Oversight Committee Releases Agency Responses on Federal Management IT Systems

WASHINGTON– House Oversight and Government Reform Committee leaders today released the results of a comprehensive survey of federal agency management information technology systems. In March, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the committee, joined subcommittee chairmen Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, Rep. James Lankford, R-Okla., and Rep. Todd Platts, R-Pa., in requesting management information from 26 federal agencies. Click here to read a copy of the letter.

“Our analysis shows these systems are not serving taxpayers well,” Issa said.

According to analysis produced by Oversight Committee staff, “agencies employ a tangled web of disparate manual processes to generate the data.” Staff also found that agencies did very little to make the data tracked by the management IT systems publically available.

Chairman Issa has made the agency responses available for public review online in their entirety here.

“In making the agency responses publically available, we believe we can gain greater insight into the problems that keep federal management systems so opaque,” Issa said.

Issa has introduced the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act of 2011 (DATA Act), which will transform the successful Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board and apply its system government-wide to track all federal spending, including grants, contracts, loans and agencies’ internal expenses, using consistent reporting standards and data identifiers, and making all of the information available to the public.

A preliminary staff analysis is enclosed below. Click here to read a copy of the letter. You can view the agency responses below.