conferences
and participating in biweekly conference calls sponsored by OPM were
effective communications mechanisms.
* Adopting a common set of standards. Consolidating the existing 22
federal payroll systems into a single system requires that OPM develop
a common set of payroll standards that will meet the requirements of
multiple federal agencies with different missions and legislated
payroll constraints. OPM has taken steps to help ensure that federal
agencies have input on development of a common set of standards. For
example, OPM commissioned a study to identify significant differences
among the payroll processes of the existing 22 providers.
Representatives of agencies from a cross section of the executive
branch, including all four of OPM's partners--the selected payroll
providers--participated in the study. The resulting 87 payroll
standardization opportunities were provided to federal agencies for
review and comment.[Footnote 21] OPM received approximately 250
comments and suggestions for action from federal agencies on the
standardization opportunities that it identified. These agencies'
comments show the complexity of the standardization tasks that OPM and
its partners have yet to undertake--from proposing new legislation to
addressing union negotiations. According to OPM officials, a focus
group was established in July 2003 to further analyze the previously
identified opportunities and develop recommended solutions. Officials
told us that standardizing the payroll process is an ongoing process
and that work to develop a single payroll standard would continue with
input from other federal agencies. Although OPM has involved its
partners and other federal agencies in the process of identifying
opportunities for standardization, it still faces the challenging task
of getting federal agencies to reach agreement on a single payroll
standard that they all can use. As agencies migrate to consolidated
payroll providers, changes may need to be made either to the providers'
payroll processes and standards--so that the various payroll mandates
can be accommodated--or to the mandated requirements themselves, so
that agencies can conform to a single standard. Fully identifying and
assessing the impact on agencies of potential payroll standards will be
a challenging effort. For example, VA's Acting Deputy Assistant
Secretary for Finance expressed concern that OPM officials might not
appreciate the complexities of administering payroll systems under
Title 38 of the United States Code[Footnote 22]--the legislation that
governs VA's payroll processes--and that changes would be necessary to
support VA's payroll processing once it migrates to its new payroll
provider. According to an OPM study, in addition to Title 38, there at
least 13 other sets of legislated federal payroll provisions that will
need to be reviewed and addressed before consolidated federal payroll
systems can be implemented.[Footnote 23] Without effective interagency
collaboration, changes mandated by OPM may not fully address agencies'
individual payroll processing requirements, increasing the risk that
agencies will not be able to migrate as planned to their new payroll
providers. In commenting on a draft of this report, OPM officials
stated that they have taken steps to ensure that a collaborative
process was in place for payroll standards development, based on
establishing a focus group of cross-agency representatives within the
Payroll Advisory Council. If supported by a detailed strategy, OPM's
action may help to address this issue.
The e-Payroll initiative has achieved initial progress based in part on
an effective collaborative management structure and collaborative
relationships with its designated payroll providers. However, the issue
regarding consideration of VA's concerns could have an adverse impact
on the success of the project as migration of agency payroll operations
progresses. Furthermore, unless OPM places increased emphasis on
collaboration as governmentwide standards are developed and
consolidation of payroll systems progresses, it will be at increased
risk that the consolidated systems will not meet the needs of all
federal agencies.
Geospatial One-Stop:
Ensuring effective collaboration on Geospatial One-Stop is a
significant challenge. In addition to the eight federal agencies
designated as partners, the project's stakeholders include thousands of
state and local governments, as well as other nonpartner federal
agencies. State and local agencies perform key functions in collecting
and managing geospatial data--it is estimated that about 90 percent of
geospatial data is collected by state and local governments, and that
those governments invest over twice as much as the federal government
to collect and maintain such data. Consequently, states' and
localities' participation in the Geospatial One-Stop initiative is
critical. Interior has taken steps to include nonfederal stakeholders
on the project. For example, it established an intergovernmental
management structure, conducted briefings at meetings and conferences
across the country to promote stakeholder participation, appointed an
outreach coordinator to facilitate communication with stakeholders, and
included states and localities in drafting national geospatial data
standards. However, given the large number of stakeholders, Interior
has not yet ensured that many states and localities are involved in the
project. In addition, although Interior has collaborated with its
partners and other stakeholders in developing draft geospatial
standards, it has not taken steps to ensure that those standards will
be used by a majority of the project's federal, state, or local
stakeholders. Table 3 is an overview of the key collaboration practices
as implemented by the Geospatial One-Stop initiative, followed by
further discussion.
Table 3: Geospatial One-Stop Implementation of Key Collaboration
Practices:
Key practice: Establishing a collaborative management structure;
Geospatial One-Stop implementation: Interior has established a board of
directors that includes federal and nonfederal stakeholders.
Key practice: Maintaining collaborative relationships; Geospatial One-
Stop implementation: Partners and stakeholders largely have not
established formal agreements outlining a common vision and roles and
responsibilities for collaborative relationships.
Key practice: Contributing resources equitably; Geospatial One-Stop
implementation: Although partner agencies initially did not contribute
funds as projected, they have made planned contributions in fiscal year
2003.
Key practice: Facilitating communication and outreach; Geospatial One-
Stop implementation: Despite a range of outreach efforts, many state
and local governments are not participating, apparently because they do
not perceive the benefits to outweigh the effort and expense of doing
so.
Key practice: Adopting a common set of standards; Geospatial One-Stop
implementation: Participation in drafting standards has been limited,
with many states and almost all counties and cities not participating.
Further, achieving consistent implementation of the standards across
levels of government will be challenging.
Source: GAO.
