Information Technology: Additional OMB and Agency Actions Are Needed to Achieve Portfolio Savings
Released: 2013-11-06T00:00:00

Letter

Background

Information technology should enable government to better serve the American people. However, OMB stated in 2010 that the federal government had achieved little of the productivity improvements that private industry had realized from IT, despite spending more than $600 billion on IT over the past decade. Too often, federal IT projects run over budget, behind schedule, or fail to deliver promised functionality.

Both OMB and federal agencies have key roles and responsibilities for overseeing IT investment management. OMB is responsible for working with agencies to ensure investments are appropriately planned and justified. Federal agencies are responsible for managing their IT investment portfolio, including the risks from their major information system initiatives, in order to maximize the value of these investments to the agency. Additionally, each year, OMB and federal agencies work together to determine how much the government plans to spend on IT projects and how these funds are to be allocated. For fiscal year 2014, federal agencies plan to spend about $82 billion.

GAO Has Previously Reported on Opportunities to Reduce Duplication and Achieve Cost Savings in Critical IT-Related Areas

We have previously reported on the challenges associated with agencies’ efforts to identify duplicative IT investments. For example, in September 2011 we reported that there were hundreds of investments providing similar functions across the federal government, including 1,536 information and technology management investments, 781 supply chain management investments, and 661 human resource management investments. Further, we found that OMB guidance to agencies on how to report their IT investments did not ensure complete reporting or facilitate the identification of duplicative investments. Specifically, agencies differed on what investments they included as an IT investment, and OMB’s guidance requires each investment to be mapped to a single functional category. As a result, agencies’ annual IT investments were likely greater that the $79 billion reported in fiscal year 2011 and OMB’s ability to identify duplicative investments was limited. Further, we found that several agencies did not routinely assess operational systems to determine if they were duplicative. We recommended, among other things, that OMB clarify its guidance to help agencies better identify and categorize their IT investments and require agencies to report the steps they take to ensure that their IT investments are not duplicative. OMB agreed with these recommendations.

More recently, we reported on efforts at the Departments of Defense, Energy, and Homeland Security to identify duplicative IT investments. More specifically, we noted that although Defense, Energy, and Homeland Security use various investment review processes to identify duplicative investments, 37 of our sample of 810 investments were potentially duplicative at Defense and Energy. These investments accounted for about $1.2 billion in spending for fiscal years 2007 through 2012. We also noted that investments were, in certain cases, misclassified by function, further complicating agencies’ ability to identify and eliminate duplicative investments. We recommended that Defense and Energy utilize transparency mechanisms, such as the IT Dashboard to report on the results of their efforts to identify and eliminate potentially duplicative investments. The agencies generally agreed with this recommendation.

We have also reported on the value of portfolio management in helping to identify duplication and overlap and opportunities to leverage shared services. For example, we have reported extensively on various agencies’ IT investment management capabilities by using GAO’s IT Investment Management Framework, in which stage 3 identifies best practices for portfolio management, including (1) creating a portfolio which involves, among other things, grouping investments and proposals into predefined logical categories so they can be compared to one another within and across the portfolio categories, and the best overall portfolio can then be selected for funding, and (2) evaluating the portfolio by monitoring and controlling it to ensure it provides the maximum benefits at a desired cost and an acceptable level of risk.

OMB Established PortfolioStat to Help Agencies Reduce Duplication and Achieve Cost Savings

Recognizing the proliferation of duplicative and low-priority IT investments within the federal government and the need to drive efficiency, OMB launched the PortfolioStat initiative in March 2012, which requires 26 agencies to conduct an annual agency-wide IT portfolio review to, among other things, reduce commodity IT spending and demonstrate how their IT investments align with the agency’s mission and business functions. Toward this end, OMB defined 13 types of commodity IT investments in three broad categories: (1) Enterprise IT systems, which include e-mail; identity and access management; IT security; web hosting, infrastructure, and content; and collaboration tools. (2) IT infrastructure, which includes desktop systems, mainframes and servers, mobile devices, and telecommunications. (3) Business systems, which include financial management, grants- related federal financial assistance, grants-related transfer to state and local governments, and human resources management systems.

PortfolioStat is designed to assist agencies in assessing the current maturity of their IT investment management process, making decisions on eliminating duplicative investments, and moving to shared solutions (such as cloud computing) in order to maximize the return on IT investments across the portfolio. It is also intended to assist agencies in meeting the targets and requirements under other OMB initiatives aimed at eliminating waste and duplication and promoting shared services, such as the Federal Data Center Consolidation Initiative, the Cloud Computing Initiative, and the IT Shared Services Strategy.

PortfolioStat is structured around five phases: (1) baseline data gathering in which agencies are required to complete a high-level survey of their IT portfolio status and establish a commodity IT baseline; (2) analysis and proposed action plan in which agencies are to use the data gathered in phase 1 and other available agency data to develop a proposed action plan for consolidating commodity IT; (3) PortfolioStat session in which agencies are required to hold a face-to-face, evidence-based review of their IT portfolio with the Federal Chief Information Officer (CIO) and key stakeholders from the agency to discuss the agency’s portfolio data and proposed action plan, and agree on concrete next steps to rationalize the agency’s IT portfolio that would result in a final plan; (4) final action plan implementation, in which agencies are to, among other things, migrate at least two commodity IT investments; and (5) lessons learned, in which agencies are required to document lessons learned, successes, and challenges. Each of these phases is associated with more specific requirements and deadlines.

OMB has reported that the PortfolioStat effort has the potential to save the government $2.5 billion through fiscal year 2015 by consolidating and eliminating duplicative systems.

Agencies Addressed PortfolioStat Requirements, but Baselines and Consolidation Plans Were Not All Complete

In its memo on implementing PortfolioStat, OMB established several key requirements for agencies: (1) designating a lead official with responsibility for implementing the process; (2) completing a high-level survey of their IT portfolio; (3) developing a baseline of the number, types, and costs of their commodity IT investments; (4) holding a face-to-face PortfolioStat session with key stakeholders to agree on actions to address duplication and inefficiencies in their commodity IT investments; (5) developing final action plans to document these actions; (6) migrating two commodity IT areas to shared services; and (7) documenting lessons learned. In addition, in guidance supporting the memo, agencies were asked to report estimated savings and cost avoidance associated with their consolidation and shared service initiatives through fiscal year 2015.

All 26 agencies that were required to implement the PortfolioStat process took actions to address OMB’s requirements. However, there were shortcomings in their implementation of selected requirements, such as addressing all required elements of the final action plan and migrating two commodity areas to a shared service by the end of 2012. Table 1 summarizes the agencies’ implementation of the requirements in the memo, which are discussed in more detail below.

In the memo for implementing the PortfolioStat initiative, OMB required each agency’s chief operating officer (COO) to designate and communicate within 10 days of the issuance of the memo an individual with direct reporting authority to the COO to lead the agency’s PortfolioStat implementation efforts. Consistent with a recent OMB memo requiring chief information officers (CIO) to take responsibility for commodity IT, 19 of the 26 agencies designated the CIO or chief technology officer to lead their PortfolioStat efforts. The remaining 7 agencies designated the Assistant Attorney General for Administration (Department of Justice), the deputy CIO (Department of Transportation), the Assistant Secretary for Management (Department of the Treasury), the Office of Information and Technology Chief Financial Officer (Department of Veterans Affairs), the Director, Office of Information Resources Management, Chief Human Capital Officer (National Science Foundation), the Senior Advisor to the Deputy Commissioner/Chief Operating Officer (Social Security Administration), and the Senior Deputy Assistant Administrator (U.S. Agency for International Development).

Portfolio Survey Provided Status of CIO Authority and Other Issues

As part of the baseline data-gathering phase, OMB required agencies to complete a high-level survey of the status of their IT portfolio. The survey asked agencies to provide information related to implementing OMB guidance, including information on the CIO’s explicit authority to review and approve the entire IT portfolio, the percentage of IT investments that are reflected in the agency’s EA (required in OMB Circular A-130), and the percentage of agency IT investments (major and non-major) that have gone through the TechStat process, both agency-led and OMB-led (required in OMB M-11-29).

While all 26 agencies completed the survey, the survey responses highlighted that agencies varied in the maturity of their IT portfolio management practices. In particular, 6 agencies reported varying levels of CIO authority, 5 agencies reported that less than 100 percent of investments were reflected in the agency’s EA, and most agencies noted that less than 50 percent of their major and non-major investments had gone through the TechStat process.

Following are highlights of their responses: CIO authority: Twenty of the 26 agencies stated that they either had a formal memorandum or policy in place explicitly noting the CIO’s authority to review and approve the entire agency IT portfolio or that the CIO collaborated with others (such as members of an investment review board) to exercise this authority. However, the remaining 6 agencies either reported that the CIO did not have this authority or there were limitations to the CIO’s authority:

The Department of Energy reported that while its CIO worked with IT governance groups, by law, the department CIO has no direct authority over IT investments in two semi-autonomous agencies (the National Nuclear Security Administration and the Energy Information Administration).

Although the Department of Health and Human Services reported having a formal memo in place outlining the CIO’s authority and ability to review the entire IT portfolio, it also noted that the CIO had limited influence and ability to recommend changes to it.

The Department of State reported that its CIO currently has authority over just 40 percent of IT investments within the department.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration reported that its CIO does not have authority to review and approve the entire agency IT portfolio.

The Office of Personnel Management reported that the CIO advises the Director, who approves the IT portfolio, but this role is not explicitly defined.

The U.S. Agency for International Development reported that the CIO’s authority is limited to the portfolio that is executed within the office of the CIO.

It is important to note that OMB’s survey did not specifically require agencies to disclose limitations their CIOs might have in their ability to exercise the authorities and responsibilities provided by law and OMB guidance. Thus it is not clear whether all those who have such limitations reported them or whether those who reported limitations disclosed all of them.

We recently reported that while federal law provides CIOs with adequate authority to manage IT for their agencies, limitations exist that impede their ability to exercise this authority. We noted that OMB’s memo on CIO authorities was a positive step in reaffirming the importance of the role of CIOs in improving agency IT management, but did not require them to measure and report the progress of CIOs in carrying out these responsibilities. Consequently, we recommended that the Director of OMB establish deadlines and metrics that require agencies to demonstrate the extent to which their CIOs are exercising the authorities and responsibilities provided by law and OMB’s guidance. In response, OMB stated that it would ask agencies to report on the implementation of the memo.

