The administration’s “E-Government Strategy,” released April 17, outlines six criteria for receiving a green score — ranging from having business cases for all major information technology investments to participating in at least three governmentwide e-government initiatives. So far, only the National Science Foundation has achieved a green score for its e-government efforts, while 17 agencies received green scores for progress they had made in the last three months of 2002.
E-government is one of five areas agencies are rated on under the administration’s management scorecard.
The standards agencies have to meet to gain the top score are better defined than in the past, said Mark Forman, administrator of e-government and information technology at the Office of Management and Budget. “There is more specificity and more measures for information security,” Forman said.
In fact, information security could be the highest hurdle for agencies. An agency must be able to document that 90 percent of its major information systems are secure. In 2002 only 47 percent of agency systems had such documentation.
An information security officer at the State Department said that while most of that agency’s information security systems have adequate security, only 3 percent had the documentation to meet scorecard’s goal. “The problem is that we are busy operating the systems and no one has given us the permission or the money to stop operating the systems so we can document them,” he said.
To get a green score for e-gov, agencies also must focus IT investment on important agency missions, back up major IT investments with business cases, have an information security plan that is verified by the inspector general, participate in cross-agency e-government programs, and meet specific standards for delivering IT projects on schedule and within budget.
Quelle: Federal Times
