Over the next six months, interagency teams will examine business functions, data, and best practices for five lines of business--financial, human resources, grants, health, and case-management systems--to identify opportunities to reduce the cost of government and improve services to citizens through business-performance improvements. After reviewing federal enterprise architecture data provided by agencies, the administration recognized the need to re-evaluate planned investments in these five areas, says E-government and IT administrator Karen Evans, the government's top IT executive.
It's the administration's practice to designate one or two agencies to lead multiagency teams for each E-government initiative. The lead agencies for the five initiatives are the departments of Energy and Labor for the financial-management initiative; Office of Personnel Management, human-resources management; Department of Education and the National Science Foundation, grants management; Department of Health and Human Services, federal health architecture; and Department of Justice, case management.
The five teams will draft and finalize common solutions and a target architecture reflected in business cases in order to be submitted for fiscal year 2006 budget review. The business cases might include a strategy for meeting the goal by the possible consolidation of multiple business processes that operate for each line of business, integration of existing operations, and/or a shared service provider arrangement, according to OMB.
The agency says it and the line-of-business task forces will employ business principles and best practices to identify common solutions for business processes and/or technology-based shared services for government agencies.