The high-level survey responses regarding CIO authority at agencies indicate that several CIOs still do not exercise the authority needed to review and approve the entire IT portfolio, consistent with OMB guidance. Although OMB has issued guidance and required agencies to report on actions taken to implement it, this has not been sufficient to ensure that agency COOs address the issue of CIO authority at their respective agencies. As a result, agencies are hindered in addressing certain responsibilities set out in the Clinger-Cohen Act of 1996, which established the position of CIO to advise and assist agency heads in managing IT investments. Until the Director of OMB and the Federal CIO require agencies to fully disclose limitations their CIOs may have in exercising the authorities and responsibilities provided by law and OMB’s guidance, OMB may lack crucial information needed to understand and address the factors that could prevent agencies’ from successfully implementing the PortfolioStat initiative.

Investments reflected in agencies’ enterprise architecture: Twenty one of the 26 agencies reported that 100 percent of their IT investments are reflected in their agency’s EA, while the remaining 5 agencies reported less than 100 percent: Commerce (90 percent), Justice (97 percent), State (40 percent), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (17 percent), and U.S. Agency for International Development (75 percent). According to OMB guidance, agencies must support an architecture with a complete inventory of agency information resources, including stakeholders and customers, equipment, systems, services, and funds devoted to information resources management and IT, at an appropriate level of detail. Until these agencies’ enterprise architectures reflect 100 percent of their IT investments, they will be limited in their ability to use this tool as a mechanism to identify low-value, duplicative, or wasteful investments.

TechStat process: Twenty-one of the 26 agencies reported that less than 50 percent of major and non-major investments had gone through the TechStat process and 1 reported that more than 50 percent of its investments had gone through the process. As we have previously reported, TechStat accountability sessions have the value of focusing management attention on troubled projects and establishing clear action items to turn the projects around or terminate them. In addition, the TechStat model is consistent with government and industry best practices for overseeing IT investments, including our own guidance on IT investment management processes. Consistent with these survey responses, in June 2013 we reported that the number of TechStat sessions held to date was relatively small compared to the current number of medium- and high-risk IT investments at federal agencies. Accordingly, we recommended that OMB require agencies to conduct TechStat sessions on certain IT investments, depending on their risk level. Holding TechStat sessions will help strengthen overall IT governance and oversight and will help agencies to better manage their IT portfolio and reduce waste. OMB generally concurred with our recommendation and stated that it was taking steps to address it.

Commodity IT Baselines Were Not All Complete

As part of the baseline data-gathering phase, each of the 26 agencies was also required to develop a comprehensive commodity IT baseline including information on each of the 13 types of commodity IT. Among other things, they were to include the fiscal year 2011 obligations incurred for commodity IT services and the number of systems providing these services.

The 26 agencies reported that they obligated approximately $13.5 billion in fiscal year 2011 for commodity IT, with the majority of these obligations (about $8.1 billion) for investments related to IT Infrastructure. Agencies also classified approximately 71.2 percent of the commodity IT systems identified (about 1,937 of the 2,721 reported) as enterprise IT systems. Further, as illustrated in figure 1, of the total systems reported, most were related to IT security, whereas the fewest systems were related to grants- related transfer to state and local governments.

When collecting data, it is important to have assurance that the data are accurate. We have previously reported on the need for agencies, when providing information to OMB, to explain the procedures used to verify their data. Specifically, agencies should ensure that reported data are sufficiently complete, accurate, and consistent, and also identify any significant data limitations. Explaining the limitations of information can provide a context for understanding and assessing the challenges agencies face in gathering, processing, and analyzing needed data. We have also reiterated the importance of providing OMB with complete and accurate data and the possible negative impact of that data being missing or incomplete.

While all 26 agencies developed commodity IT baselines, these baselines were not all complete. Specifically, 12 agencies (the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Housing and Urban Development, Labor, and the Interior; the Environmental Protection Agency, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Office of Personnel Management, Small Business Administration, Social Security Administration, and U.S. Agency for International Development) could not ensure the completeness of their commodity IT baseline, either because they did not identify a process for this or faced challenges in collecting complete information. These agencies reported they were unable to ensure the completeness of their information for a range of reasons, including that they do not typically capture the required data at the level of detail required by OMB, that they used service contracts which do not allow visibility into specifics on the commodity IT inventory, that they lacked visibility into bureaus’ commodity IT information, and that OMB’s time frames did not allow for verification of information collected from lower-level units of the organization. Until agencies develop a complete commodity IT baseline, they may not have sufficient information to identify further consolidation opportunities.

While it is important that reported data are sufficiently complete, accurate, and consistent, OMB did not require agencies to verify their data or disclose any limitations on the data provided and does not plan to collect this information as agencies provide updated information in quarterly reporting. Until OMB requires agencies to verify their data and disclose any limitations in integrated data collection quarterly reporting, it may lack information it needs to more effectively oversee agencies’ investment in commodity IT and identify Portfolio cost savings.

Key Stakeholders Generally Attended PortfolioStat Sessions

All 26 agencies held a PortfolioStat session in 2012, consistent with OMB’s requirement. In addition, the agencies noted that the agency CIO, Chief Administrative Officer, Chief Financial Officer, and COO—the key stakeholders identified in OMB memorandum 12-10—in many instances attended this session. In the instances where key stakeholders did not attend, authorized representatives of those stakeholders generally attended in their place, according to agency officials. Involvement from key stakeholders in agencies’ PortfolioStat sessions is critical to ensuring agencies are maximizing their efforts to successfully implement PortfolioStat.

Agencies’ Action Plans Did Not Always Address All Required Elements

Agencies were required by OMB to complete a final action plan that addressed eight specific elements: (1) describe plans to consolidate authority over commodity IT spending under the agency CIO; (2) establish specific targets and deadlines for commodity IT spending reductions; (3) outline plans to migrate at least two commodity IT areas to shared services by December 31, 2012; (4) target duplicative systems or contracts that support common business functions for consolidation; (5) illustrate how investments within the IT portfolio align with the agency’s mission and business functions; (6) establish criteria for identifying wasteful, “low-value,” or duplicative investments; (7) establish a process to identify these potential investments and a schedule for eliminating them from the portfolio; and (8) improve governance and program management using best practices and, where possible, benchmarks.

All 26 agencies completed an action plan as required by OMB, but the extent to which they addressed the required items varied. Specifically, 18 agencies fully addressed at least six of the eight required elements—with Commerce, Education, General Services Administration, and Social Security Administration addressing all of them—and the remaining 8 agencies fully addressed five requirements or fewer and either partially addressed or did not address others. The consolidation of commodity IT spending under the agency CIO and establishment of criteria for identifying low-value, wasteful, and duplicative investments were the elements that were addressed the least (12 and 9 agencies respectively); and the alignment of investments to the agency’s mission and improvement of governance and program management were addressed by all agencies. Table 2 shows the extent to which the 26 agencies addressed the required elements in their action plan.

Until agencies address the items that were required in the PortfolioStat action plan in future OMB reporting, they will not be in a position to fully realize the intended benefits of the PortfolioStat initiative.

Memorandum 12-10 required the 26 agencies to complete the migration of the two commodity IT areas mentioned in their action plan to shared services by December 31, 2012 (see app. II for the list of migration efforts by agency). However, 13 of the 26 agencies (the Departments of Housing and Urban Development, the Interior, Labor, State, Transportation and Veterans Affairs; the Environmental Protection Agency, General Services Administration, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Office of Personnel Management, Social Security Administration, U.S. Agency for International Development, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers) reported that they still had not completed the migration of these areas as of August 2013. These agencies reported several reasons for this, including delays in establishing contracts with vendors due to the current budget situation, and delays due to technical challenges.

While OMB has stated that this initial requirement to migrate two systems was to initiate consolidation activities at the agencies, and not necessarily an action which it was intending to track for compliance, tracking the progress of such efforts would help to ensure accountability for agencies’ results and the continued progress of PortfolioStat. OMB’s 2013 PortfolioStat memo includes a requirement for agencies to report quarterly on the status of consolidation efforts and the actual and planned cost savings and/or avoidances achieved or expected, but the guidance does not specify that agencies should report on the status of the two migration efforts initiated in 2012. Until agencies report on the progress in consolidating the two commodity IT areas to shared services and OMB requires them to report on the status of these two efforts in the integrated data collection quarterly reporting, agencies will be held less accountable for the results of all their PortfolioStat efforts.

Lessons Learned Highlight Importance of CIO Authority and Value Engineering

Memorandum 12-10 required agencies to document and catalogue successes, challenges, and lessons learned from the PortfolioStat process into a document which was to be submitted to OMB by February 1, 2013. Of the 26 agencies required to implement the PortfolioStat process, 23 agencies submitted lessons learned documentation. The 3 agencies that did not submit lessons learned in the format requested by OMB indicated that they did not submit this documentation because lessons learned had already been included in their final action plans.

Several agencies identified lessons learned related to the CIO’s authority and the use of an IT valuation model (12 and 15, respectively). More specifically, 8 agencies noted that OMB’s requirements for a plan to consolidate commodity IT spending under the agency CIO and to identify the extent to which the CIO possesses explicit agency authority to review and approve the entire agency IT portfolio had enabled their agencies to improve the management of their commodity IT and portfolio. Further, 4 agencies stated that the requirements regarding CIO authority would help them identify opportunities to achieve efficiencies and reduce duplication or migrate areas to a shared service. In addition, 1 agency encouraged OMB to continue to provide guidance and issue directives related to CIO authority and empowerment. With respect to the agencies’ use of an IT valuation model, 8 agencies generally recognized the value of using such a model; however, they identified challenges in determining the appropriate model and the need to continue to refine processes and analyze the supporting cost data. Two agencies also stated that OMB should assist in facilitating and sharing IT valuation model best practices and other benchmarks among federal agencies. More specifically, 1 agency stated that OMB should assist in the development of a federal IT valuation model, and another agency suggested that best practices regarding IT valuation models should include those from private sector institutions.

As part of the 2013 OMB memorandum on PortfolioStat, OMB generally identified the same broad themes from the lessons learned documents that agencies reported. OMB has also established a page related to the 2013 PortfolioStat implementation.

Opportunities and Estimated Cost Savings Are Underreported

In separate guidance supporting the PortfolioStat initiative, OMB asked agencies to report planned cost savings and avoidance associated with their consolidation and shared service initiatives through fiscal year 2015. While agencies included consolidation efforts for which they had cost savings numbers, six agencies also reported planned migration or consolidation efforts for which they had incomplete information on cost savings and avoidance.

