The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration has called on the IRS chief information officer to work with other IRS executives to develop a complete and accurate master IT project list with a standard set of IT terms that have been approved and communicated to all IRS organizations.
The IRS spends over a billion dollars a year on IT products and services, and while it has made progress implementing an IT enterprise governance structure, additional actions are needed to address current weaknesses in providing effective oversight and management of all IT projects, according to report No. 2008-20-134.
In fiscal 2006 the IRS expanded the roles and responsibilities of the program control and process management division to incorporate and establish direction for the new enterprise governance model, and since then has made progress directing, developing and implementing tiered-program management activities, TIGTA said.
However, the IRS has yet to fully document policies and procedures for developing a complete portfolio of IT projects, complete the setup of program management offices for all IRS organizations, fully implement the health assessment process, and provide consistent and continual monitoring and oversight of major IT projects through the executive steering committees.
IRS officials stated in response that they plan to incorporate projects and operational applications into the IRS portfolio and develop, approve, and communicate formal policies and procedures to continually update the portfolio and a standard set of IT terms.
They also said they plan to obtain approval of the governance directive and communicate guidance to foster enterprise-wide adherence to the governance process, conduct an enterprise-wide campaign of education and sustained support for the control organizations to ensure consistency of the health assessment process, and ensure that all assigned major IT projects are reviewed monthly and are presented to the appropriate governance board’s attention when established thresholds are exceeded.
