White House says transparency, collaboration are IT goals

White House officials want federal department and agency heads to incorporate broad goals of transparency, participation and collaboration in their information technology projects for fiscal 2011, according to a budget guidance memo.

Peter Orszag, director of the Office of Management and Budget, wrote in the memo June 11 that executives should consider the need for “improving innovation, efficiency and effectiveness, in areas like cloud computing,” for the IT portion of their fiscal 2011 budget requests, the memo states.

“Our goal is to build a transparent, high-performance government capable of addressing the challenges of the 21st century,” Orszag wrote. “The American people deserve a government that works, where the public interest is prioritized, where the impact of government spending is transparent and held to high, objective standards, and where results and good management matter.”

The memo asks agency heads to identify “a limited number” of high-priority performance goals as they submit their budget requests, including descriptions of how they will reform agency hiring and improve employee satisfaction and wellness.

The agency executives should consider consulting with Congress, employees, industry, the public and other stakeholders as they set their top priorities for the next 12 to 24 months, the memo said, adding that the performance goals should be submitted to OMB by July 31.

For budgets, agency heads should submit ideas for maintaining fiscal 2010 spending levels and also for reducing spending by 5 percent below fiscal 2010 levels. OMB is asking for at least five initiatives from each agency for administrative cost savings.

“Regardless of your agency’s discretionary funding target, your submission should include significant terminations, reductions, and administrative savings initiatives (five at a minimum) that reduce costs below FY 2010 Budget levels,” the memo said.