How did 18 of the 24 largest Federal agencies improve their overall grades on the 18th edition of the FITARA Scorecard issued today?
The data from the scorecard shows there were many paths to improvement, but most of them ran through boosting scores in the categories of cloud computing, cybersecurity, CIO investment evaluation, and progress on transitioning to the General Services Administration’s (GSA) Enterprise Information Solutions (EIS) contract.
As usual, the best way to make sense of the multicolored FITARA Scorecard is to view the results on MeriTalk’s FITARA Dashboard.
Not only was the general agency grading trend up on the latest scorecard, but the 18th edition of the scorecard also featured an unprecedented number of agencies – seven in total – that earned double and even triple-letter improvements in their grades, while ten more achieved singe-letter gains.
Special shout-outs to the two agencies that pulled off the triple-letter grade jump: Health and Human Services which went to an overall ‘A’ grade from a ‘D’ last time around, and the State Department achieved the same ‘A’ to ‘D’ leap.
Double-letter improvements were won by five agencies: Education Department which rose to ‘A’ from ‘C’; Justice Department which improved to ‘A’ from ‘C’; Transportation Department which jumped to ‘B’ from ‘D’; General Services Administration which vaulted to ‘A’ from ‘C’; and Office of Personnel Management which also rose to ‘A’ from ‘C.’
Single-letter grade improvements were notched by the Commerce Department, Defense Department, Homeland Security Department, Housing and Urban Development, Interior Department, Labor Department, Veterans Affairs Department, Environmental Protection Agency, NASA, Small Business Administration, and Social Security Administration.
Here are some of the FITARA Scorecard grading categories where agencies generated some of the biggest improvements to help their overall scores.
Cloud Computing
Twelve of the 24 CFO Act agencies boosted their grades in the cloud computing category on the 18th edition of the FITARA Scorecard.
The most dramatic improvements were scored by five agencies – Social Security Administration, Office of Personnel Management, NASA, State Department, and Education Department – which each received ‘A’ grades this time around, up from ‘F’ grades earlier this year.
Other agencies gaining in the cloud computing category include the Agriculture Department, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Interior Department, Justice Department, and Environmental Protection Agency.
The cloud computing category is a relatively new addition to the scorecard, having been adopted as a grading category on the 17th edition of the scorecard issued in February of this year.
The category ties back to the Office of Management and Budget’s Federal Cloud Computing Strategy issued in 2019, and its “five key requirements of cloud procurement that help ensure successful cloud adoption,” the latest scorecard says.
Those requirements, the scorecard says, “focus on ensuring that the CIO oversees modernization, agency cloud-related policies and guidance are iteratively improved, service level agreements are in place, service level agreement contracts are standardized, and visibility in high value asset contracts is continuously ensured.”
Agency grades in the category are calculated to reflect the “percentage of key procurement requirements satisfied as assessed by GAO,” the scorecard says.
EIS Transition
A total of 14 agencies won higher grades in the EIS transition category, with four agencies – the Housing and Urban Development, State Department, Veterans Affairs, and Environmental Protection Agency – each making the jump from an ‘F’ grade to an ‘A’ grade.
Several others – including the Agriculture Department, Commerce Department, Defense Department, Energy Department, Justice Department, GSA, and Small Business Administration – improved their scores by at least two letter grades in the category.
Letter grades in this category, the scorecard says, reflect “an A for agencies who have achieved 100% transition, a B for agencies who have achieve greater than 90% transition, a C for agencies that have achieve greater than 80% transition, and a D for agencies that have achieved greater than 70% transition; however, the agency overall grade relies on the percentage complete.”
The scorecard’s data source is “rounded transition percentage complete (how many services each agency has moved off the expiring contracts) as reported in GSA’s EIS Transition Progress Tracking Report Dashboard (dated August 27, 2024).”
Cybersecurity
Seven agencies earned higher grades in the cybersecurity category on the latest scorecard, led by Homeland Security which improved to an ‘A’ grade, from a ‘C’ grade previously.
Other agencies notching single-letter improvements in the category are the Commerce Department, Energy Department, Labor Department, Transportation Department, NASA, and National Science Foundation. The only agency losing ground in the category is the Treasury Department, which fell to a ‘C’ grade from a ‘B’ grade.
The cybersecurity category ties back to the 2014 Federal Information Security Modernization Act. The calculation of grades in this category, the scorecard says, “averaged percentage of the Fiscal year 2023 IG assessments with a denominator of Level 4 maturity and Agency Federal Cybersecurity Progress Report (FCPR) score.”
The data source for that calculation is “Fiscal Year 2023 IG assessments as reported in the Agency Cybersecurity Performance Summaries provided to Congress and Agency Federal Cybersecurity Progress Report (FCPR) scores as reported on Performance.gov/cyber (downloaded on September 15, 2024).”
CIO Investment Evaluation
Another big contributor to higher overall grades on the 18th edition of the scorecard was improvements in the CIO Investment Evaluation category. A total of nine agencies won higher grades in that category, and five of them – the Education Department, Health and Human Services, Justice Department, State Department, and GSA – went from ‘F’ grades earlier this year to ‘A’ grade this time around.
In explaining this grading category, the scorecard says, “FITARA requires agency CIOs to categorize their major IT investments by risk. Additionally, in the case of major IT investments that rate an IT investment as high risk for four consecutive quarters, the law requires that the agency CIO conduct a review aimed at identifying and addressing the causes of the risk.”
The category score is calculated as a “percentage of major IT investments that have been evaluated by the CIO within the current and prior fiscal year,” the scorecard says, noting that its data source is the “IT Dashboard ‘CIO Evaluation History’ data feed (downloaded on September 15, 2024).”