[End of table]
* Establishing a collaborative management structure. Geospatial One-
Stop includes eight federal partners and thousands of other
stakeholders--over 3,000 counties, over 18,000 municipalities, and the
50 states, as well as other federal agencies that are not partners on
the project. To help ensure that nonfederal stakeholders have a voice
in the direction of the project, Interior established an
intergovernmental board of directors that votes on significant
decisions, such as selection of the portal architecture and
establishment of project schedule dates. Two-thirds of the votes are
held by state, local, and tribal representatives, and one-third by
federal partner agencies. Establishment of the board has worked well to
facilitate collaborative intergovernmental management and oversight of
the Geospatial One-Stop initiative. For example, at recent board
meetings, members discussed issues such as the status of the
initiative, standards concerns, and the management structure of the
initiative as reflected in its most recent business case. The
representative to the board from the National States Geographic
Information Council told us that state, county, and municipal levels of
government were well represented and played a useful role in providing
alternative views about the direction of the initiative.[Footnote 24]
* Maintaining collaborative relationships. While Geospatial One-Stop
has established a management structure to facilitate collaboration, it
has made less progress in defining working relationships among its
collaborative partners. One positive step was the development of a
charter for the project's board of directors, which discusses
authority, responsibilities, voting procedures, and coordinating
mechanisms for the board members. The charter was signed by each of the
board's members. However, at the time of our review, other than this
charter, only one memorandum of understanding had been established
regarding collaborative relationships--an agreement on coordinating
GIS standards related to homeland security, which was signed by the
Federal Geographic Data Committee, the U.S. Geological Survey, and the
National Imagery and Mapping Agency. Without formal agreements among
the Geospatial One-Stop project partners, it may be difficult to
sustain a shared vision for the project and ensure that progress is
being made toward achieving its objectives.
* Contributing resources equitably. While Geospatial One-Stop initially
had difficulty obtaining resource contributions from federal partner
agencies, these early problems have largely been resolved. According to
the executive director, partner agencies did not contribute funds for
fiscal year 2002 as had been projected in the project's capital asset
plan, even though the agencies had been involved in preparing the plan.
Instead, Interior provided all fiscal year 2002 funds for the project.
For fiscal year 2003, the capital asset plan estimated that Interior
would contribute about $2.2 million, while the other seven partner
agencies would contribute the remaining $6.2 million. According to a
project official, all agencies have made their planned contributions.
The availability of funds from partner agencies in fiscal year 2003 has
allowed Geospatial One-Stop to complete several tasks on schedule, such
as deploying the initial version of the www.geodata.gov portal and
submitting draft national geospatial data standards to the American
National Standards Institute.
* Facilitating communication and outreach. The Geospatial One-Stop
project team uses a number of different mechanisms to communicate
information about the project to potential stakeholders and the public.
For example, the project management team established a Web site that
provides information such as minutes of the board of directors
meetings, links to partners' and other stakeholders' Web sites,
geospatial data standards, and the most recent Geospatial One-Stop
business case. The executive director and other Geospatial One-Stop
project members also provide briefings and question-and-answer sessions
at conferences and participate in other forums to provide information
about the project to other stakeholders. The project's executive
director attended the midyear meeting of the National States Geographic
Information Council, where he provided a briefing and a luncheon talk
about Geospatial One-Stop to all attendees and addressed the attendees'
questions and concerns. In addition, the initiative's project team, in
conjunction with the National Association of Counties, the National
League of Cities, and the International City/County Managers
Association, conducted a survey of local governments to gather
information about the extent of respondents' use of geospatial data and
the reasons why such data are not being used more extensively by those
governments. Despite these measures, according to state GIS officials
the project has not yet gained participation from other governments
because they may not perceive it to be beneficial to undertake the
effort and expense of documenting and making available local geospatial
data for inclusion in the www.geodata.gov portal. For example, the
executive director of Vermont's Center for Geographic Information,
Inc., told us that he did not know whether Vermont's geospatial data
holdings were being considered for inclusion in Geospatial One-Stop and
that the benefits of participation had not been well communicated. In
addition, Montana's GIS coordinator told us that Montana had not yet
committed to participate in the project and that state government
officials did not understand the benefits of participating. According
to the Geospatial One-Stop Capital Asset Plan, Interior is planning to
provide incentives for state, local, and tribal governments to
participate, although the project's executive director told us that
carrying out these plans is contingent on approval of funding. Also, in
a draft of Interior's fiscal year 2005 plan, several planned actions to
accomplish these tasks have been identified. Planned actions include
providing funding to help state, local, and tribal organizations to
become more engaged in intergovernmental geospatial activities and
establishing a liaison program with funding to local stakeholder
associations to work with Geospatial One-Stop and serve as a liaison
between federal agencies and those associations. In addition, according
to the Geospatial One-Stop outreach coordinator, other efforts not
provided in the initiative's capital asset plans include identifying
opportunities to promote geospatial information as part of the state
and local government policy efforts and enhance outreach in other areas
of the project, such as standards development and management of the
portal. However, there are no plans to develop a formal outreach plan
for the Geospatial One-Stop initiative. Unless a detailed plan is
documented and implemented for conducting effective outreach, state and
local geospatial information may remain inaccessible through the
Geospatial One-Stop portal, significantly reducing the usefulness of
the portal as a central access point for such data.
* Adopting a common set of standards. Interior has taken steps to
collaboratively develop a set of basic standards to support the
collection of interoperable geospatial data for the Geospatial One-Stop
initiative. Specifically, project participants have drafted standards
for seven types of data[Footnote 25] as well as a base standard, with
participants from other federal agencies, states, localities, the
private sector, and academia participating in their development.
