Setting the federal e-government agenda
Although the dot-com heyday has passed, the idea that governments should use the Internet and technology to be more accessible to people has grown. In fact, that idea is one of the chief initiatives outlined in President Bush’s Management Agenda and is among the responsibilities of Mark Forman, appointed in June by Bush to direct the fed’s course for e-government.
As the associate director for information technology and e-government in the Office of Management and Budget, Forman draws on 18 years of experience in the technology industry and in federal government. Starting out as a Presidential Management Intern in the mid-1980s, Forman moved to management positions with technology research companies before becoming the senior professional staff member on the Majority Staff of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee. There, he helped draft various reform bills and was the senior advisor on acquisition and procurement, information technology and program management issues. Next, he created and led Armonk, N.Y.-based IBM’s Americas Public Sector e-business Consulting Services and then became a principal in IBM Global Services. Most recently, he was vice president of e-business at Blue Bell, Pa.-based Unisys Global Industries, where he guided the strategy, definition and deployment of e-government solutions for public sector clients.
To help identify e-government projects for the Bush Administration, Forman began working with representatives from 30 agencies in August. In October, the E-Government Task Force announced 23 initiatives that are intended to improve computer security and interactions among federal agencies and between federal agencies and citizens, businesses, and state and local governments.
Q: What are the guiding principles behind the federal government’s e-government initiatives?
A: Make government more citizen-centered. Before President Bush came to office, everything focused on fixing what was going on in the departments. President Bush’s agenda has been to focus on moving from the silos, or what people would call “islands of automation,” to look across agencies and focus on the citizen.
Improve productivity by being market-driven and results-oriented. There are so many opportunities in the marketplace today — e-government, e-business, new management practices, more effective ways to do our work — but all of that has to focus on results. We’re looking for driving improvements in productivity measured a couple of ways: improvements in program performance and improvements in the quality of services being delivered.
Unify and simplify. The unifying concept is very simple: We’ve got to cut across these silos of information and these organizational silos and work as a team. We hear terms in industry and e-business like “communities of practice,” and that’s exactly what’s happening in the federal government right now. If you look at a lot of state and local e-government initiatives, they relate to things like business permitting, business tax payments, business registration, and there are similar issues at the federal level.
The simplifying concept is that, as we are looking at working together, we’ve got to make it simpler for citizens to get served — and simpler for governments to do their work. Every successful e-government or e-business initiative that I’m aware of, at the heart, has simplified the way work gets done. So we’re looking at citizen-centered, market-driven projects and focusing on results while acting as a team and making it easier to work with government.
Q: Along with making improvements to the ways citizens can interact with the federal government, the task force identified ways to improve interactions with local governments. What are the government-to-government initiatives?
A: Wireless public safety networks. [During] the late 1990s, a lot of state and local public safety networks were integrated, but there are still a lot of problems between federal public safety law enforcement being able to communicate with state and local [agencies]. That initiative was identified before Sept. 11; not surprisingly, that has come to the forefront now.
A disaster preparedness portal. Some state and local governments have been working on disaster preparedness plans, but there’s no place where you can go that helps you craft that disaster preparedness over the range of likely scenarios with all the players. The [portal could be used to develop a plan and to] make sure that you’re leveraging the best practices. It could be [used to develop] a simulation of a crisis to show that, in fact, the disaster preparedness plan works and that you can actually work with federal, state and local folks involved.
Geospatial one-stop. Whether you look at homeland security, counter-terrorism, highway maintenance, water, power lines, maintaining a city’s capital stock, a county’s capital stock or understanding where there is a need for certain public safety, geospatial information systems have become more and more important. But what we found out in the task force is that federal, state and local activities are spending $5 billion on redundant or non-value-added efforts. Of that $5 billion in potential savings, $3 billion is at the state and local government levels. The opportunity to work together on standards, to talk about interoperability, and get that all figured out means that the federal, state and local initiatives in GIS can better integrate.
E-Grants. There are numerous redundant grant programs at numerous agencies. If we just look at disaster response, we identified somewhere over 1,000 grant programs for disaster response managed by more than 250 agencies. Of course, there was no way the city and state and boroughs of New York would fill out over 1,000 forms and expect to get aid in any kind of a timely manner. So the notion of leveraging the Internet and e-government approaches to facilitate the whole grants application process was identified in everybody’s interest.
E-Vital. State, local and federal agencies have a number of programs that relate to vital statistics information. Everything from welfare to veteran’s administration programs to social security administration programs and a number of state and local programs. The belief coming out of the task force is that many states are ready to move that online. Some states want to make that information public; other states want to keep it private.
Q: Computer security is a key issue for e-government projects. How will the federal government address that with the e-authentication initiative?
A: For each of the e-government initiatives plus for a lot of agency initiatives, we’re going to use the Web for transactions. We know that:
a) our laws require us to provide the proper security and privacy;
b) there’s a requirement that you allow for electronic signatures; and
c) allowing agencies to each have independent security approaches will become a barrier to seamless access to government service.
So this initiative [will] address improvements in public trust of dealing with the government; improve and ensure that there’s appropriate security and privacy; and do that in a way that we can cut across the agency siloed information systems in a secure environment.
Q: Will more grants for local e-government projects be available this year?
A: Grants for e-government projects are available from multiple agencies. Certainly, I think if you look at what’s going on in the Justice Department with the Office of Justice’s programs, for several years, there’s been a number of grants. Treasury has some similar grants for improving communications in public safety and law enforcement. FEMA has similar programs for that. I think we’re going to continue to see that grow rapidly, especially in the areas of homeland security.
Q: Is there any upcoming legislation that local governments should be keeping an eye on in the e-government arena?
A: There is a House bill and a Senate bill on e-government, and they have very similar initiatives within them. There will be, I think, quite a bit on this in the president’s budget.