According to OMB, agencies reported a total of 98 consolidation opportunities and $2.53 billion in planned cost savings and avoidance for fiscal years 2013 through 2015. However, OMB’s overall estimate of the number of opportunities and cost savings is underreported. Among other things, it does not include the Departments of Defense and Justice because these agencies did not report their plans in the template OMB was using to compile its overall estimate. While OMB acknowledged that the $2.53 billion in planned cost savings and avoidance was underreported when it issued the estimate, it did not qualify the figure quoted. Identifying any limitations or qualifications to reported figures is important in order to provide a more complete understanding of the information presented. Until OMB discloses any limitations or qualifications to the data it reports on the agency’s consolidation efforts and associated savings and avoidance, the public and other stakeholders may lack crucial information needed to understand the current status of PortfolioStat and agency progress in meeting the goals of the initiative.

Our analysis of data collected from the 26 agencies shows that they are reporting 204 opportunities and at least $5.8 billion in savings through fiscal year 2015, at least $3.3 billion more than the number initially reported by OMB. See table 3 for an overview of the number of opportunities and reported cost savings and avoidance by agency. See appendix III for a detailed list of opportunities and associated savings by agency.

Selected Departments’ Plans Identified Billions in Potential Cost Savings Using Various Processes, but Support for These Savings Is Uneven

In their portfolio improvement plans, the five agencies selected for our review—the Departments of Agriculture, Defense, the Interior, the Treasury, and Veterans Affairs—identified a total of 52 initiatives expected to achieve at least $3.7 billion in potential cost savings or avoidance through fiscal year 2015, as well as several improvements of processes for managing their IT portfolios. To identify these opportunities, the agencies used several processes and tools, including, to varying degrees, their EA and valuation model, as recommended by OMB in its PortfolioStat guidance. More consistently using the processes recommended by OMB could assist agencies in identifying further opportunities for consolidation and shared services. In addition, four agencies did not always provide support for their estimated savings or show how it linked to the estimates. Better support for the estimated savings would increase the likelihood that these savings will be achieved.

Department of Agriculture

The Department of Agriculture (Agriculture) identified two contract consolidations—the Cellular Phone Contract Consolidation and the Enterprise Contracts for Standardized Security Products and Services— as the commodity IT investments it planned to consolidate by December 2012. In addition to these two efforts, the department identified three efforts that it reported to OMB would yield cost savings or avoidance between fiscal years 2013 and 2015 (IT Infrastructure Consolidation/Enterprise Data Center Consolidation, Enterprise IT Systems: Tier 1 Helpdesk Consolidation, and Enterprise IT Systems: Geospatial Consolidation Initiative). In addition, Agriculture identified several other opportunities for which it had yet to identify associated cost savings or avoidance. According to officials from the Office of the CIO, several of the consolidation opportunities were identified prior to the PortfolioStat initiative being launched, as part of the Secretary’s initiative to streamline administrative processes. The department also identified several process improvement efforts which, while not all specific to commodity IT, would help better manage these types of investments.

Examples of the process improvement efforts include (1) recommitting to internal TechStats as a tool for evaluating all IT investments, (2) acquiring a portfolio management tool, and (3) implementing a department-wide portfolio management program that reviews major and non-major investments on a continual basis.

Agriculture officials stated that they used their EA process to identify consolidation and shared service opportunities, and that the department checks for architectural compliance throughout its governance process. For example, Agriculture’s Executive IT Investment Review Board is to ensure that the department integrates information systems investment decisions with its EA and that the department’s decisions comply with EA. In addition, Agriculture’s Information Priorities and Investment Council is responsible for reviews of architectural compliance and for using the EA as a framework for investment decision making. These officials also stated that while the department determines the value of its IT investments through evaluation, analyses, prioritization, and scoring, it does not have a formal, documented valuation model for doing so. Having such a model would enhance the department’s ability to identify additional opportunities to consolidate or eliminate low-value, duplicative, or wasteful investments.

The department also uses other processes to help manage its IT investments. For example, Agriculture has an Executive IT Investment Review Board which is to use a scoring process in ensuring the alignment of investments with strategic goals and objectives. Further, the department noted the establishment of several governance boards, and processes, such as the EA, IT acquisition approval request, and capital planning and investment control, to ensure such alignment.

Agriculture anticipates that its efforts will generate about $221 million in cost savings or avoidance for fiscal years 2012 through 2015 and provided varying degrees of support for these estimates. Specifically, for two of the four initiatives for which we requested support (Cellular Phone Contract Consolidation and the IT Infrastructure Consolidation/Enterprise Data Center Consolidation), it provided support for calculations for cost savings and avoidance estimates. However, these estimates did not match those provided to OMB for the 2012 PortfolioStat process. For the third initiative, Geospatial Consolidation, Agriculture did not provide support for the estimate reported to OMB as part of the 2012 PortfolioStat process; however, it noted that this current estimate is $58.76 million less than originally reported to OMB. For the fourth, a department official from the office of the Chief Information Officer said no savings were being anticipated. Documentation received from the department noted that this effort was not a cost savings initiative but a way to meet several programmatic needs: to streamline the work required for agencies procuring security services, to improve the quality and repeatability of the security products across the agencies, and to establish a process flow that ensured the department security were included in any delivered products. An Agriculture official noted challenges with calculating cost savings or avoidance but did not identify any plans to improve its cost estimating processes. A lack of support for its current estimates may make it difficult for Agriculture to realize these savings and for OMB and other stakeholders to accurately gauge its performance.

Department of Defense

The Department of Defense (Defense) identified its Unclassified Information Sharing Service/All Partner Network and the General Fund Enterprise Business System as the two commodity opportunities that would be consolidated by December 2012. In addition to these 2 efforts, Defense identified 24 other efforts that would be undertaken from 2012 to 2015 to consolidate commodity IT services. These consolidation efforts were mostly in the areas of Enterprise IT and IT infrastructure, though the department also identified a significant effort to move its major components to enterprise-wide business systems. In addition, Defense also identified several process improvements, including restructuring its IT governance boards, establishing a department IT Commodity Council, and optimizing IT services purchasing. Defense began its effort to consolidate and improve IT services in 2010 at the request of the Secretary, prior to the launch of PortfolioStat. The Defense CIO developed a 10-Point Plan for IT Modernization focused on consolidating infrastructure and streamlining processes in several commodity IT areas, including consolidating enterprise networks, delivering a department cloud environment, standardizing IT platforms, and taking an enterprise approach for procurement of common IT hardware and software. Each of the component CIOs, in coordination with the Defense CIO, was tasked with developing plans to achieve these efforts within their own component.

As part of this process, Defense utilized its EA and valuation model to determine the list of IT improvements because, according to officials from the Office of the CIO, these processes were incorporated into its existing requirements, acquisition, and planning, programming, budget, and execution processes. In particular, Defense has taken a federated approach for developing and managing its EA that is based on enterprise- level guidance, capability areas, and component architectures and is currently in the process of drafting a new EA program management plan for improvement effectiveness and interoperability across missions and infrastructure. In addition, according to a Defense official, the department has done extensive work related to implementing a valuation model, and its value engineering process for IT investments has been integrated into the department’s acquisition process. Defense also has a department website devoted to providing guidance on its valuation model. Using the EA and valuation model increases the likelihood that the department will identify a comprehensive list of opportunities for consolidation.

Defense’s CIO estimates that the consolidation efforts will save between $3.2 billion and $5.2 billion through fiscal year 2015, and result in efficiencies between $1.3 billion and $2.2 billion per year beginning in fiscal year 2016. Defense provided its most recent estimates for the four initiatives for which we requested support (Unclassified Information Sharing Service/All Partner Access Network, data center consolidation, enterprise software purchasing, and General Fund Enterprise Business System) but was unable to show how these estimates were calculated. For the first initiative, the issue paper showing the calculations of estimated savings was reportedly classified and we therefore decided not to obtain a copy. For the other three initiatives, an official from the Office of the CIO stated that there was not support available at the department level. Each component reportedly used its existing planning, programming, budget and execution process, and associated systems to determine a overall budget and then identified estimated cost savings or avoidance related to the commodity initiatives, which were then aggregated by the department. The official also reported that, because the department’s accounting systems do not collect information at the level of granularity required for reporting on the PortfolioStat initiative (e.g., by commodity IT type), it is difficult to show how numbers were calculated or how they changed over time. In addition, because component-level systems do not collect commodity IT data, it had generally been a challenge for the department to determine cost savings for commodity IT as OMB required. While we recognize the challenges the department faces in obtaining the support for consolidation opportunities identified by its components, obtaining it is critical to ensuring that planned savings and cost avoidance are realized. This is important considering the size of Defense’s projected savings.

Department of the Interior

The Department of the Interior (Interior) identified two commodity IT investments in its action plan and other supporting documentation— Financial and Business Management System (Deployments 7&8) and Enterprise Forms System—that it planned to consolidate by December 2012. For fiscal years 2013 to 2015, Interior identified four additional consolidation opportunities—cloud e-mail and collaboration services, enterprise eArchive system, circuit consolidation, and the Networx telecommunications contract. Interior also identified its “IT Transformation” initiative as a source of additional savings beyond 2015. This initiative is one of the management priorities which, according to officials, Interior has been focusing on to drive efficiency, reduce costs, and improve services. It is intended to streamline processes within the department, to include a single e-mail system for the department, telecommunications, hosting services, and an enterprise service desk (help desk).

Interior has also identified efforts to improve processes for managing its portfolio. Specifically, it is working to fully implement its EA and to align the IT portfolio more closely with the department’s business priorities and performance goals. In addition, in fiscal year 2010, Interior centralized authority for the agency’s IT—which had previously been delegated to its offices and bureaus—under the CIO. This consolidation gave the CIO responsibilities for improving the operating efficiencies of the organizational sub-components and Interior as a whole. Interior is also establishing several new IT Investment governance boards to make recommendations to the CIO for review and approval.

To identify its consolidation opportunities, Interior officials from the Office of the CIO stated they used their EA. Specifically, the department established an EA team and a performance-driven prioritization framework to measure its IT Transformation efforts. The EA team takes a “ruthless prioritization” approach to align the department’s priorities with the IT Transformation goals. The priorities are evaluated by IT Transformation goals and expected outcomes, and supported by successive versions of architectures, plans, and solutions. In addition to using the EA, officials from the Office of the CIO stated that the department leveraged a set of investment processes to identify wasteful, duplicative, and low-value investments, which includes the use of road maps it has developed for different functional areas. Collectively, these processes are integrated into the department’s capital planning and investment control process in order to ensure that the portfolio of IT investments delivers the desired value to the organization.