However, participation in the standards-setting process has been
limited. Several large nonpartner federal agencies--such as the
Departments of Treasury, Justice, and Health and Human Services--were
not represented on the standards development effort. In addition, local
government representation included only 23 counties and 3 cities. As a
result, the risk is substantial that many federal and local
stakeholders may not adopt the proposed standards because those
standards may not meet their needs. Further, definition of the
standards is only the first step in realizing their benefits;
Geospatial One-Stop has not addressed the challenge of gaining
consistent implementation of the standards across governments--a key
factor in effective collaboration. Many states and localities have
already established Web sites that provide a variety of location-
related information services, such as updated traffic and
transportation information, land ownership and tax records, and
information on housing for the elderly, using existing commercial
products that are already meeting their needs. Hence these
organizations are likely to have little incentive to adopt potentially
incompatible standards that could require substantial new investments.
According to Arizona's state cartographer, many local governments
currently do not comply with existing federal standards because most of
their GIS applications were created primarily to meet their internal
needs, with little concern for data sharing with federal systems. If
designated standards are not widely adopted, geospatial data could
continue to be collected in incompatible formats and systems,
preventing officials from gaining the benefits of better-informed
decisions about public investments in infrastructure and services based
on an integrated view of geospatial information.
While the Geospatial One-Stop project established a significant
collaborative management structure in its broadly representative board
of directors, the project has not fully adopted other key collaborative
practices. It faces significant challenges in obtaining participation
from thousands of potential project stakeholders and obtaining their
agreement on and implementation of geospatial data standards. Such
participation will be difficult to achieve without a more structured
and rigorous outreach effort to involve federal, state, and local
government agencies.
Integrated Acquisition Environment:
The General Services Administration has taken steps to ensure that a
variety of mechanisms are in place to facilitate collaboration on the
Integrated Acquisition Environment initiative. For example, the project
team developed a formal charter outlining the objectives, tasks, and
roles and responsibilities of project partners, and it is in the
process of completing implementation of memorandums of agreement with
all participating agencies to further define their roles and financial
responsibilities. In addition, GSA has developed a communication
strategy for the initiative to help ensure that partners and
stakeholders are informed. However, that strategy does not include key
financial decision makers throughout the government, although our
research shows that such officials should be informed of project status
and needs on a continuous basis. Finally, GSA's plans for developing
standards for the federal acquisitions process are in line with the key
practices that we identified. Table 4 provides an overview of the
initiative's collaboration practices, followed by further discussion.
Table 4: Integrated Acquisition Environment Implementation of Key
Collaboration Practices:
Key practice: Establishing a collaborative management structure;
Integrated Acquisition Environment implementation: Interagency
development of a charter established a common foundation for
collaboration, and the use of subteams to develop project modules
facilitates collaboration at the working level.
Key practice: Maintaining collaborative relationships; Integrated
Acquisition Environment implementation: Effective collaboration
mechanisms have been established, including memorandums of agreement
that define partners' roles and funding contributions, as well as
regular weekly meetings of business area teams and project managers.
Key practice: Contributing resources equitably; Integrated Acquisition
Environment implementation: GSA has been successful in obtaining
allotted resource contributions from most of its participating partner
agencies.
Key practice: Facilitating communication and outreach; Integrated
Acquisition Environment implementation: A detailed communication plan
and a range of outreach efforts have been effective at promoting
collaboration, but key financial decision makers--the Chief Financial
Officers--have not been included.
Key practice: Adopting a common set of standards; Integrated
Acquisition Environment implementation: The project team is planning to
use commercial standards to develop proposed standard interfaces and to
distribute them to the federal procurement community for comment.
Source: GAO.
[End of table]
* Establishing a collaborative management structure. The project team
established a charter for the Integrated Acquisition Environment
initiative that all partners and stakeholders agreed to during the
initial phase of the project. According to the project manager, the
interagency development of and agreement to the initiative's charter
allowed the project team to collectively establish a common foundation
for working collaboratively on the initiative. In addition, the project
management team established a structure of subteams responsible for
leading development within each of five project modules defined in the
charter. The subteams consist of representatives from at least 22
agencies who are tasked with serving as the primary liaisons between
their agencies and the project management team. This well-defined
subteam structure can contribute to effective collaboration at the
working level among the many agencies involved in the project. Further,
GSA is in the process of developing a comprehensive change management
plan to be completed in early 2004. This plan is to address stakeholder
involvement through the use of multi-agency, cross-functional teams at
the executive level and collaborative design of the system through
business area teams populated with partner agency representatives.
* Maintaining collaborative relationships. The project management team
is in the process of establishing memorandums of agreement with each
partner agency; these agreements further define each partner's role and
expected funding contributions. As of September 2003, memorandums of
agreement had been signed with 21 agencies, 3 were near completion, and
7 remained to be completed. In addition, GSA officials reported that
several collaborative forums for Integrated Acquisition Environment
stakeholders were in place. For example, business area teams and
project managers hold regular weekly meetings, which serve to reinforce
collaborative relationships that cut across organizational boundaries.
In addition, an Industry Advisory Board provides industry perspectives
on priority needs, requirements, best practices, and trends. Officials
from 10 partner and stakeholder agencies that we contacted indicated
that the project's collaboration mechanisms were effective.
* Contributing resources equitably. To date, the project has been
successful in obtaining resource contributions from most of its partner
agencies. According to GSA officials, as of September 2003, 94 percent
of requested funds had been received. According to the project
managers, GSA anticipates that all participating partner agencies will
contribute their allotted amounts in fiscal year 2004.
