IT acquisition reform legislation is being considered in the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that could reduce the number of CIOs in the federal government while adopting best practices from the private sector.
According to the draft bill’s sponsor, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., there are too many people with the title of "chief" when it comes to IT. Issa would like to see there be just one per agency, down from a total of about 240 individuals.
The draft bill would give budget authority to CIOs while putting the CIO Council in charge of developing shared services and shared platforms. It would also promote cloud solutions, make it easier to use open source software, and encourage agencies to open up their data and websites.
The draft bill also would set up a Federal Commodity IT Center to coordinate acquisition practices and government-wide IT contract management.
Under this plan certain agencies would be relied on for complex IT acquisitions for other agencies, providing streamlined contracts and expertise rather than each agency essentially going it alone.
Those go-to agencies would act as "assisted acquisition centers of excellence" and centralize the knowledge of specialists, helping to mitigate a shortage of skilled federal IT acquisition staff, according to Issa.
The bill has the support of Rep. Gerald Connolly, D-Va., who spoke with Issa at a recent event and said he plans to co-sponsor the measure, which would revamp the Clinger-Cohen Act and the E-Government Act.