Interior officials from the Office of the CIO also reported using its IT investment valuation process which it has been maturing while also balancing changes to its IT governance process. More specifically, the department uses the Value Measuring Methodology, recommended by the federal CIO Council, to score its bureaus’ budget requests. Based on these assessments, a risk-adjusted value score is assigned to each major investment. These scores are used to identify funding levels across Interior’s IT portfolio, with risk being viewed from the standpoint of the “probability of success” for the investment. By making use of the EA and investment valuation process as recommended by OMB, Interior has enhanced its ability to identify opportunities to consolidate or eliminate duplicative, low-value, and wasteful investments.

Interior anticipates its PortfolioStat efforts will generate approximately $61.9 million in savings and cost avoidance through fiscal year 2015 and provided adequate support for these estimates. Specifically, for the Financial and Business Management System, Interior provided calculations for the savings for each year from fiscal year 2012 to fiscal year 2016. For the other three initiatives—Electronic Forms System, Networx Telecommunications, and Cloud E-mail and Collaboration Services—Interior provided estimated savings for fiscal year 2013, the first year in which savings are anticipated, which were based on the difference between the fiscal year 2012 baseline and lower costs that had been achieved through the department’s strategic sourcing initiative, and explained that these savings were expected to be realized each year after—through fiscal year 2015. Having well-supported estimates increases the likelihood that Interior will realize its planned savings and provides OMB and other stakeholders with greater visibility into the department’s performance.

Department of the Treasury

The Department of the Treasury (Treasury) identified two new shared service opportunities—the Invoice Processing Platform and the DoNotPay Business Center—as the two commodity IT investments it planned to consolidate by December 2012; Treasury also reported to OMB that these efforts would yield cost savings and avoidance for fiscal years 2013 through 2015. In addition, Treasury identified six consolidation opportunities it anticipated would generate savings between fiscal years 2012 and 2014, and two others which did not have associated cost savings. These consolidation opportunities include those classified as Business Systems, IT Infrastructure, and Enterprise IT. Treasury also described several process improvement efforts which, while not specific to commodity IT, will help better manage these types of investments. Examples of the process improvement efforts include establishing criteria for robust reviews of investments, refining the department’s valuation and risk models and incorporating these models into the business case template at Treasury’s departmental offices, and launching an IT cost model working group to refine Treasury’s IT cost model. Treasury has also proposed additional steps in its Departmental Offices’ IT governance process and investment life cycle to evaluate the alignment of investments with its strategic goals and objectives. With respect to EA, in July 2013, Treasury established a Treasury Departmental Technical Advisory Working Group. According to its charter, the working group will be responsible for, among other things, ensuring the alignment of programs and projects with Treasury’s existing technologies or EA. More specifically, all new and existing investments are expected to be reviewed and approved by the working group to ensure such compliance.

Treasury officials from the Office of the CIO stated they had not used the EA or a valuation model to identify their consolidation opportunities. In addition, Treasury has yet to develop a valuation model for assessing the value of its IT investments. According to officials, Treasury’s efforts to develop a valuation model are 30 to 40 percent complete. Further, while it has efforts underway within its Departmental Offices to develop models for assessing value, cost, and risk, Treasury has not documented its value engineering process and associated models. According to the officials, the department’s consolidation opportunities were identified through innovative ideas from the bureaus that were driven by current budget constraints. While the identification of these opportunities is not centrally managed or controlled, Treasury reported that it is currently developing a systematic process for promoting innovative ideas from its bureaus.

According to Treasury, it uses other processes to help manage IT investments, including a process for evaluating the alignment of investments with its strategic goals and objectives via its investment review boards at both the department-wide and departmental office levels. Further, Treasury has noted that investments’ alignment with the mission is considered during the annual planning cycle (for existing and new investments), and during individual investment/project reviews (for every major investment). While Treasury identified consolidation and shared service opportunities through innovative ideas from its bureaus, utilizing the EA and valuation model could assist Treasury in identifying additional opportunities for cost savings.

Treasury anticipates it will generate $56.49 million in savings from fiscal years 2012 through 2014 and provided varying degrees of support for these estimates. Specifically, for two of the three initiatives that we reviewed supporting documentation for, one initiative (DoNotPay Business Center) had supporting assumptions and calculations; however, these calculations support earlier estimates Treasury reported for this initiative, and not its more recent estimates. Treasury did not provide documentation to support the cost estimates for the two remaining efforts (Fiscal IT Data Center Consolidation and Business Process Management Status). Without support for its estimates, Treasury may be challenged in realizing planned savings, and OMB and other stakeholders will be hindered in evaluating its progress.

Department of Veterans Affairs

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) identified its VA Server Virtualization and Elimination of Dedicated Fax Servers as the two commodity IT investments it planned to consolidate by December 2012. In its PortfolioStat submission to OMB, VA identified five additional consolidation opportunities it anticipated would generate savings between fiscal years 2013 and 2015 (enterprise license agreement, standardization of spend planning and consolidation of contract, voice over internet protocol, vista data feeds, and one CPU policy). VA also described several process improvement efforts in its action plan that, while not specific to commodity IT, are intended to help better manage these types of investments. These improvement efforts include updating its EA process and establishing a Project Management Accountability System that supports project planning and management control and responsibilities for IT investments.

VA officials from the Office of the CIO stated that they did not use their EA (which the department is still maturing) or their valuation model to identify their consolidation opportunities. Instead, they stated that VA uses its Ruthless Reduction Taskforce as the main mechanism for identifying IT commodity consolidation opportunities. The task force’s function is to ensure redundant functionality is reduced or eliminated and to recommend the reallocation of funds from low-value projects to higher priorities. Through its operational analysis process, it looks for excessive expenditures to determine whether there are redundancies and therefore opportunities to consolidate into a larger contract or service.

While the task force is the main mechanism used to identify consolidation opportunities, VA officials from the Office of the CIO stated that the department uses other OMB-recommended processes to help it identify and prioritize other IT investments. For example, VA has documented processes for evaluating the alignment of investments with its strategic goals and objectives via its multiyear planning process and its senior investment review boards. Specifically, the department’s multiyear planning process provides a framework for identifying near- and long-term priorities and opportunities for divestiture, reduction, re-investments, and expansion of IT priorities and capabilities and timetables. To support this and other planning processes, VA has established several IT Investment governance boards that are intended to provide a framework for investment decision making and accountability to ensure IT initiatives meet the department’s strategic and business objectives in an effective manner. While VA has identified many opportunities to consolidate commodity IT investments and move to shared services through its Ruthless Reduction Task Force and other processes, making use of its EA and valuation model could help identify additional opportunities.

VA estimates that the consolidation opportunities it reported to OMB will generate about $196 million in savings from fiscal years 2013 through 2015. However, we could not verify the support for some of the estimates. In particular, for two of the four initiatives for which we requested support (Server Virtualization and Eliminate Dedicated Fax Servers Consolidation), VA provided support for calculations for cost savings and avoidance estimates. However, these estimates did not match those provided to OMB for the 2012 PortfolioStat process. For the third initiative, Renegotiate Microsoft Enterprise License Agreement, VA did not provide detailed support but instead provided a written explanation for an overall cost avoidance figure of $161 million that was agreed to by VA’s Deputy Chief Information Officer for Architecture, Strategy and Design and VA’s Deputy Assistant Secretary for Information Technology Management and Chief Financial Officer for the Office of Information Technology. For the fourth initiative (one CPU policy), VA stated that the initiative was no longer a stand-alone project but had been subsumed by the Field Office Mobile Workers and Telework Support Agreement and that the economic justification for this consolidation effort had not yet been completed.

Officials reported that in general the lack of a strong cost estimation process is the main challenge the department faced in estimating cost savings, even though VA’s Ruthless Reduction Task Force does have a process in place for performing cost estimates for the initiatives that the task force reviews. VA officials stated that they plan to address improving their IT cost estimation process issue with VA’s executive leadership team, but did not provide a time frame for doing so. For the near term, VA recently hired an operations research analyst to assist IT staff who lack experience with cost and savings estimation activities and plans to hire two more analysts. Without support for its estimates, VA will have less assurance that it can realize planned cost savings and avoidance, and OMB and stakeholders will be hindered in evaluating its progress.

OMB’s Plans Outline PortfolioStat Improvements but Do Not Address All Issues with Agencies’ Efforts

OMB has outlined several planned improvements to the PortfolioStat process in a memo issued in March 2013 that should help strengthen federal IT portfolio management and address key issues we have identified with agencies’ efforts to implement the initiative. In particular, OMB has changed its reporting requirements, requiring agencies to report on progress made on a quarterly basis. In addition, agencies will also be held accountable for their portfolio management as part of annual PortfolioStat sessions. However, selective OMB efforts could be strengthened to improve the PortfolioStat process and ensure agencies achieve identified cost savings, including addressing issues related to existing CIO authority at federal agencies, and publically reporting on agency-provided data.

OMB’s plans identify a number of improvements that should help strengthen IT portfolio management and address key issues we have identified: Agency reporting on PortfolioStat progress: OMB’s memorandum has consolidated previously collected IT plans, reports, and data calls into three primary collection channels—an information resources management strategic plan, an enterprise road map, and an integrated data collection channel. As part of this reporting requirement, agencies will be required to provide updates on their progress in meeting key OMB requirements related to portfolio management best practices, which address issues identified in this report.

Agencies must describe how their investment review boards coordinate between investment decisions, portfolio management, EA, procurement, and software development methodologies to ensure that IT solutions meet business requirements, as well as identify areas of waste and duplication wherever consolidation is possible.

Agencies are to describe the valuation methodology used in their governance process to comparatively evaluate investments, including what criteria and areas are assessed, to ensure greater consistency and rigor in the process of selecting, controlling, and evaluating investments an agency decides to fund, de-fund, or terminate.

Agencies must report their actual and planned cost savings and avoidances, as well as other metrics, achieved or expected through the implementation of efforts such as agency migration to shared services and cloud solutions, the consolidation of commodity IT, and savings achieved through data center consolidation. In addition, agencies are to describe their plans to re-invest savings resulting from consolidations of commodity IT resources (including data centers).

In addition, agencies will now be required to report the status of their progress in implementing PortfolioStat on a quarterly basis. Agency integrated data collections were first required to be submitted in May 2013 and will be updated quarterly beginning in August 2013, with subsequent updates on the last day of November, and February of each fiscal year. Requiring agencies to provide consolidated reports on their progress in meeting key initiatives should help OMB to better manage these initiatives.

