The White House has boosted the ratings of competitive sourcing efforts at several agencies on its latest President’s Management Agenda scorecard.
The Departments of Agriculture, State, and Energy and the Social Security Administration and all improved to the highest green rating on the traffic light-style scorecard, while Defense Department improved its score for the first time to yellow.
The recent congressional elections have cast some uncertainty on the future of the initiatives and Democrats are expected to increase scrutiny of government contracting and tighten restrictions by adding language to legislation.
Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., a critic of the administration’s competitive sourcing push is likely to replace Rep. Tom Davis as chair of the House Government Reform Committee, which has oversight over the initiatives.
Most of the movement on this latest scorecard for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2006 was reflected in e-gov scores, another area the administration is facing resistance from Congress, as well as reportedly from contractors themselves who are baffled by requirements for lines-of-business initiatives intended to consolidate IT functions.
The Departments of Agriculture and Health and Human Services and NASA were downgraded to red scores for e-gov, while the Social Security Administration dropped to yellow.
A number of agencies received higher e-gov scores. The eartments of Treasury and State, as well as the EPA and Small Business Administration improved to green, while the Departments of Interior and Justice improved to yellow.
No changes in status were reported in the human capital initiative where all agencies are rated either green or yellow. Nearly all the progress ratings for each of the five initiatives, including financial performance and budget-performance integration, remained green with a few yellow and red ratings scattered in.
