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OPPORTUNITIES IN THE FEDERAL SECTOR

E-GOVERNMENT ACT OF 2002

The E-Government Act of 2002 is a wake-up call. Yes, we really are in the 21st Century, and both the Administration and Congress expect the federal government to join the party. It will bring the greatest transformation of government since the era of Franklin Roosevelt, when the powerful forces of the Great Depression and World War II reshaped the federal executive branch profoundly.

The federal government has been evolving toward E-Government for a number of years, with milestones like the Government Paperwork Elimination Act of 1998. However, the current Administration jumped in with both feet, and the Whitehouse established an overall framework for a vision of the future through the President's Management Agenda (http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2002/mgmt.pdf) and its E-Government Strategy
(http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/inforeg/egovstrategy.pdf). The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has led the charge toward E-Government under Associate Director Mark Forman. OMB budget priorities reflect a clear focus on E-Government and underlying requirements such as Return on Investment (ROI), information security, and alignment of spending with the President's Management Agenda.

The E-Government Act codifies much of the strategy that the Administration is already implementing. Perhaps the most important point is that Congress has institutionalized the strategy, which will now be a framework for all future administration. The legislation had bipartisan support, and Senator Lieberman was a major architect of the law.

No Budget Bonanza

The E-Government revolution is no budget bonanza for agencies or contractors. The new law provides modest funding for cross-cutting initiatives. However, most of the change must be financed out of existing appropriations levels--particularly for domestic programs not involved in the war on terrorism. Indeed, the near-term emphasis on a War Budget will squeeze many government agencies.

But squeezing IT dollars is no new phenomenon. Most Fortune 500 companies already expect to pay for IT investments through corresponding cost savings. The bottom line is that IT investments are supposed to save money through business process simplification, standardization, reorganization, consolidation, and reduced maintenance costs. This concept, which was embedded in the Clinger-Cohen Act (among others), will come home to roost within the federal government. The rhetoric must become reality.

For contractors, this will be a time to gain or lose market share--not through expanding agency budgets but by becoming more (or less) relevant to the E-Government revolution. Winners will help agencies squeeze more results out of existing budgets, and they may even help agencies save money.

The Law

The E-Government Act has five titles:

Title I--Office of Management and Budget Electronic Government Services. The first title establishes a powerful Office of Electronic Government within OMB, enacts a modest E-Government fund, formalizes the status of the Chief Information Officers Council, encourages innovative governmentwide solutions, authorizes the General Services Administration (GSA) to advise the OMB Office of Electronic Government, and requires an annual E-Government Report to Congress.

Title II--Federal Management and Promotion of Electronic Government Services. The second title implements E-Government on a multiagency basis by identifying the responsibilities of each Executive Branch agency and requiring GSA to establish an interoperable framework for electronic signatures. Title II encompasses many requirements, which will be summarized later in this article.

Title III--Information Security. The third title defines a framework for ensuring the effectiveness of federal information security, and it holds agency heads responsible for assuring the security of their information systems. The Director of OMB is responsible for "developing and overseeing the implementation of policies, principles, standards, and guidelines on information security, including through ensuring timely agency adoption ... and compliance ...." In addition, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) will play a stronger role in advising OMB and developing security standards and guidelines.

Title IV--Authorization of Appropriations and Effective Dates. The E-Government Act takes effect 120 days after its December 17th enactment, and the fourth title also authorizes Congress to make appropriations for Fiscal Years 2003 through 2007.

Title V -- Confidential Information Protection and Statistical Efficiency. The Director of OMB is given the authority to oversee the confidentiality and disclosure of policies addressed by this title, which seeks to ensure that information provided by individuals and organizations for statistical purposes is held in confidence and not used as the basis for adverse actions. Failure to protect the confidentiality of applicable statistical information is considered a felony and subject to imprisonment (up to five years) and/or fines (up to $250,000). The title also seeks to reduce paperwork imposed on the public, improve statistical accuracy, and authorizes statistical data sharing between the Census, Bureau of Economic Analysis, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Why the E-Government Act is Important

We want our readers to begin rethinking their assumptions about government, because the future is different. The old paradigms for government operations, programs, and technology will gradually become history.