Holding agencies accountable for portfolio management in PortfolioStat sessions: Moving forward, the PortfolioStat sessions held with agency stakeholders and OMB officials are intended to involve discussions of agency efforts related to several ongoing initiatives and their plans to implement key OMB guidance, such as guidance on CIO authorities, in order to help agencies mature their management of IT resources. Specifically, OMB plans to use the documentation and data submitted by the agencies in May 2013 to determine the state of each agency’s IT portfolio management, such as the use of an EA and valuation methodology, and develop areas OMB identifies as the most appropriate opportunities for agencies to innovate, optimize, and protect systems and data. Based on the session, OMB and the agency are expected to identify and agree on actionable next steps and specific time frames for the actions to be taken, which OMB intends to formalize and transmit in a memorandum to the agency within 2 weeks of the completed session, and no later than August 31, 2013. Upon receipt of the action item memorandum, agency PortfolioStat leads are to work with OMB to establish follow-up discussions as appropriate to track progress against action items identified. Deviation from the committed schedule will trigger a requirement for follow-up briefings by the agency to the Federal CIO no less frequently than quarterly, until corrective actions have been implemented or the action item is back on schedule.

OMB’s efforts to follow up with agencies on a regular basis are critical to ensuring the success of these efforts. We have previously reported that OMB-led TechStat sessions have enabled the government to improve or terminate IT investments that are experiencing performance problems by focusing management attention on troubled projects and establishing clear action items to turn the projects around or terminate them. By having similar sessions focusing on agency IT portfolios, OMB can hold agencies accountable for their ongoing initiatives to consolidate or eliminate duplicative investments and achieve significant cost savings.

Improving analytical capabilities: OMB expects to collect information from agencies as part of PortfolioStat and use a variety of analytical resources to evaluate the data provided, track agency progress each quarter, and determine whether there are any areas for improvement to the process. In addition, OMB plans to provide this information to Congress as part of the quarterly report it is required to submit to the Senate and House Appropriations Committees on savings achieved by OMB’s government-wide IT reform efforts. Analyzing and reporting data on agencies’ efforts to implement the PortfolioStat initiative will help OMB to provide more oversight of these efforts and hold agencies accountable for information reported in the quarterly reports.

Although OMB’s planned improvements should help strengthen the PortfolioStat initiative going forward, they do not address some of the shortcomings with efforts to implement the initiative identified in this report: Addressing issues with CIO authority: While OMB’s memorandum has indicated that agencies must now report on how their policies, procedures, and CIO authorities are consistent with OMB Memorandum 11-29, “Chief Information Officer Authorities,” as noted earlier, OMB’s prior guidance and reporting requirements have not been sufficient to address the implementation of CIO authority at all agencies. In addition, OMB’s 2013 PortfolioStat guidance does not establish deadlines or metrics for agencies to demonstrate the extent to which CIOs are exercising the authorities and responsibilities provided by the Clinger- Cohen Act and OMB guidance, which, as we have previously recommended, are needed to ensure accountability for acting on this issue, nor does it require them to disclose any limitations CIOs might have in their ability to exercise their authority. Until CIOs are able to exercise their full authority, they will be limited in their ability to implement PortfolioStat and other initiatives to improve IT management.

Reporting on action plan items that were not addressed: In OMB’s 2013 memorandum, agencies are no longer required to submit separate commodity IT consolidation plans as in 2012 but are to identify the progress made in implementing portfolio improvements as part of the broader agency reporting requirement mentioned above. While OMB’s shift to requiring agencies to report on progress now is reasonable given the goals of PortfolioStat, it was based on the assumption that agencies would develop robust action plans as a foundation last year. However, as noted earlier, the submitted agency final action plans were incomplete in that they did not always address all the required elements. Going forward, it will be important for agencies to address the plan items required. In addition, until OMB requires agencies to report on the status of these items, it may not have assurance that these agencies’ plans for making portfolio improvements fully realize the benefits of the PortfolioStat initiative.

Ensuring agencies’ commodity IT baselines are complete, and reporting on the status of 2012 migration efforts: OMB’s 2013 guidance does not require agencies to document how they verified their commodity IT baseline data or disclose any limitations of these data or to report on the completion of their two 2012 migration efforts. Without such requirements, it will be more difficult for OMB to hold agencies accountable for identifying and achieving potential cost savings.

Publically reporting agency PortfolioStat data: Finally, we have previously reported that the public display of agencies’ data allows OMB, other oversight bodies, and the general public to hold the agencies accountable for results and progress. While OMB officials have stated that they intend to make agency-reported data and the best practices identified for the PortfolioStat effort publicly available, they have not yet decided specifically which information they will report. Until OMB publicly reports data agencies submit on their commodity IT consolidation efforts, including planned and actual cost savings, it will be more difficult for stakeholders, including Congress and the public, to monitor agencies’ progress and hold them accountable for reducing duplication and achieving cost savings.

Conclusions

OMB’s PortfolioStat initiative offers opportunities to save billions of dollars and improve the way in which agencies manage their portfolios. While agencies implemented key PortfolioStat requirements, including establishing a commodity IT baseline and documenting a final action plan to consolidate commodity IT, shortcomings in their implementation of these requirements could undermine the savings the PortfolioStat effort is expected to achieve. First, reported limitations in CIOs exercising authority over the IT portfolios at six of the agencies suggests that more needs to be done to empower CIOs to improve management and oversight of agency IT resources. Second, not including all IT investments in their EA or developing complete commodity IT baselines limits agencies’ ability to identify further opportunities for reducing wasteful, duplicative, or low-value investments. Third, not addressing key elements in action plans for implementing the PortfolioStat initiative increases the likelihood that agencies will not achieve all the intended benefits. Finally, following through on commitments to migrate or consolidate investments is critical to ensuring accountability for results. Regarding estimated savings and cost avoidance, the significant understatement—by at least $2.8 billion—of OMB’s reported figures highlights the importance of ensuring the accuracy of data and disclosing any limitations or qualifications on reported savings.

The identification by five agencies—the Departments of Agriculture, Defense, the Interior, the Treasury, and Veterans Affairs—of 52 initiatives and more than $3.7 billion in potential cost savings or avoidance through fiscal year 2015 demonstrates the significant potential of portfolio improvements to yield ongoing benefits. Making greater use of their EA and valuation model to identify consolidation opportunities, as recommended by OMB, could assist agencies in identifying additional opportunities. In addition, better support for the estimates of cost savings associated with the opportunities identified would increase the likelihood that these savings will be achieved.

OMB’s planned improvements to the PortfolioStat process outlined in its March 2013 guidance—such as streamlining agency reporting on progress in implementing the process and holding agencies accountable for these efforts in PortfolioStat sessions—should help the office provide better oversight and management of government-wide efforts to consolidate commodity IT. However, OMB’s plans do not address key issues identified in this report, which could strengthen the PortfolioStat process. In particular, addressing issues of CIO authority by working directly with agency leadership to establish time lines and metrics for implementing existing guidance, requiring agencies to report on the reliability of their commodity baseline data and the progress of all their consolidation efforts, and making data on agencies’ progress in consolidating commodity IT and achieving cost savings publicly available will be essential to PortfolioStat’s success in reducing duplication and maximizing the return on investment in federal IT.

Recommendations for Executive Action

To help ensure the success of PortfolioStat, we are making six recommendations to OMB. We recommend that the Director of the Office of Management and Budget and the Federal Chief Information Officer require agencies to fully disclose limitations their CIOs might have in exercising the authorities and responsibilities provided by law and OMB’s guidance. Particular attention should be paid to the Departments of Health and Human Services, and State; the National Aeronautics and Space Administration; the Office of Personnel Management; and the U.S. Agency for International Development, which reported specific limitations with the CIO’s authority.

In addition, we recommend that the Director of the Office of Management and Budget direct the Federal Chief Information Officer to require that agencies (1) state what actions have been taken to ensure the completeness of their commodity IT baseline information and (2) identify any limitation with this information as part of integrated data collection quarterly reporting; require agencies to report on the progress of their two consolidation efforts that were to be completed by December 2012 as part of the integrated data collection quarterly reporting; disclose the limitations of any data reported (or disclose the parameters and assumptions of these data) on the agencies’ consolidation efforts and associated savings and cost avoidance; require that agencies report on efforts to address action plan items as part of future PortfolioStat reporting; and Improve transparency of and accountability for PortfolioStat by publicly disclosing planned and actual data consolidation efforts and related cost savings by agency.

We are also making 58 recommendations to 24 of the 26 departments and agencies in our review to improve their implementation of PortfolioStat requirements. Appendix IV contains these recommendations.

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation

We provided a draft of this report to OMB and the 26 executive agencies in our review for comment and received responses from all 27. Of the 27, 12 agreed with our recommendations directed to them, 5 disagreed or partially disagreed with our recommendations directed to them, 4 provided additional clarifying information, and 6 (the Departments of Education, Labor, Transportation, and Treasury; the Small Business Administration; and the U.S. Agency for International Development) stated that they had no comments. Several agencies also provided technical comments, which we incorporated as appropriate. The agencies’ comments and our responses are summarized below.

In e-mail comments from the Federal Chief Information Officer, OMB generally agreed with three of our recommendations and disagreed with three. Specifically, OMB agreed with the recommendation to require agencies to disclose limitations their CIOs might have in exercising the authorities and responsibilities provided by law and OMB guidance but stated that it had already addressed this issue as part of its fiscal year 2013 PortfolioStat process. Specifically, according to OMB, its fiscal year 2013 PortfolioStat guidance required agencies to describe how their policies, procedures, and authorities implement CIO authorities, consistent with OMB Memorandum 11-29, as part of either the information resources management plan or enterprise roadmap they were instructed to submit. OMB stated that it reviewed and analyzed agencies’ responses and discussed limitations to CIOs’ authorities directly with agencies during the PortfolioStat sessions in cases where it determined that such limitations existed. However, OMB did not provide documentation supporting its reviews or discussions with agencies. In addition, as we note in our report, requiring agencies to fully disclose limitations their CIOs may have in exercising the authorities and responsibilities provided by law and OMB guidance should provide OMB information crucial to understanding and addressing the factors that could prevent agencies from successfully implementing the PortfolioStat initiative. For these reasons, we are maintaining our recommendation.

OMB stated that it agreed with our recommendation to require that agencies (1) state what actions have been taken to ensure the completeness of their commodity IT baseline information and (2) identify any limitations with this information as part of the integrated data collection quarterly reporting. It acknowledged the value in ensuring the completeness and in understanding the limitations of agency-produced artifacts and stated it would continue to dedicate resources to validating agency savings associated with federal IT reform efforts prior to presenting these savings to Congress. OMB also stated that it would modify its analytical process to cite these limitations when producing PortfolioStat reports in the future.