* Facilitating communication and outreach. The Integrated Acquisition
Environment's project team has taken a number of concrete steps to
build communication and outreach among partners and stakeholders. For
instance, the team has developed a detailed communication plan that
clearly identifies their audience, as well as various communication
tactics, such as creating e-mail news updates, participating in
"industry days," meeting with agencies' senior officials, and
contributing content to the press. Project officials also established
an online workspace where participants can share information, organize
conferences to share information with private industry, and hold
regular team meetings. According to comments from several participants
and interested parties, these strategies are effective in providing
necessary information regarding the initiative. Interior's deputy
assistant secretary for performance and management, for example, noted
that these measures have been effective at promoting collaboration by
focusing on sharing information and generating agency support for the
initiative. However, the project team has not included all stakeholders
that it could in its communication and outreach efforts. Specifically,
Chief Financial Officers (CFO) of partner and stakeholder agencies, who
make key decisions about financial contributions to the initiative,
said they had not been included and consequently have not been kept up
to date about the objectives and requirements of the initiative.
Representatives of the partner agency CFOs provided suggestions that
highlighted shortcomings in GSA's communications with the financial
community to date. For example, Treasury's CFO noted that the specific
objectives of the initiative should be communicated to senior financial
managers so that they understand how the initiative will support the
missions of their organizations. According to the assistant CFO for the
Department of Housing and Urban Development, the project team could
more effectively reach the financial community by interacting regularly
with the federal CFO Council, a mechanism established as a focal point
for financial management issues in the federal government. According to
the Integrated Acquisition Environment's project managers, increased
support from the CFOs could increase the likelihood of partner agencies
contributing funds to the initiative. These officials told us that they
are working to better include financial decision makers in future
project communications by updating the project's communication plan to
include agencies' CFOs and coordinating more actively with the CFO
council as new project modules are developed. In commenting on a draft
of this report, GSA officials stated that GSA has scheduled discussions
about the initiative with a cross section of CFOs and plans to invite a
representative of the CFO Council to participate in the Integrated
Acquisition Environment governance body. However, at the time of our
review, these actions had not yet been completed. Without taking such
an inclusive approach, the project could be at greater risk of not
meeting its objectives due to future funding shortfalls.
* Adopting a common set of standards. The lack of standardization in
government-to-government transactions adds to the complexity and
inefficiency of the current process. A primary objective of the
Integrated Acquisition Environment initiative is to establish standard
data elements, business definitions, interfaces, and roles and
responsibilities for government acquisitions. Achieving this objective
is likely to be challenging. Once agreed upon, the new standards are
expected to streamline the data handling processes, reduce workload,
improve billing accuracy, and help enforce data stewardship roles and
responsibilities. The project team's standards development strategy
includes obtaining comments from as many affected federal agencies as
possible, which is in line with the key collaboration practices that we
identified. Having begun by mapping the process currently in place, the
project team intends in October 2003 to begin using commercial
standards to develop proposed standard interfaces. As proposed
standards are developed, the project team plans to distribute them to
all members of the federal procurement community--128 agencies--for
comment. The process of addressing these comments and reaching final
agreement on standards is likely to be challenging, given the number of
affected agencies.
GSA has adopted a variety of effective collaborative practices that
have contributed to progress in advancing the goals of the project.
Like the other initiatives, Integrated Acquisition Environment still
faces additional challenging tasks, especially in setting standards.
Involving agency financial decision makers could help reduce the risk
that agencies may not contribute resources in future years.
Business Gateway:
Collaboration on the Business Gateway project is critical at two broad
levels. First, several key federal agencies that are responsible for
business regulation--such as the Departments of Labor and
Transportation and the Environmental Protection Agency--must
collaborate to make it easier for businesses to access and comply with
their regulations. Second, the Business Gateway project team must
collaborate with industry-specific groups that are the subject of
business regulation--such as truckers and miners--to ensure that the
planned gateway will meet their needs. In specific areas, such as
development of the gateway's profiler module, collaboration has been
successful. However, on the whole, SBA's actions to involve its
partners and other stakeholders in the Business Gateway initiative have
not addressed many of the areas that we found to be essential to
achieving effective collaboration. SBA has not yet taken steps to
document project responsibilities in interagency agreements, achieve
equitable resource contributions among partners, or provide adequate
outreach to partners and potential stakeholders to ensure that they are
kept fully informed about the project. Table 5 is an overview of the
key collaboration practices as implemented by the Business Gateway
initiative, followed by further discussion.
Table 5: Business Gateway Implementation of Key Collaboration
Practices:
Key practice: Establishing a collaborative management structure;
Business Gateway implementation: A project charter has been developed,
but it does not define roles or responsibilities or establish
collaborative decision-making processes.
Key practice: Maintaining collaborative relationships; Business
Gateway implementation: Mechanisms have not yet been established to
maintain collaborative working relationships among partners and
stakeholders.
Key practice: Contributing resources equitably; Business Gateway
implementation: Rather than having partners contribute resources, SBA
is both funding the initiative and controlling decision making, which
does not encourage participation and collaboration.
Key practice: Facilitating communication and outreach; Business Gateway
implementation: Although subgroups have displayed effective
communication practices, projectwide communication and outreach have
been limited, resulting in key decision makers not being involved.
Key practice: Adopting a common set of standards; Business Gateway
implementation: The initiative has agreed on common standards, adopting
existing data and technical standards where available and developing ad
hoc standards when needed.
Source: GAO.
