E-gov includes accessibility, privacy

Agencies should focus on accessibility and privacy issues as e-government initiatives move forward, Office of Management and Budget's information technology chief said today.

These two areas need more attention, said Karen Evans, OMB's administrator for e-government and IT, speaking at an enterprise architecture conference in Washington, D.C.

"This is something we all know we need to do," Evans said, referring to compliance with the Rehabilitation Act's Section 508, which requires agencies to make technology accessible to people with disabilities. "This is what is going to give confidence in our services to the public. We have to make sure those services can be used by all types of citizens."

The future of the 24 e-government initiatives laid out in the president's management agenda depends on agencies moving beyond a green score on the management scorecard. Green, the top rating on the scorecard, means agencies have achieved the status where they should have been all along, Evans said. "Green is not the end; green in the beginning," she said.

The next step is what she called breakthrough performance, when all managers are using the enterprise architecture and collaborating across agencies.

"For you to develop a business case jointly with a sister agency — that's breakthrough performance," Evans said.

Other goals in the future include ensuring that well-qualified, experienced project managers are handling major IT projects and that agencies work to complete the initial 24 e-government initiatives.