OMB generally agreed with the recommendation to require agencies to report on the progress of the two consolidation efforts they were to complete by December 2012 and stated that, to the extent feasible, it would dedicate resources to analyzing this information.

OMB disagreed with our recommendation to disclose the limitations of any data reported on the agencies’ consolidation efforts and associated cost savings and avoidance, stating that it had disclosed limitations on data reported and citing three instances of these efforts. While we acknowledge that OMB reported limitations of data regarding consolidation efforts in these cases, the information reported did not provide stakeholders and the public with a complete understanding of the information presented. For example, OMB did not disclose that information from the departments of Defense and Justice was not included in the consolidation estimates reported, which, considering the scope of Defense’s efforts in this area (at least $3.2 billion), is a major gap. As noted in our report, OMB’s disclosure of limitations of or qualifications to the data it reports would provide the public and other stakeholders with crucial information needed to understand the status of PortfolioStat and agency progress in meeting the goals of the initiative. Therefore, we stand by our recommendation.

OMB also disagreed with our recommendation to require agencies to report on efforts to address action plan elements as part of future OMB reporting, stating that it had found that 24 of 26 agencies had completed their plans. OMB further stated that it continuously follows up on the consolidation efforts identified in the plans and, where savings have been identified, reports this progress to Congress on a quarterly basis. However, our review of the 26 agency action plans found 26 instances where a required element (e.g., consolidation of commodity IT spending under the CIO) was not addressed and 26 instances where a required element was only partially addressed--an assessment with which agencies agreed. As noted in our report, addressing all the required elements would better position agencies to fully realize the intended benefits of the PortfolioStat initiative, and they should therefore be held accountable for reporting on them as required in OMB memo M-12-10. Accordingly, we stand by our recommendation.

Finally, OMB disagreed with our recommendation to improve transparency and accountability for PortfolioStat by disclosing consolidation efforts and related cost savings by agency. Specifically, OMB stated that this recommendation does not adequately account for the work it currently performs to ensure accountability for and transparency of the process through its quarterly reporting of identified savings to Congress. It further stated that some details are deliberative or procurement sensitive and it would therefore not be appropriate to disclose them. However, while OMB currently reports realized savings by agency on a quarterly basis, these savings are not measured against planned savings. Doing this would greatly enhance Congress’s insight into agencies’ progress and hold them accountable for reducing duplication and achieving planned cost savings and would not require reporting deliberative or procurement-sensitive information. Therefore, we stand by our recommendation.

In written comments, the U.S. Department of Agriculture concurred with the content of our report. The department’s comments are reprinted in appendix V.

In written comments, the Department of Commerce concurred with our recommendations but disagreed with our statement that the CIO only has explicit authority over major IT investments. Commerce cited a June 21, 2012, departmental memo on IT portfolio management that it believes provides the CIO with explicit authority to review any IT investment, whether major or non-major. Our statement regarding the limitations on the CIO’s authority was based on information reported by the department to OMB in May 2012 and confirmed with officials from the Commerce Office of the CIO during the course of our review. However, we agree that the June 2012 memo provides the CIO with explicit authority to review all IT investments. Accordingly, we have removed the original statement noting limitations from the report and also removed Commerce from the list of departments OMB should require to disclose CIO limitations. The Department of Commerce’s comments are reprinted in appendix VI.

In its written response, the Department of Defense provided comments for both the department and the Army Corps of Engineers. It concurred with one of the three recommendations made to Defense, partially concurred with another and disagreed with the third. Specifically, the department concurred with our recommendation to obtain support from the relevant component agencies for the estimated savings for fiscal years 2013 to 2015 for the data center consolidation, enterprise software purchasing, and General Fund Enterprise Business System initiatives. It partially concurred with our recommendation to develop a complete commodity baseline, stating that the department has efforts under way to further refine the baseline. Since these efforts have not yet been completed, we are maintaining our recommendation. The department did not concur with our recommendation to fully describe the consolidation of commodity IT spending under the CIO in future OMB reporting. The department stated that it did not intend to follow OMB’s guidance to consolidate commodity IT spending under the CIO because this approach would not work within the department’s federated management process. However, our recommendation was not to implement OMB’s guidance, but rather to address the element in the plan as required by either describing the steps it will take to implement it or explaining why it will not or cannot implement it. DOD did neither of these and instead was silent on the subject. We therefore stand by our recommendation. The department concurred with both of the recommendations we made to the Army Corps of Engineers. The department’s comments are reprinted in appendix VII.

In written comments, the Department of Energy concurred with our recommendation to fully describe PortfolioStat action plan elements in future OMB reporting and stated that the department was committed to increasing the CIO’s oversight and authority for federal commodity IT investments. The department also noted that our statement that the “department has no direct authority over IT investments in two semi- autonomous agencies (the National Nuclear Security Administration and the Energy Information Administration)” should be clarified to say that it is the department CIO who does not have this authority. We found support for this clarification in documentation we had already received and therefore made it as requested. The department’s comments are reprinted in appendix VIII.

In written comments, the Environmental Protection Agency generally agreed with two of the three recommendations we made and generally disagreed with the third. Specifically, the Environmental Protection Agency generally agreed with our recommendations to (1) fully describe three PortfolioStat action plan elements and (2) report on the agency’s progress in consolidating the managed print services and strategic sourcing of end user computing to shared services as part of the OMB integrated data collection quarterly reporting until completed. The agency disagreed with our recommendation to develop a complete commodity IT baseline, stating that it had provided a complete baseline to OMB on August 31, 2012, and had also reported to us during our review that the information was current and complete at the time of submission. During our review, we found that the Environmental Protection Agency did not have a process in place to ensure the completeness of the information in the baseline. Without appropriate controls and processes in place to confirm this, the Environmental Protection Agency cannot be assured that its data are complete. We therefore stand by our recommendation. The Environmental Protection Agency’s comments are reprinted in appendix IX.

In written comments, the General Services Administration agreed with our findings and recommendations and stated it would take action as appropriate. The agency’s comments are reprinted in appendix X.

In written comments, the Department of Homeland Security disagreed with our recommendation to fully describe its efforts related to consolidating commodity IT spending under the CIO in future OMB reporting, stating that the department had already addressed this recommendation. Specifically, the department stated that it had included updated information on this topic in its fiscal year 2013 Information Resources Management Plan that was submitted to OMB in May 2013. We reviewed the Information Resources Management Plan and agree that it addresses our recommendation. We therefore removed the recommendation from the report. The department’s comments are reprinted in appendix XI.

In written comments, the Department of Housing and Urban Development concurred with our recommendations and stated it would provide more definitive information with timelines once the final report had been issued. The department’s comments are reprinted in appendix XII.

In e-mail comments, the Department of the Interior’s GAO Audit Liaison stated that the department generally concurred with our findings and recommendations. However, the department recommended revising the criteria we used to assess whether agencies met the requirement to develop a commodity IT baseline (depicted in table 1) to reflect whether or not an agency had developed a baseline instead of whether that baseline was complete. The department stated that a validation was not being performed on how all agencies responded to the question and agencies that answered truthfully were being penalized for responding honestly. We recognize that agencies were not required to report on the completeness of the commodity IT baseline information they submitted to OMB; for this reason, we have recommended that OMB require agencies to state what actions have been taken to ensure the completeness of their commodity IT baseline information and identify any limitations with this information as part of the integrated data collection quarterly reporting.

In e-mail comments, an official from the Department of Justice’s Audit Liaison Group stated that all references to the department were factually correct.

In written comments, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration concurred with our recommendations and noted the agency will take actions to address them. The agency’s comments are reprinted in appendix XIII.

In written comments, the National Archives and Records Administration concurred with our recommendation and stated that it would include updated or new descriptions of the elements of the PortfolioStat action plan in future OMB reporting. The agency’s comments are reprinted in appendix XIV.

In written comments, the National Science Foundation stated that it generally agreed with our characterization of the agency’s PortfolioStat status and would update its PortfolioStat action plan as appropriate to more fully describe the two elements that we noted were not fully addressed. Regarding our recommendation to complete the consolidation of e-mail services to shared services, the agency stated that this effort was completed in August 2013. After reviewing additional documentation provided, we agree that the agency has met the requirement. We modified the report as appropriate, and removed the recommendation. The National Science Foundation’s comments are reprinted in appendix XV.

In e-mail comments, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s GAO Audit Liaison stated that the agency was generally in agreement with our report.

In written comments, the Office of Personnel Management concurred with our recommendations and noted that the agency will provide updated information on efforts to address them to OMB on November 30, 2013. The agency’s comments are reprinted in appendix XVI.

In written comments, the Social Security Administration agreed with one recommendation and disagreed with the other. The agency disagreed with our recommendation to develop a complete commodity IT baseline, stating that it believed its commodity baseline data to be complete and accurate. However, our review found that the Social Security Administration did not have a process in place to ensure the completeness of the information in the baseline. Without appropriate controls and processes in place to confirm the completeness of data, the Social Security Administration cannot be assured that its data are complete. The agency also acknowledged that it needed to document a process for demonstrating the completeness of its baseline data. Consequently, we stand by our recommendation. The Social Security Administration’s comments are reprinted in appendix XVII.

In written comments, the Department of State stated that it concurred with our report and would develop specific responses to each of the three recommendations we made once the report is published. However, related to our recommendation to complete the consolidation of the Foreign Affairs Network and content publishing and delivery services, the department stated that it has already consolidated more than two commodity IT areas per OMB Memorandum M-11-29. While we acknowledge that it has made efforts in this area, during our review the department changed what it considered the two commodity areas to be consolidated by December 2012 several times before stating that the two efforts were the Foreign Affairs Network and content publishing and delivery services. Based on this determination, we assessed the status of these two efforts and confirmed that neither had been completed as of August 2013. In addition, the department did not provide any documentation to support that it had consolidated more than two commodity IT areas. We therefore stand by our recommendation. The Department of State’s comments are reprinted in appendix XVIII.

In written comments, the Department of Veterans Affairs concurred with our four recommendations, stating the department is taking steps to manage its investment portfolio more effectively and has developed an action plan to address each recommendation. The department’s comments are reprinted in appendix XIX.

We are sending copies of this report to interested congressional committees, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, the secretaries and agency heads of the departments and agencies addressed in this report, and other interested parties. In addition, the report will be available at no charge on GAO’s website at http://www.gao.gov.