Characteristic of Government Operations	Old Way	New Way
Public Services	Federal personnel or contractors process paperwork or phone requests from the public. Responses may take hours, days, weeks or months.	Online transactions provide almost instant automated responses to the public in many cases. Federal personnel set up the rules and evaluate results, but the transactions and recordkeeping are automated.
Hours of Service	Service is available during normal government office hours.	Service is 24/7.
Customer Relationship Management	The public doesn't know who to call about federal information or services, and citizens are often caught in a referral maze.	One-stop web portals and call centers enable agencies to implement consistent customer relationship management policies--and to serve the public better (and at a lower cost).
Cost of Delivering Public Services	Very labor intensive.	Very automated.
Locations of Federal Offices Serving the Public	Complex organization of regional and state offices to be accessible to the public.	"Back office" support at one or a few locations. Just like Gateway computer, you could conduct much of the government business from "cow country."
Types of Federal Personnel Required	A few managers and supervisors overseeing large numbers of mid- and junior-level workers.	Fewer federal employees, but most will need to be highly qualified (high-GS) managers, knowledge workers, and technical personnel.
Government Web Sites	Thousands of scattered web sites that must be located on a hit-or-miss basis by the public. Contents, interfaces, and visual styles are a hodge-podge. Information is organized by bureaucracy, not by topic or public served.	There ultimately will be a single portal. Agencies within Departments will gain a consistent look and feel. Locations of basic information will be predictable. Information will be organized for the user, rather than for the bureaucracy.
Information	Difficult for the public to find.	Easy for the public to find.
Computer Security	Inconsistent approaches to information security, with some agencies vulnerable to internal and external threats.	Government-wide standards for information security with more rigorous requirements for the protection of government information, computers, and networks.
Privacy	Most agencies already try to protect Privacy Act information, but they are challenged to accommodate the new electronic formats.	Procedures for assuring privacy and confidentiality will be strengthened, and increased effort will be directed at protecting electronic information--including that submitted by citizens to government Web sites.
Federal Productivity	Many government workers have been diverted from their primary job responsibilities because they must respond to ad hoc inquiries from the public.	E-Government will do much of the work in explaining federal programs, regulations, and procedures. Most workers will be more productive because they can concentrate on their main duties.
Work Flow	Documents are physically passed along from office to office.	Workflow software routes electronic documents along decision-making and approval pathways.
Information Management	Finding and organizing needed information is difficult.	Records management and content management systems for electronic information make "knowledge management" feasible.

More Dimensions of the Legislation

The legislation has a great deal of detail--more than we can cover in depth in this article. Nonetheless, let's survey important provisions of Titles II and III:

Title II also mandates a unified governmentwide portal for Web access by citizens, authorizes the Chief Justice and other chief judges to establish websites with consistent core information, and directs regulatory agencies to make Federal Register information readily available at agency websites. The second title requires improvement in how government information is organized on websites, directs the OMB Office of Electronic Government to establish standards for agency websites, and directs the National Archives and Records Administration to submit recommendations about preserving federal electronic records. There will also be a single public domain directory of all public federal websites, and the Director of OMB is authorized to define a repository that integrates information about all research and development funded by the federal government. In addition, agencies must conduct Privacy Impact Assessments of sensitive systems to ensure sufficient protections for the privacy of personal information. To support this overall vision of electronic Government, there is a Federal IT Workforce Development initiative to improve the skills of the federal workforce in using information technology to deliver information and services. There is a limited IT exchange program to swap experts between the public and private sectors, as well as pilot use of "share in savings" contracts whereby both agencies and contractors share the dollars when they successfully cut government costs. The title also establishes other provisions such as state/local government purchasing through the GSA schedules, pilot efforts to improve the interoperability of federal systems, projects to encourage integrated collection and management of data, Community Technology Centers, enhanced crisis management, and common protocols for Geographic Information Systems.

Additional Provisions of Title III. Agency heads are responsible for assuring the security of systems within their respective agencies, periodically testing and evaluating security controls, and delegating to the Chief Information Officer the authority to ensure compliance with federal information security requirements. Each agency must carry out an agencywide information security program approved by the Director of OMB, and the security must be assured throughout the entire system life cycle. Each agency must also provide reports to OMB and Congress , and the status of agency compliance will be linked to the annual budget, IT resource management, and a Performance Plan (probably an extension of OMB's current Plan of Action & Milestones reporting). Each year, the agency must obtain an independent evaluation of its information security program and practices to determine effectiveness. The title authorizes the federal information security incident reporting center. The Title designates the Secretary of Commerce (who oversees NIST) to prescribe standards and guidelines for federal information systems, and, further, "the Secretary shall make standards prescribed ... compulsory and binding to the extent determined necessary by the Secretary to improve the efficiency of operation or security of federal information systems." In addition, there will be an Information Security and Privacy Advisory Board which advises NIST, the Secretary of Commerce, and other leadership.

LINKS OF THE MONTH

We highly recommend that you review the E-Government Act of 2002 for yourself. It is also known as Public Law No: 107-347. It was sent to the President for signature as H.R. 2458. The Federal CIO Council has it at:
http://www.cio.gov/documents/e_gov_act_2002.pdf. You may also want to check out:

• GSA's Web site on e-Gov at http://www.egov.gov.
• The December 2002 NIST Information Technology Bulletin on Security of Public Web Servers, http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistbul/b-12-02.pdf.

CONSULTING SERVICES

We provide enterprise-level management consulting services for federal agencies and the contractors who support them. Our areas of specialization are Capital Planning and Investment Control, Enterprise Architecture, strategic planning, performance evaluation, and acquisition support including work statements. Our consulting specialty includes experience in many related areas such as CIO program support, earned value management, risk management, the C&A process for security, and customer satisfaction surveys.

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