Federal agencies are making “notable” progress in implementing Government Accountability Office (GAO) recommendations to improve IT management and reduce duplicative efforts, according to a new GAO report.
Twenty-six agencies plan to spend about $95 billion on IT in fiscal year (FY) 2024, according to the report. As of October 2023, GAO said that agencies have implemented 88 percent of its nearly 400 prior IT recommendations, but the watchdog agency said implementing the rest could save the government billions of dollars.
“Since our first review in December 2021, agencies have made additional progress on implementing our recommendations to address duplicative IT and IT management roles and responsibilities,” the report says. “Specifically, of the 102 recommendations that had not been implemented in December 2021, 56 have now been implemented (25 related to duplicative IT, and 31 related to IT management roles and responsibilities).”
GAO said that although agencies “made notable progress” by implementing 56 of the 102 recommendations, they have yet to fully implement the remaining 46.
“As we have previously reported, implementing these recommendations could better position agencies to oversee and effectively manage their IT development and acquisition efforts, reduce the risk of wasting Federal funds and other resources on duplicative IT investments, and potentially save millions of dollars,” the report says.
Under a provision of the Modernizing Government Technology Act of 2017, GAO is required to assess the number of IT procurement, development, and modernization programs and entities in the Federal government, as well as assess whether or not those entities duplicate work. The watchdog agency is required to report on its work every two years.
This year, GAO conducted its performance audit from March 2023 to December 2023. While the report does not offer new recommendations, it does detail the current implementation status of the 102 outstanding recommendations.
For example, in the December 2021 report, GAO reported that the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) U.S. Digital Service (USDS) and the General Services Administration’s (GSA) 18F programs had not consistently coordinated on their IT acquisition and development guidance they provided to agencies.
This year, GAO reported that these two agencies implemented its recommendations by documenting an approach for coordinating with each other on the IT guidance.
“The process included monthly collaboration meetings between OMB and GSA officials to, among other things, share information on proposed USDS and 18F guidance and identify opportunities for addressing potentially duplicative guidance or collaborating jointly on the guidance,” GAO said. “By taking these steps, USDS and 18F have reduced the risk of overlap or duplication of efforts, and the potential for presenting conflicting information in their guidance.”
GAO said it is sending copies of the report to the appropriate congressional committees, the GSA administrator, the OMB director, and other interested parties.