If you or your staffs have any questions on the matters discussed in this report, please contact me at (202) 512-9286 or pownerd@gao.gov. Contact points for our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last page of this report. GAO staff who made major contributions to this report are listed in appendix XX.

Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and Methodology

Our objectives were to (1) determine the status of efforts to implement key required PortfolioStat actions, (2) evaluate selected agencies’ plans for making portfolio improvements and achieving associated cost savings, and (3) evaluate Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) plans to improve the PortfolioStat process.

To determine the status of agency efforts to implement key PortfolioStat actions, we obtained and analyzed policies, action plans, PortfolioStat briefing slides, status reports, agency communications to OMB, and other documentation relative to the key requirements of the Portfolio initiative outlined in OMB’s 2012 memorandum from each of the 26 federal agencies in our review. These requirements included (1) designating a lead for the initiative; (2) completing a high-level IT portfolio survey; (3) establishing a commodity IT baseline; (4) holding a PortfolioStat session; (5) submitting a final plan to consolidate commodity IT; (6) migrating at least two duplicative commodity IT services by December 31, 2012; (7) and documenting lessons learned. For the final plan to consolidate commodity IT, we reviewed agency plans to determine whether each element required in the plan was fully addressed. A “partially” rating was given if the plan addressed a portion but not all of the information required in the element. In addition, we obtained a briefing book which OMB provided to the agencies that, among other things, summarized the agencies’ commodity IT baseline data. We assessed the reliability of OMB’s reporting of these data through interviews with OMB officials regarding their processes for compiling the briefing books and used the briefing books to describe the federal investment in commodity IT at the time of the 2012 PortfolioStat. We also assessed the reliability of agencies’ commodity IT baseline data by reviewing the processes agencies described they had in place to ensure that all investments were captured in the baseline. We identified issues with the reliability of the agencies’ commodity IT baseline data and have highlighted these issues throughout this report, as appropriate.

For objective two, we selected five agencies with (1) high fiscal year IT expenditure levels (based on information reported on the OMB’s IT dashboard); (2) a mix of varying IT and CIO organizational structures (centralized vs. decentralized); and (3) a range of investment management maturity levels based on knowledge gathered from prior work and reported results of PortfolioStat sessions. In addition, to the extent possible, we avoided selecting projects that were the subject of another engagement underway. The agencies selected are the Departments of Agriculture, Defense, the Interior, the Treasury, and Veterans Affairs. To evaluate the selected agencies’ plans for making portfolio improvements and achieving associated cost savings, we obtained and analyzed agencies’ action plans to consolidate commodity IT, and other relevant documentation, and interviewed relevant agency officials to compile a list of planned portfolio improvements and determine the processes agencies used to identify these portfolio improvements. We determined the extent to which these processes included using (1) the agency enterprise architecture and (2) a valuation model, which OMB recommended in its guidance to assist in analyzing portfolio information and developing action plans. In addition, we assessed the reliability of the cost savings and avoidance estimates by obtaining and analyzing the support for the estimates for the two efforts that were to be migrated by December 2012 and the two efforts with the highest anticipated savings between fiscal years 2013 and 2015. Based on the results of our analysis, we found the data to be sufficiently reliable given the way they are reported herein.

To evaluate OMB’s plans for making PortfolioStat improvements, we reviewed PortfolioStat guidance for fiscal year 2013 and interviewed OMB officials to compile a list of planned improvements. In addition, we analyzed the information obtained from our sources and the results of our analyses for our first two objectives to determine whether OMB’s plans for improving PortfolioStat addressed the issues we identified.

We conducted this performance audit from October 2012 to November 2013 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives.

Appendix II: Agencies’ Commodity IT Migration Efforts

The table below lists the commodity IT efforts for migration to shared services agencies identified in their action plan.

Moving website and census data to shared service provider Moving e-mail to shared services Electronic Capital Planning and Investment Control (eCPIC) Portfolio Management tool (FESCOM Program Participant)

Electronic Capital Planning and Investment Control (eCPIC)

Appendix III: Agencies’ Portfolio Initiatives

The table below lists the commodity IT initiatives that agencies identified in the cost target templates provided to OMB in September 2012.

Total estimated savings or cost avoidance Dollars in millions (rounded)

Geo Spatial Consolidation Total reported savings and cost avoidance Commerce Desktop/Laptop Management Several Data Center Consolidation Activities Reduce total number of computers, use Commerce PC purchase contract to get discount.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration National Service Desk Enterprise-Wide IT Security Assessment and Authorization National Institute of Standards and Technology Cloud Initiatives Voice over Internet Protocol Total reported savings and cost avoidance Defense Branch Services Consolidation of Commodity IT Components and Applications n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d.

Multi-level Security Domain Thin Client Solutions n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d.

Consolidation Procurement of Commodity IT Hardware Purchases n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d.

Unclassified Information Sharing Service / All Partner Access Network n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d.

Implement Cross Domain Solution as Enterprise Service n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d.

Fiscal year 2013 estimated savings or cost avoidance n.d.

Fiscal year 2014 estimated savings or cost avoidance n.d.

Fiscal year 2015 estimated savings or cost avoidance n.d.

Total estimated savings or cost avoidance n.d.

Video Over Internet Protocol Enterprise Service n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d.

Defense Red Switch Network Rationalization n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d.

Computing Infrastructure and Services Optimization n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d.

Enterprise Messaging and Collaboration Services n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d.

Identify and Access Management Services n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d.

Enterprises Services – Identify and Access Management n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d.

Defense Interoperability with Mission Partners n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d.

General Fund Enterprise Business System n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d.

Total reported savings and cost avoidance

Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Websites

Initiative Office of the Chief Financial Officer Grants Information Award Database Internet Site Education Web Total reported savings and cost avoidance Energy Commodity IT Contract Consolidation Enhanced Connectivity for Telework and Travel Public Key Infrastructure Migration to Shared Service Provider Collaboration Tools Consolidation (Microsoft SharePoint)

Migration on-premise Exchange Services into Cloud 365 offering Rocky Mountain Oilfield Testing Center - Commodity IT Full Time Equivalent Reduction eCPIC Migration to General Services Administration Cloud Environment Implement CISCO Unified Communication & Collaboration ITSM Replacement of Office of the Chief Information Officer Remedy systems with ServiceNow Total reported savings and cost avoidance Environmental Protection Agency Email (Software as a Service)

Collaboration Tools (Software as a Service)

Identity Credentials and Access Management (.16)

Total reported savings and cost avoidance

Initiative Enterprise eArchive System part of eMail Enterprise Records and Document Management System Financial and Business Management System deployment 7&8 Enterprise Forms System Total reported savings and cost avoidance Justice Consolidation of Classified Processing Services n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d.

Web Time and Attendance Cloud Solution n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d.

Justice Management Division Mobility-Virtual Private Network n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d.

Consolidation of Justice Land Mobile Radio Systems n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d.

Monitoring at two security operations centers n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d.

Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Unified Communications n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d.

Strategic sourcing (contract escalations) n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d.

Network Delivery Order for CISCO services Total reported savings and cost avoidance Labor DOLNet Network Infrastructure consolidation n.d. n.d. n.d.

Learning Management System aka Integrated Talent Management System = LMS (Learning Management System) + PM (Performance Management) $265k WFA aka Workforce Analytics or Workforce Planning $535k eCPIC Portfolio Management Tool (FESCOM Program Participant)

Telecommunications and Computer Operations Center Total reported savings and cost avoidance U.S. Army Corps of Engineers eCPIC Total reported savings and cost avoidance Veterans Affairs Server Virtualization Eliminate Dedicated Fax Servers Consolidation Standardize Spend Planning and Consolidation Contracts Total reported savings and cost avoidance Total reported savings and cost avoidance (all agencies) n.d.—no data.

Numbers may not add up due to rounding.

Appendix IV: Recommendations to Departments and Agencies

Agriculture

To improve the department’s implementation of PortfolioStat, we recommend that the Secretary of Agriculture direct the CIO to take the following four actions:

Develop a complete commodity IT baseline.

In future reporting to OMB, fully describe the following PortfolioStat Action plan elements: (1) consolidate commodity IT spending under the agency CIO and (2) establish criteria for wasteful, low-value, or duplicative investments.

As the department finalizes and matures its valuation methodology, utilize this process to identify whether there are additional opportunities to reduce duplicative, low-value, or wasteful investments.

Develop support for the estimated savings for fiscal years 2013 through 2015 for the Cellular Phone Contract Consolidation, IT Infrastructure Consolidation/Enterprise Data Center Consolidation, and Geospatial Consolidation initiatives.

Commerce

To improve the department’s implementation of PortfolioStat, we recommend that the Secretary of Commerce direct the CIO to take the following two actions:

Reflect 100 percent of information technology investments in the department’s enterprise architecture.

Develop a complete commodity IT baseline.

Defense

To improve the department’s implementation of PortfolioStat, we recommend that the Secretary of Defense direct the CIO to take the following three actions:

Develop a complete commodity IT baseline.

In future reporting to OMB, fully describe the following PortfolioStat action plan element: consolidate commodity IT spending under the agency CIO.

Obtain support from the relevant component agencies for the estimated savings for fiscal years 2013 to 2015 for the data center consolidation, enterprise software purchasing, and General Fund Enterprise Business System initiatives.

In addition, to improve the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ implementation of PortfolioStat, we recommend that the Secretary of Defense direct the Secretary of the Army to take the following two actions: In future reporting to OMB, fully describe the following PortfolioStat action plan elements: (1) consolidate commodity IT spending under the agency CIO; (2) target duplicative systems or contracts that support common business functions for consolidation; (3) establish criteria for identifying wasteful, low-value, or duplicative investments; and (4) establish a process to identify these potential investments and a schedule for eliminating them from the portfolio..

Report on the agency’s progress in consolidating eCPIC to a shared service as part of the OMB integrated data collection quarterly reporting until completed.

Energy

To improve the department’s implementation of PortfolioStat, we recommend that the Secretary of Energy direct the CIO to take the following action: In future reporting to OMB, fully describe the following PortfolioStat action plan elements: (1) consolidate commodity IT spending under the agency CIO and (2) establish criteria for identifying wasteful, low- value, or duplicative investments.

Environmental Protection Agency

To improve the agency’s implementation of PortfolioStat, we recommend that the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency direct the CIO to take the following three actions:

Develop a complete commodity IT baseline.

In future reporting to OMB, fully describe the following PortfolioStat action plan elements: (1) consolidate commodity IT spending under the agency CIO; (2) establish targets for commodity IT spending reductions and deadlines for meeting those targets; and (3) establish criteria for identifying wasteful, low-value, or duplicative investments.

