Government failing at IT reform

Text of the Clinger-Cohen Act

Five years after the Clinger-Cohen Act became law, agencies have all but failed to carry out the management reforms envisioned by the legislation, one of the key authors of the bill said.

Although the government has made great strides in reforming how information technology is bought, many of the management reforms prescribed in the seminal IT management law have not been realized, said Paul Brubaker, who recently left his post as the Defense Department deputy chief information officer for a private-sector job.

While he largely praised the IT procurement reforms, giving them a "B or B-minus," Brubaker was more critical of the management provisions. "I'd give it an F-plus," said Brubaker, who was a staff member for then-Sen. William Cohen (R-Maine) when the Clinger-Cohen Act was approved in 1996. "There are some pockets of genius out there," but they are the exception.

"We're not making the hard decisions based on business analysis," Brubaker said. The failures are largely due to inadequate leadership and an entrenched culture, he said, adding that in many cases, agency CIOs lack the authority to carry out the provisions of the law as intended.

The Clinger-Cohen Act instructed agencies to treat technology as an investment and that agencies should tie those investments to actual results. In addition to calling for agencies to appoint CIOs, the act requires agencies to create capital planning processes and architectures that guide IT buys. Other officials gave agencies mixed reviews on Clinger-Cohen implementation, although most said Brubaker's assessment was overly critical.

David McClure, the General Accounting Office's associate director of governmentwide and defense information systems, said the F-plus assessment was "probably too harsh." Progress is "extremely uneven," but he said that there have been signs that agencies are taking the provisions to heart.

Jasmeet Seehra, a policy analyst for the Office of Management and Budget's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, gave the government a "gentlemen's C" overall, and acknowledged that progress has been patchy.

While nearly every organization has a CIO, that person's role has not yet been fully integrated within all organizations, Seehra said, and nearly every agency has capital planning processes in place. But many agencies are still not using those processes to made better decisions about how they buy and use technology, she said.

The Agriculture Department's acting CIO, Ira Hobbs, was more positive. Agencies are working together on projects such as the FirstGov Web portal, she said, and "in spite of the leadership issues, we are getting things done."

The officials spoke Tuesday at a conference — sponsored by the Potomac Forum of Potomac, Md. — examining the Clinger-Cohen Act.