[End of table]
* Establishing a collaborative management structure. To facilitate
collaboration on the Business Gateway initiative, SBA developed a
project charter that addresses the goals of the initiative, its
benefits, project components, and critical success factors. However,
the charter does not define an interagency approach to managing the
initiative, discuss participants' roles and responsibilities, or
establish collaborative decision-making processes. According to the
Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) representative to the project, the
charter contains no specific assignment of responsibilities--it was
developed only to document general support for the concept of the
initiative. Without a well-defined decision-making process, including
specified roles and responsibilities, designated partner agencies may
be unwilling to make significant commitments to supporting the goals
and objectives of the initiative.
* Maintaining collaborative relationships. SBA has not yet established
mechanisms to maintain effective relationships with its agency partners
or other stakeholders. Although it reached agreements in 2002 with four
of its nine federal partner agencies, those agreements specified
single, limited-scope project tasks rather than establishing working
relationships with a common vision for the initiative. For example,
SBA's memorandum of understanding with IRS was to develop a pilot
program under which small businesses could apply for Federal Employer
Identification Numbers via the Internet rather than by mail or fax.
Similarly, SBA's agreement with the Occupational Safety and Health
Administration was to develop a tool to help small businesses comply
with emergency standards. Further, SBA has not yet established formal
agreements with organizations that represent small businesses, such as
the American Trucking Association, the Owner-Operator Independent
Drivers Association, or the National Private Truck Council--all of whom
represent the ultimate intended beneficiaries of the initiative's
services. According to the OMB portfolio manager for government-to-
business initiatives, the project has not been able to establish formal
collaboration agreements because key management components, such as
partner agency roles and responsibilities, have not yet been defined.
Without well-defined mechanisms for collaboration, the project risks
not meeting the needs of partner agencies or gaining their commitment
to continue supporting the project.
* Contributing resources equitably. SBA also has not developed a
strategy for sharing resource commitments across its partner agencies.
On the contrary, the project manager's strategy has relied solely on
SBA to fund the initiative. According to the OMB government-to-business
portfolio manager, SBA's strategy was to promote collaboration by not
burdening potential partners with financial responsibilities for the
initiative. However, in taking on all financial responsibility, SBA
also took control of decision-making responsibility, which reduced
agency collaboration. Officials from designated partner agencies told
us that because they did not provide funds for the initiative, they
have had little input in the decision-making process and, as a result,
do not have a strong incentive to participate in the Business Gateway.
Without the involvement of partner agencies, the initiative risks not
being able to achieve its broader objective of providing small
businesses with a single integrated source for compliance with federal
regulations.
* Facilitating communication and outreach. The Business Gateway
initiative has produced examples of effective communication and
outreach. For example, SBA designated the Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) to take the lead in developing the profiler, which is
intended to gather information about a user's business (such as type of
business, number of employees, and so on) to aid in providing focused
assistance. Based on comments from participating agency
representatives, EPA has been effective at leading communication and
outreach for that task. EPA established a cross-agency workgroup that
meets weekly to discuss progress, make decisions, and address the next
steps with regard to development of the module. The profiler module
workgroup members also routinely coordinate via e-mail and telephone,
and EPA communicates updated information on development of the profiler
module at projectwide team meetings. Participants in the workgroup told
us they found that these meetings and briefings by EPA were an
effective means for collaboration. For example, according to the
Occupational Safety and Health Administration's representative on the
profiler workgroup, EPA did an excellent job of facilitating consensus
as to next steps, specifying what tasks were to be done by
participants, following up on performance, and relaying information or
requests from SBA. However, despite subgroup examples such as this,
communication and outreach by SBA to partners and stakeholders
projectwide remain limited, with key decision makers not having access
to up-to-date information about the initiative. For example, according
to the trucking module leader, key agency decision makers were not
involved in meetings, conference calls, and monthly workgroup meetings,
and therefore agency participants were limited in their ability to
support the initiative because they could not make resource
commitments. More specifically, federal agency decision makers were
often not present at meetings where decisions, such as those on the
costs and schedule, were made for the initiative. As a result, project
issues could not be effectively discussed and resolved, slowing
progress and hindering collaboration.
* Adopting a common set of standards. The Business Gateway project team
has adopted existing data and technical standards when they were
available. For example, the team examined the technical reference model
associated with the OMB-sponsored Federal Enterprise Architecture to
identify relevant standards and ensure that technical elements of the
gateway were compatible with the Federal Enterprise Architecture. In
cases where standards were not previously defined, the project team
either reached agreement or began a process to reach agreement on ad
hoc standards. For example, EPA and the Department of Energy agreed to
use the same set of basic key words to direct inquiries by users on
topics related to environmental protection regulations. These practices
are in line with key practices that we identified for adopting common
sets of standards.
The collaboration challenges faced by the Business Gateway project may
have contributed to the slow progress on recent work. Specifically, the
lack of well-defined roles and responsibilities may have inhibited the
stakeholder participation necessary to complete tasks on schedule. The
lack of shared responsibility for funding the project may have also
limited stakeholder commitment. In addition, limited communication and
outreach left key partners and stakeholders ill-informed about the
initiative's progress and development issues.
Conclusions:
Each of the four e-government initiatives has made progress toward
achieving its overall objectives. A number of early goals have been
achieved, including establishing Web portals such as www.geodata.gov
for the Geospatial One-Stop initiative and www.BusinessLaw.gov for the
Business Gateway project. All four initiatives rely on cross-agency
collaboration, and they still have a number of tasks to complete, some
of which require extensive interorganizational cooperation and could be
very challenging.