Report on the agency’s progress in consolidating the managed print services and strategic sourcing of end user computing to shared services as part of the OMB integrated data collection quarterly reporting until completed.

General Services Administration

To improve the agency’s implementation of PortfolioStat, we recommend that the Administrator of the General Services Administration direct the CIO to take the following action:

Report on the agency’s progress in consolidating the contract writing module to a shared service as part of the OMB integrated data collection quarterly reporting until completed.

Health and Human Services

To improve the department’s implementation of PortfolioStat, we recommend that the Secretary of Health and Human Services direct the CIO to take the following action: In future OMB reporting, fully describe the following PortfolioStat action plan element: consolidate commodity IT spending under the agency CIO.

Housing and Urban Development

To improve the department’s implementation of PortfolioStat, we recommend that the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development direct the CIO to take the following three actions:

Develop a complete commodity IT baseline.

In future reporting to OMB, fully describe the following PortfolioStat action plan element: establish criteria for identifying wasteful, low- value, or duplicative investments.

Report on the department’s progress in consolidating the HR End-to- End Performance Management Module to a shared service as part of the OMB integrated data collection quarterly reporting until completed.

Interior

To improve the department’s implementation of PortfolioStat, we recommend that the Secretary of the Interior direct the CIO to take the following three actions:

Develop a complete commodity IT baseline.

In future reporting to OMB, fully describe the following PortfolioStat action plan element: establish criteria for identifying wasteful, low- value, or duplicative investments.

Report on the department’s progress in consolidating the Electronic Forms System component of the eMail Enterprise Records & Document Management System deployment 8 to a shared service as part of the OMB integrated data collection quarterly reporting until completed.

Justice

To improve the department’s implementation of PortfolioStat, we recommend that the Attorney General direct the CIO to take the following two actions:

Reflect 100 percent of information technology investments in the department’s enterprise architecture.

In future reporting to OMB, fully describe the following PortfolioStat action plan element: establish targets for commodity IT spending reductions and deadlines for meeting those targets.

Labor

To improve the department’s implementation of PortfolioStat, we recommend that the Secretary of Labor direct the CIO to take the following three actions:

Develop a complete commodity IT baseline.

In future reporting to OMB, fully describe the following PortfolioStat action plan elements: (1) consolidate commodity IT spending under the agency CIO and (2) establish targets for commodity IT spending reductions and deadlines for meeting those targets.

Report on the department’s progress in consolidating the cloud e-mail services to a shared service as part of the OMB integrated data collection quarterly reporting until completed.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

To improve the agency’s implementation of PortfolioStat, we recommend that the Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration direct the CIO to take the following three actions:

Reflect 100 percent of information technology investments in the agency’s enterprise architecture.

In future reporting to OMB, fully describe the following PortfolioStat action plan elements: (1) consolidate commodity IT spending under the agency CIO; (2) target duplicative systems or contracts that support common business functions for consolidation; (3) establish criteria for identifying wasteful, low-value, or duplicative investments; and (4) establish a process to identify these potential investments and a schedule for eliminating them from the portfolio.

Report on the agency’s progress in consolidating the NASA Integrated Communications Services Consolidated Configuration Management System to a shared service as part of the OMB integrated data collection quarterly reporting until completed.

National Archives and Records Administration

To improve the agency’s implementation of PortfolioStat, we recommend that the Archivist of the United States direct the CIO to take the following action: In future reporting to OMB, fully describe the following PortfolioStat action plan elements: (1) consolidate commodity IT spending under the agency CIO; (2) target duplicative systems or contracts that support common business functions for consolidation; (3) establish criteria for identifying wasteful, low-value, or duplicative investments; and (4) establish a process to identify these potential investments and a schedule for eliminating them from the portfolio.

National Science Foundation

To improve the agency’s implementation of PortfolioStat, we recommend that the Director of the National Science Foundation direct the CIO to take the following action: In future reporting to OMB, fully describe the following PortfolioStat action plan elements: (1) consolidate commodity IT spending under the agency CIO and (2) establish criteria for identifying wasteful, low- value, or duplicative investments.

Nuclear Regulatory Commission

To improve the agency’s implementation of PortfolioStat, we recommend that the Chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission direct the CIO to take the following two actions:

Develop a complete commodity IT baseline.

In future reporting to OMB, fully describe the following PortfolioStat action plan elements: (1) consolidate commodity IT spending under the agency CIO; (2) establish targets for commodity IT spending reductions and deadlines for meeting those targets; (3) target duplicative systems or contracts that support common business functions for consolidation; and (4) establish a process to identify these potential investments and a schedule for eliminating them from the portfolio.

Office of Personnel Management

To improve the agency’s implementation of PortfolioStat, we recommend that the Director of the Office of Personnel Management direct the CIO to take the following three actions:

Develop a complete commodity IT baseline.

In future reporting to OMB, fully describe the following PortfolioStat action plan elements: (1) move at least two commodity IT areas to shared services and (2) target duplicative systems or contracts that support common business functions for consolidation.

Report on the agency’s progress in consolidating the help desk consolidation and IT asset inventory to shared services as part of the OMB integrated data collection quarterly reporting until completed.

Small Business Administration

To improve the agency’s implementation of PortfolioStat, we recommend that the Administrator of the Small Business Administration direct the CIO to take the following two actions:

Develop a complete commodity IT baseline.

In future reporting to OMB, fully describe the following PortfolioStat action plan elements: (1) consolidate commodity IT spending under the agency CIO; (2) establish targets for commodity IT spending reductions and deadlines for meeting those targets; (3) target duplicative systems or contracts that support common business functions for consolidation; and (4) establish a process to identify those potential investments and a schedule for eliminating them from the portfolio.

Social Security Administration

To improve the agency’s implementation of PortfolioStat, we recommend that the Commissioner of the Social Security Administration direct the CIO to take the following two actions:

Develop a complete commodity IT baseline.

Report on the agency’s progress in consolidating the geospatial architecture to a shared service as part of the OMB integrated data collection quarterly reporting until completed.

State

To improve the department’s implementation of PortfolioStat, we recommend that the Secretary of State direct the CIO to take the following three actions:

Reflect 100 percent of information technology investments in the department’s enterprise architecture.

In future reporting to OMB, fully describe the following PortfolioStat action plan elements: (1) consolidate commodity IT spending under the agency CIO; (2) establish targets for commodity IT spending reductions and deadlines for meeting those targets; (3) move at least two commodity IT areas to shared services; (4) target duplicative systems or contracts that support common business functions for consolidation; and (5) establish a process to identify those potential investments and a schedule for eliminating them from the portfolio.

Report on the department’s progress in consolidating the Foreign Affairs Network and content publishing and delivery services to shared services as part of the OMB integrated data collection quarterly reporting until completed.

Transportation

To improve the department’s implementation of PortfolioStat, we recommend that the Secretary of Transportation direct the CIO to take the following two actions: In future reporting to OMB, fully describe the following PortfolioStat action plan elements: (1) consolidate commodity IT spending under the agency CIO; (2) establish targets for commodity IT spending reductions and deadlines for meeting those targets; (3) target duplicative systems or contracts that support common business functions for consolidation; and (4) establish a process to identify those potential investments and a schedule for eliminating them from the portfolio.

Report on the department’s progress in consolidating the Enterprise Messaging to shared services as part of the OMB integrated data collection quarterly reporting until completed.

Treasury

To improve the department’s implementation of PortfolioStat, we recommend that the Secretary of the Treasury direct the CIO to take the following three actions: In future reporting to OMB, fully describe the following PortfolioStat action plan elements: (1) consolidate commodity IT spending under the agency CIO and (2) establish criteria for identifying wasteful, low- value, or duplicative investments.

As the department finalizes and matures its enterprise architecture and valuation methodology, utilize these processes to identify whether there are additional opportunities to reduce duplicative, low-value, or wasteful investments.

Develop support for the estimated savings for fiscal years 2013 to 2015 for the DoNotPay Business Center, Fiscal IT Data Center Consolidation and Business Process Management Status initiatives.

U.S. Agency for International Development

To improve the agency’s implementation of PortfolioStat, we recommend that the Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development direct the CIO to take the following four actions:

Reflect 100 percent of information technology investments in the agency’s enterprise architecture.

Develop a complete commodity IT baseline.

In future reporting to OMB, fully describe the following PortfolioStat action plan elements: (1) target duplicative systems or contracts that support common business functions for consolidation and (2) establish a process to identify those potential investments and a schedule for eliminating them from the portfolio.

Report on the agency’s progress in consolidating the e-mail and Telecommunication and Operations Center to shared services as part of the OMB integrated data collection quarterly reporting until completed.

Veterans Affairs

To improve the department’s implementation of PortfolioStat, we recommend that the Secretary of Veterans Affairs direct the CIO to take the following four actions: In future reporting to OMB, fully describe the following PortfolioStat action plan element: target duplicative systems or contracts that support common business functions for consolidation.

Report on the department’s progress in consolidating the dedicated fax servers to a shared service as part of the OMB integrated data collection quarterly reporting until completed.

As the department matures its enterprise architecture process, make use of it, as well as the valuation model, to identify whether there are additional opportunities to reduce duplicative, low-value, or wasteful investments.

Develop detailed support for the estimated savings for fiscal years 2013 to 2015 for the Server Virtualization, Eliminate Dedicated Fax Servers Consolidation, Renegotiate Microsoft Enterprise License Agreement, and one CPU policy initiatives.

Appendix V: Comments from the U.S. Department of Agriculture

Appendix VI: Comments from the Department of Commerce

Appendix VII: Comments from the Department of Defense

Appendix VIII: Comments from the Department of Energy

Appendix IX: Comments from the Environmental Protection Agency

Appendix X: Comments from the General Services Administration

Appendix XI: Comments from the Department of Homeland Security

Appendix XII: Comments from the Department of Housing and Urban Development

Appendix XIII: Comments from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Appendix XIV: Comments from the National Archives and Records Administration

Appendix XV: Comments from the National Science Foundation

Appendix XVI: Comments from the Office of Personnel Management

Appendix XVII: Comments from the Social Security Administration

Appendix XIII: Comments from the Department of State

Appendix XIX: Comments from the Department of Veterans Affairs

Appendix XX: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments

GAO Contact

Staff Acknowledgments

In addition to the contact named above, individuals making contributions to this report included Sabine Paul (Assistant Director), Valerie Hopkins, Lee McCracken, Tomas Ramirez, and Bradley Roach.