OMB should require agencies to disclose the extent to which their CIOs have the ability to carry out the recommended course of action that results from PortfolioStat IT reviews, GAO has said.
OMB launched the PortfolioStat initiative in 2012 and began requiring agencies to gather information on IT investments (on which the government will spend $82 billion in fiscal 2014) and through a review process, develop plans for consolidation or increased use of shared-services delivery models.
OMB’s fiscal year 2013 PortfolioStat guidance identifies a number of planned improvements but does not fully address certain weaknesses in the implementation of the initiative, such as limitations in CIOs’ authority, weaknesses in agencies’ commodity IT baselines, accountability for migrating selected commodity IT areas, or the information on agencies’ progress that OMB intends to make public, according to GAO-14-65.
