SSA Computers

After a decade of effort, the Social Security Administration (SSA) has achieved some successes in modernization, but has yet to establish a clear long-range vision to guide its use of information technology. SSA relies heavily on its information systems to deliver services and benefit payments that affect nearly every U.S. citizen. Without a clear long-range modernization plan, the agency risks being overwhelmed by the huge increases in beneficiaries that loom on the horizon. A lack of management continuity has impeded SSA's progress in modernizing its information systems. A stable guiding force--in the form of a commonly shared vision and a permanent advisory body--is needed to offer consistent direction and advice that will transcend leadership changes. More immediately, because SSA failed to upgrade its backup and recovery system during its recent modernization, the agency now backs up only 20 percent of its current work load--down from the nearly total backup coverage in 1985. As a result, SSA is vulnerable to data losses that could dramatically disrupt agency functions. Such data loss could lead to hundreds of millions of dollars in unnecessary or excessive payments to ineligible beneficiaries and delayed payments to newly eligible beneficiaries.

GAO found that: (1) after nearly 10 years of modernization activity, SSA has achieved successes, but has yet to establish a clear long-range vision to guide its use of information technology; (2) while SSA has achieved some immediate benefits by automating existing practices in a piecemeal fashion, it needs to explore more fundamental improvements in its work processes if it is to meet the enormous challenges that the next century holds; (3) without a clear long-range plan, SSA risks being overwhelmed by huge increases in beneficiaries; (4) a lack of management continuity has impeded SSA progress in modernizing its information systems; (5) because SSA failed to upgrade its backup and recovery system during its recent modernization, it backs up only 20 percent of its current work load, down from nearly total backup coverage in 1985, leaving itself open to unacceptable risks of data loss that could dramatically disrupt the daily performance of agencywide data processing and telecommunications; and (6) such a data loss could lead to impaired service and hundreds of millions of dollars in unnecessary or excessive payments to ineligible beneficiaries and delayed payments to newly eligible beneficiaries.

Recommendations

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

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