In our assessment of previous research into cross-organizational
collaboration, five broad key practices emerged as being of critical
importance. These practices include establishing a collaborative
management structure, maintaining collaborative relationships,
contributing resources equitably, facilitating communication and
outreach, and adopting a common set of standards.
When assessed according to these practices, the record for the four e-
government initiatives is mixed. In some cases, the practices were
effectively used, whereas in other cases project managers did not take
full advantage of them. For example, while OPM has taken steps to
promote close collaboration with its four designated e-Payroll
providers, it has not fully addressed the concerns of a key stakeholder
that may be required to make costly changes to its payroll processes
and policies in response to OPM's decisions. Interior has instituted a
board of directors for Geospatial One-Stop that includes certain state
and local representatives, but it has not yet established formal
agreements with all of its federal partners or developed an outreach
plan to encourage a broad range of states and localities to participate
in the initiative. GSA has adopted a variety of effective collaboration
practices on the Integrated Acquisition Environment project, but it has
not yet fully involved CFOs from partner agencies. Finally, SBA has not
yet taken important steps--including defining roles and
responsibilities, establishing formal agreements with federal partner
agencies, and establishing a funding strategy based on shared resource
commitments--to facilitate effective collaboration with its partners
and stakeholders. Until these issues are addressed, the initiatives may
be at risk of not fully achieving their goals.
Recommendations for Executive Action:
To enhance the effectiveness of collaboration as a tool for the four e-
government initiatives to use in achieving their goals, we recommend
that:
* the Director of OPM (1) institute a review and feedback process with
VA to ensure that its concerns are reviewed and addressed before
decisions are made that could have a policy or resource impact on
agency payroll operations, and (2) ensure that a collaborative process
is in place for development of governmentwide payroll standards;
* the Secretary of the Interior establish formal agreements with
federal agency partners to clarify collaborative relationships and
develop an outreach plan for the Geospatial One-Stop initiative that
includes specific tasks for contacting and interacting with a wider
range of state and local government GIS officials to facilitate and
explain the benefits of broad participation in the initiative and
promote the use of federal geospatial data standards;
* the Administrator, GSA, modify the structure of its working groups
and other communication mechanisms for the Integrated Acquisition
Environment initiative to fully include the CFOs of partner agencies
and better ensure that agreed-upon partner resource contributions are
made; and:
* the Administrator, SBA, establish a more collaborative management
structure for the Business Gateway initiative by defining roles and
responsibilities, establishing formal collaboration agreements with
federal agency partners, developing a shared funding strategy, and
implementing projectwide communication and outreach mechanisms to
ensure that key decision makers at partner agencies are kept informed
and involved in the management of the project.
Agency Comments and Our Evaluation:
We received written comments on a draft of this report from the
Director of OPM; Interior's Assistant Secretary Policy, Management and
Budget; and SBA's Program Executive Officer for e-Government. We also
received oral comments from the Administrator of GSA. All four agencies
generally agreed with our discussion of the collaboration challenges
facing e-government initiatives. In addition, each of the agencies
provided comments and additional or updated information about
collaboration activities associated with their initiatives, as well as
technical comments, which have been incorporated into the final report
where appropriate.
OPM stated that it was concerned with our assessment that e-Payroll had
not been fully effective in taking steps to promote collaboration with
partner agencies. In the report, we noted that OPM has taken steps to
develop and maintain collaborative relationships with its partners and
focused our concern on OPM's relationship with VA. Concerning our
recommendation that OPM institute a review and feedback process with VA
to ensure that concerns are addressed, OPM reported that such a process
has been established and that it would continue to hold discussions
with VA. In addition, concerning our recommendation that OPM ensure
that a collaborative process is in place for the development of
governmentwide payroll standards, we noted in the final report OPM's
position that it has taken steps to help ensure a collaborative
standards development process by establishing a cross-agency focus
group to address standards setting issues. If supported by a detailed
strategy, OPM's actions may help to address the issues we raised. OPM
also provided technical comments, which we have incorporated as
appropriate.
Interior stated that it agreed with our assessment that e-government
projects face many challenges and that Geospatial One-Stop had made
substantial progress in achieving its initial objectives and goals.
Interior also acknowledged that it had not resolved all the challenges
in gaining greater collaboration on the part of the potential
stakeholders at the state and local levels. Interior stated that, in
several ways, the draft report had mischaracterized the Geospatial One-
Stop project as being "federal-centric." We do not believe that the
report characterizes the initiative in this way. Rather, the focus is
on the challenge of gaining as broad participation as possible from
state and local representatives, a task that Interior agrees is
challenging. Interior's Assistant Secretary, Policy, Management and
Budget, also stated that the agency disagreed that the existence of
formal agreements is key to sustaining a vision and making progress.
However, Interior noted in its comments that it had established
memorandums of agreement or funding agreements with each of its partner
agencies. Further, our research into key collaboration practices
revealed that formal agreements with a clear purpose, common
performance outputs, and realistic performance measures are useful in
providing a firm management foundation for collaboration.
GSA concurred with our recommendation regarding the Integrated
Acquisition Environment initiative. GSA provided additional
information about its planned activities to address our recommendation
as well as updated information about the status of the initiative. This
information has been incorporated in the final report as appropriate.
SBA provided several suggested technical corrections to the draft
report, and we have made those corrections in the final report where
appropriate. In its comments, SBA officials stated that the project
manager believed that slow progress in 2003 was due primarily to lack
of funding from within SBA and the addition of tasks by OMB, rather
than to any shortcomings in collaboration, and that efforts at
collaboration had been made until funding for the project became
problematic. We have clarified in the final report that the funding
shortfall was within SBA and not due to a lack of funding contributions
from partner agencies. However, as noted in the report, the fact that
partner agencies did not share resource commitments for the Business
Gateway limited their overall commitment to and involvement in the
project, thus putting the project at risk of not meeting its
objectives.
