GPEA updates go through Web

Progress Report on Implementing the Government Paperwork Elimination Act

The Office of Management and Budget is calling on agencies to provide updates about moving services to the Web and is providing a way for agencies to submit the information through a secure online application on the CIO Council's Web site.

Under the Government Paperwork Elimination Act, federal agencies must make their services available electronically whenever possible by October 2003. Last year, under OMB's lead, the CIO Council and the General Services Administration's Office of Governmentwide Policy made a database available of all agency GPEA initiatives.

A new memo from Mark Forman, associate director for information technology and e-government at OMB, and John Graham, administrator of OMB's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, provides instructions on what information agencies must provide by Oct. 22 to update that database to reflect the past year's activities.

The instructions include changes calling for GPEA plans to conform to the e-government strategy in President Bush's management agenda.

OMB also is asking for more specific information in agencies' strategy reports, "including progress or problems you have encountered and how your progress on GPEA is tied with your work on electronic government," according to the cover letter.

Agencies are to provide their strategy reports to OMB by e-mail. And OMB has worked with GSA to develop a Web-based application that will enable agencies to make changes to their existing plans rather than submit entirely new documents. GSA will provide the secure log-on information to each agency, following the guidelines outlined in the memo.

Agencies are having many problems meeting the October 2003 deadline, according to Mitchell Daniels Jr., director of OMB. Only 45 percent of agencies are expected to meet the deadline, and of the remaining 55 percent, only half have a "reasonable" argument for not meeting the deadline, Daniels testified before the House Government Reform Committee in June.