Definition[]
The Federal Chief Information Officer (Federal CIO) is the
| “ | [a]gency official responsible for:
(i) Providing advice and other assistance to the head of the executive agency and other senior management personnel of the agency to ensure that information technology is acquired and information resources are managed in a manner that is consistent with laws, Executive Orders, directives, policies, regulations, and priorities established by the head of the agency; (ii) Developing, maintaining, and facilitating the implementation of a sound and integrated information technology architecture for the agency; and (iii) Promoting the effective and efficient design and operation of all major information resources management processes for the agency, including improvements to work processes of the agency.[1] |
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Overview[]
On March 5, 2009, President Obama designated the Administrator of OMB’s Office of E-Government and Information Technology as the first Federal Chief Information Officer. The Federal CIO was given responsibility for directing the policy and strategic planning of federal information technology investments as well as for overseeing federal technology spending.
In December 2010, the Federal CIO issued a 25 Point Implementation Plan to Reform Federal Information Technology Management. This 18-month plan specified five major goals: strengthening program management, streamlining governance and improving accountability, increasing engagement with industry, aligning the acquisition process with the technology cycle, and applying “light technology” and shared solutions. As part of this plan, OMB has initiatives under way to, among other things, strengthen agencies’ investment review boards and to consolidate federal data centers. The plan stated that OMB will work with Congress to consolidate commodity IT spending (e.g., e-mail, data centers, content management systems, web infrastructure) under agency CIOs. Further, the plan called for the role of federal agency CIOs to focus more on IT portfolio management.
The Federal CIO has worked to improve the oversight and management of IT investments in light of the problems that agencies have continued to experience with establishing IT governance processes to manage such investments.[2] These initiatives included increasing the accountability of agency CIOs through the use of the IT Dashboard, a public website established in June 2009 that provides detailed information, including performance ratings, for over 800 major IT investments at federal agencies. Each investment’s performance data are updated monthly, which is a major improvement from the quarterly reporting cycle used by OMB’s prior oversight mechanisms.
References[]
- ↑ Pub. L. No. 104-106, §5125(b).
- ↑ See Information Technology: Investment Oversight and Management Have Improved but Continued Attention Is Needed.