:
As agreed with your offices, unless you publicly announce its contents
earlier, we plan no further distribution of this report until 30 days
from the date of this report. At that time, we will send copies to the
Ranking Minority Member, House Committee on Government Reform, and the
Ranking Minority Member, Subcommittee on Technology, Information
Policy, Intergovernmental Relations and the Census. In addition, we
will provide copies to the Directors of OMB and OPM, the Secretary of
the Interior, and the Administrators of GSA and SBA. Copies will be
made available to others on request. In addition, this report will be
available at no charge on the GAO Web site at www.gao.gov.
Signed by:
If you should have any questions concerning this report, please call me
at (202) 512-6240 or send e-mail to koontzl@gao.gov. Key contributors
to this report were Shannin Addison, Neha Bhavsar, Barbara Collier,
Felipe Colón, Jr., Larry Crosland, John de Ferrari, and Elizabeth
Roach.
Linda D. Koontz:
Director, Information Management Issues:
Signed by Linda D. Koontz:
[End of section]
Appendixes:
Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and Methodology:
Our objectives were to assess (1) the progress that has been made to
date in implementing the selected initiatives, (2) the major factors
that can affect successful collaboration on e-government initiatives,
and (3) the extent to which federal agencies and other entities have
been collaborating on the selected initiatives.
We considered several factors in selecting the four initiatives for our
review. These factors included the number of potential collaborating
agencies, reported costs of the initiatives, variety among the types
initiative categories (i.e., "government to citizen," "government to
business," "government to government," "internal efficiency and
effectiveness," and "cross-cutting"), potential cost savings from
implementing the initiatives, variety among managing partners, and
variety among the kinds of stakeholders. Based on a consideration of
these factors, we selected the following four initiatives: e-Payroll,
Geospatial One-Stop, Integrated Acquisition Environment, and Business
Gateway.
To assess the progress of the initiatives, we reviewed capital asset
plans and other project documentation, conducted interviews with
project officials, and assessed electronic services made available to
customers to date. In addition to determining the status of planned
milestones, we evaluated the progress that had been made in achieving
the overall objectives of each initiative within the framework of the
e-government strategy of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).
To identify key practices affecting collaboration on e-government
initiatives, we developed criteria through a review of government,
academic, and private sector literature on interorganizational
collaboration. We provided these criteria to officials of OMB's Office
of Information and Regulatory Affairs, who agreed that the criteria
were reasonable for assessing collaboration on e-government
initiatives. Based on these criteria, we summarized individual key
practices (i.e., those practices that were most commonly cited among
our sources) into five broad practices: establishing a collaborative
management structure, maintaining collaborative relationships,
contributing resources equitably, facilitating communication and
outreach, and reaching agreement on a common set of standards.
To assess the extent to which federal agencies and other entities were
collaborating on the selected e-government initiatives, we reviewed
project documents related to collaboration, such as communication
strategies and memorandums of understanding. We conducted interviews
with project managers for each of the initiatives we reviewed, as well
as with officials from the four managing partner agencies and OMB's
portfolio managers, to determine collaborative management practices
that were in place. We also contacted project officials from the
initiatives' partner agencies, as well as the National States
Geographic Information Council (regarding Geospatial One-Stop) and
representatives from small business associations (regarding Business
Gateway). We collected information from these entities to determine the
extent to which key collaboration practices were being used effectively
for the four initiatives we studied.
Our work was conducted from December 2002 to September 2003 in
accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.
[End of section]
Appendix II: Source Materials for Key Collaboration Practices:
Following are the source documents that we consulted in identifying the
key collaboration practices described in the body of the report.
GAO Reports:
Program Evaluation: An Evaluation Culture and Collaborative
Partnerships Help Build Agency Capacity. GAO-03-454. Washington, D.C.:
May 2, 2003.
Results-Oriented Management: Agency Crosscutting Actions and Plans in
Drug Control, Family Poverty, Financial Institution Regulation, and
Public Health Systems. GAO-03-320. Washington, D.C.: December 20, 2002.
Results-Oriented Management: Agency Crosscutting Actions and Plans in
Border Control, Flood Mitigation and Insurance, Wetlands, and Wildland
Fire Management. GAO-03-321. Washington, D.C.: December 20, 2002.
September 11: More Effective Collaboration Could Enhance Charitable
Organizations' Contributions in Disasters. GAO-03-259. Washington,
D.C.: December 19, 2002.
At-Risk Youth: School-Community Collaborations Focus on Improving
Student Outcomes. GAO-01-66. Washington, D.C.: October 10, 2000.
Head Start and Even Start: Greater Collaboration Needed on Measures of
Adult Education and Literacy. GAO-02-348. Washington, D.C.: March 29,
2002.
Human Services Integration: Results of a GAO Cosponsored Conference on
Modernizing Information Systems. GAO-02-121. Washington, D.C.: January
31, 2002.
Defense Health Care: Collaboration and Criteria Needed for Sizing
Graduate Medical Education. GAO/HEHS-98-121. Washington, D.C.: April
29, 1998.
Federal Agency Studies:
Congressional Research Service, The Library of Congress. Federal
Interagency Coordination Mechanisms: Varied Types and Numerous Devices.
July 22, 2002. http://www.congress.gov/erp/rl/pdf/RL31357.pdf (viewed
July 2003).
