ITAA Announces Results from Annual Federal CIO Survey

Federal IT spending may be up slightly in FY 2006, but so is the pressure on agencies to deploy information technology in the quest for new savings while increasing ties between technology and management initiatives, according to survey results announced recently by the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA).

The results from ITAA's fifteenth annual federal Chief Information Officer survey, Issues in Leadership, depict a CIO community preparing to invest heavily in IT consolidation projects aimed at increasing efficiency and lowering costs. Meanwhile, CIOs see continued emphasis on meeting the objectives of the President's Management Agenda in their immediate future, particularly in an era of increased scrutiny of government spending.

Enterprise standardization and consolidation, project management, and IT governance were consistently named as top priorities, as were focuses of the President's Management Agenda, such as IT management, improved electronic government and IT security.

"These results underscore the role of technology both in wringing new savings and increased efficiency from business systems and in supporting more efficient management across the government," said ITAA President Harris N. Miller. "Tied with the increase in technology spending proposed in the President's budget request, I think these results indicate government is recognizing the value in smart technology investments."

"Almost since the enactment of the Clinger-Cohen Act, federal CIOs and their industry supporters have argued for a 'seat at the table' in terms of their reporting relationships," said Paul Wohlleben, chair of the CIO Survey Task Group and Partner with Grant Thornton's Global Public Sector. "This year's survey results suggest that goal may have been largely attained with 89 percent of the respondents saying they report to the Secretary/Deputy Secretary or equivalent."

The President's proposed budget for FY 2006 calls for an increase of federal IT spending of seven percent from the FY 2005 enacted level. Of the $65.1 billion in requested IT spending, 55 percent will fund IT investments for defense and homeland security. Meanwhile proposed technology spending by civilian agencies is up 9 percent.

Respondents consistently cited progress in the following areas:

• Improved IT management, through a broad set of achievements, including strategy and planning, capital planning processes, and enterprise architecture.


• Improved electronic government, including two areas of progress. First, most believed that the Office of Management and Budget's (OMB) Quicksilver initiatives had improved or established the foundation for future improvement in electronic government for the interviewees' respective constituencies. A number of the CIOs also believed that the process of working together across departments, agencies, and in some cases levels of government, had resulted in a new model of collaboration that was an achievement unto itself.


• Improved IT security, represented by significant organizational and personal investments in this area, and in delivering an improved IT security environment. A number of the CIOs also reported implementing security measures to protect networks and applications.


• IT consolidation, including significant progress being reported in consolidating IT infrastructures. CIOs reported that they were able to get consolidation programs off the ground with strong support from OMB. IT consolidation was also a popular strategy for addressing the challenges of IT security and IT cost savings.

Looking ahead, the top priorities for the coming years involve next steps from those reported in recent years, including:

• IT Security, although some security program-building is still required, CIOs appear to be turning their focus to risk management, to implementing systems to detect security intrusions, and to extending capabilities towards intrusion prevention.


• Enterprise Standardization and Consolidation, while CIOs reported making progress on this over the past few years, it remains a high priority as departments and agencies complete and implement their enterprise architectures. Application consolidation reported as