Chertoff: DHS made progress in acquisition management

The Homeland Security Department made modest progress in acquisition management and moderate progress in information technology management in fiscal 2008, according to a report by DHS.Officials moved forward on aligning DHS’ acquisition organizations and creating policies and procedures to carry out acquisition functions, according to DHS’ “Annual Financial Report for Fiscal Year 2008.” The document contained some information from Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.The report provides overviews for dozens of programs at DHS, along with score cards and rating systems for various benchmarks.Chertoff said DHS has made moderate progress in border security and catastrophic disaster response and recovery.However, regarding acquisition management, although "some improvements have been made, many of the critical success factors have not yet been achieved,” the report states. “The department continues to face challenges associated with implementing an acquisition function that is not fully integrated.”DHS had partial success in building an acquisition workforce and developing and deploying appropriate knowledge management and IT systems for acquisition, the report states.Officials had moderate success in strategic planning, enterprise architecture and portfolio management for the Office of the Chief Information Officer.However, the CIO’s office achieved only modest progress in budget oversight, and component offices lagged on strategic planning and portfolio management, the report released Dec. 1 states.