Federal Enterprise Architecture Working Group. E-Gov Enterprise
Architecture Guidance. Draft-Version 2.0. July 25, 2002. http://
www.feapmo.gov/resources/E-Gov_Guidance_Final_Draft_v2.0.pdf (viewed
July 2003).
Federal Highway Administration, Office of Travel Management, Office of
Operations (Department of Transportation). The Practice of Regional
Transportation Operations Collaboration and Coordination. May 7, 2003.
www.ops.fhwa.dot.gov/RegionalTransOpsCollaboration/note.htm (viewed
August 2003).
Food and Drug Administration (Department of Health and Human Services).
An Agency Resource for Effective Collaborations: The Leveraging
Handbook. June 2003. www.fda.gov/oc/leveraging/handbook.pdf (viewed
July 2003).
General Services Administration. Building Blocks for Successful
Intergovernmental Programs. August 29, 2001. www.gsa.gov/Portal/
content/pubs_content.jsp?contentOID=119122&contentType=1008 (viewed
July 2003).
Hodges, S., T. Nesman, and M. Hernandez. Promising Practices: Building
Collaboration in Systems of Care. A special report prepared at the
request of the Department of Health and Human Services. 1999.
www.mentalhealth.org/cmhs/ChildrensCampaign/PDFs/1998monographs/
vol6.pdf (viewed July 2003).
Institute for Educational Leadership. Building Effective Community
Partnerships. A special report prepared at the request of the Office of
Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Office of Justice
Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. www.ojjdp.ncjrs.org/resources/
files/toolkit1final.pdf (viewed July 2003).
Intergovernmental Advisory Board (General Services Administration).
Federal, State and Local Government Experiences: Foundations for
Successful Intergovernmental Management. October 1998. www.gsa.gov/
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FOOTNOTES
[1] Geospatial data are any data associated with a geographic location.
[2] Small Business Paperwork Relief Act of 2002 (P.L. 107-198).
[3] The E-Government Task Force originally selected 23 initiatives in
September 2001. A 24TH, e-Payroll, was then added by the President's
Management Council. In 2002, a decision was made to separate one
initiative into two individual projects, resulting in the current count
of 25 projects.
[4] Office of Management and Budget, E-Government Strategy (Washington,
D.C.: Feb. 27, 2002).
[5] U.S. General Accounting Office, Electronic Government: Selection
and Implementation of the Office of Management and Budget's 24
Initiatives, GAO-03-229 (Washington, D.C.: Nov. 22, 2002).
[6] The Open GIS Consortium, Inc., is an international industry group
of 258 companies, government agencies, and universities that develop
open systems specifications for processing geospatial information.
[7] The Bureau of Land Management's portal, www.geocommunicator.gov,
was developed using commercial off-the-shelf software provided by the
Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc. (ESRI).
[8] Metadata are information describing the content, quality,
condition, and other characteristics of data, such as when they were
collected or the coordinate system they are based on.
[9] Until July 1, 2003, the Business Gateway project was known as
Business Compliance One-Stop.
[10] The profiler is intended to gather information about a user's
business and use the information to identify relevant compliance
assistance tools and resources. The system uses a set of online,
standardized questions to prompt users to provide information such as
type of business, number of employees, location, and whether it is a
new or existing business.
[11] The four tools that were implemented include (1) the Alien
Employee Visa Classification eTool, (2) the Emergency Evacuation
Procedures eTool, (3) the Auto Dismantler & Recycler Environmental
Audit Advisor, and (4) the Motor Vehicle Waste Disposal Wells Advisor.
[12] Office of Management and Budget, Final Report of the Small
Business Paperwork Relief Task Force (Washington, D.C.: June 27, 2003).
[13] Public Law 105-277, Div. C, tit. XVII.
[14] Appendix II provides a complete list of the collaboration sources
that we reviewed for our study.
[15] Intergovernmental Advisory Board (General Services
Administration), Foundations for Successful Intergovernmental
Management: Federal, State and Local Government Experiences (October
1998), 54-55.
[16] Foundations for Successful Intergovernmental Management: Federal,
State and Local Government Experiences, 21-22.
[17] Collaboration: What Makes It Work, Amherst H. Wilder Foundation,
second edition (2001), 27.
[18] Industry Advisory Council, e-Government Shared Interest Group,
Cross-Jurisdictional e-Government Implementations (September 2002),
16-17.
[19] Office of Intergovernmental Solutions, General Services
Administration, Government Without Boundaries: A Management Approach to
Intergovernmental Programs (May 23, 2002).
[20] The fourth provider, the Defense Finance and Accounting Service,
did not respond to our request for information.
[21] Examples of "standardization opportunities" include such things as
establishing a standard official payday each pay period for the entire
federal government and consolidating all employees to one biweekly pay
cycle.
[22] 38 U.S.C., Part V, Chapter 74--Veterans Health Administration--
Personnel.
[23] Office of Personnel Management, e-Payroll Initiative: Plan for
Standardization of Federal Payroll Policy, Revision 1 (Washington,
D.C.: Jan. 13, 2003).
[24] The National States Geographic Information Council is an
organization of states that promotes the adoption and use of geographic
information technologies. Members include state GIS coordinators,
senior state GIS managers, and representatives from federal agencies,
local government, the private sector, academia, and other professional
organizations.
[25] The seven types are transportation, hydrography, government units,
geodetic control (supporting a common coordinate system), elevation,
digital orthoimagery (having the characteristics of a map and the image
of a photograph), and cadastral (relating to land ownership).
[26] Gartner studies are available for purchase at the Gartner Web
site, www.gartner.com.
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