USDS and 18F Should Coordinate IT Guidance Efforts According to GAO

The federal government spends over $100B annually on IT. Over the years, the government established a number of initiatives to assist agencies with IT implementation, management and oversight such as the IT Dashboard, FITARA, and digital services corps.  

The Modernizing Government Technology Act of 2017 appointed GAO to periodically assess the number of IT procurement, development, and modernization programs, offices, and entities in the federal government, including the U.S. Digital Service (USDS) and 18F.

The recent GAO report maintains a threefold purpose:

• Provide an assessment of the investments listed on the IT Dashboard
• Assess the extent to which agencies have implemented GAO recommendations to limit IT duplication and clearly define IT management roles and responsibilities
• Determine the amount of coordination occurring between the 18F and USDS in order to limit overlap and duplication

Summary of IT Dashboard analysis:

OMB launched the IT Dashboard (www.itdashboard.gov) in 2009 to provide federal agencies and other stakeholders the ability to view details of federal IT investments and track their progress over time. For FY 2021, 26 federal agencies reported 7,806 IT investments totaling $71B. DOD national security systems and classified IT investments, totaling $31B for FY 2021, are not reported to the IT Dashboard.

FY 2021 Estimated Spending by Service Category

The five top service categories for O&M spending were:The IT Dashboard also provides information regarding the amount of each investment devoted to Development, Modernization, and Enhancement (DME) of new systems or to Operations and Maintenance (O&M) of existing systems or capabilities. In FY 2021, agencies planned to spend 82% ($57.9B) of total IT funding on O&M activities and only 18% ($13B) on DME efforts.

• Provide and Maintain IT Infrastructure - $16B
• Health Care Delivery Services - $3.4B
• Logistics Management - $1.6B
• Enterprise Licenses and Software - $1.5B
• Help Desk Services - $1.4B

The five top service categories for DME spending were:

• Provide and Maintain IT Infrastructure - $1.9B
• Air Transportation - $652M
• Taxation Management - $521M
• Health Care Delivery Services -$496M
• IT System Development/Integration Support -$475M

Assessment of Implemented GAO Recommendations Related to IT Duplication and Management:

Over the past 10 years, GAO issued 16 reports with 392 recommendations to 33 agencies for addressing duplicative IT, and strengthening IT management roles and responsibilities. Agencies showed notable progress by fully implementing 290 as of October 2021. However, work remains to fully implement the remaining 102 recommendations. Agencies showed more progress implementing the recommendations to address IT duplication (87%) than on the recommendations to address IT roles and responsibilities (44%).

Coordination efforts between USDS and 18F:

The president established the USDS in 2014 to deliver better government services to the American people through technology and design. The USDS aims to apply best practices in product design and engineering to improve the user experience, usefulness and reliability of the nation’s most important public-facing digital services. USDS recruits private-sector IT experts and deploys small multi-disciplinary teams to work with government agencies on specific projects or programs. USDS is part of OMB, but establishes teams of personnel at agencies with long-term engagements with USDS, such as HHS, VA and DHS.  These teams are considered an extension of the OMB USDS office. As of April 2021, USDS had 180 employees.

USDS has four goals:

• Transform critical public-facing services
• Rethink how the federal government buys digital services
• Expand the use of common platforms, services, and tools
• Bring top technical talent into public service

GSA created 18F in 2014 to transform the way the federal government builds and buys digital services. 18F works with agencies that request its help. 18F is a division in GSA’s Office of Clients and Markets, within Technology Transformation Services (TTS), which is part of GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service. 18F recruits IT experts and assigns them to work with agencies. When the organization began it was using special hiring authorities, but in 2019 it began increasing the use of competitive service direct-hire authority. Now term appointments last no more than 8 years (a 4-year term, with an option for an additional 4-year term). As of April 2021, 18F had a team of about 120 employees.

18F has six goals:

• Develop digital services capacity within its customer organizations
• Produce prototypes and sites that meet the goals of the 21st Century
• Integrated Digital Experience Act
• Include agile elements in partner solicitations
• Reduce partner acquisition lead time
• Maintain customer satisfaction levels
• Recover all program costs

GAO recently investigated the extent to which 18F and U.S. Digital Service (USDS) duplicate work. Although they perform similar work, USDS and 18F officials told GAO that “having different business models reduces the amount of coordination needed on projects.” At USDS the program funds most of its own work, so USDS selects the projects it wants to work on and engages in discussions with those agencies. Conversely, agencies reimburse 18F for its services.  So agencies approach 18F when they need assistance. Due to these differing business models the agencies would know if they were seeking the same assistance from both USDS and 18F.

Even so, USDS and 18F have established mechanisms for project coordination which appear to be working. GAO reviewed 504 completed and active USDS and 18F projects and did not find evidence of overlap or duplication.

However, GAO did find areas of overlap and duplication with regards to IT acquisition and development guidance both organizations are producing for federal agencies.  As of March 2021, USDS had issued 10 guidance documents and 18F had issued 14 guidance documents through their websites. GAO did not find conflicting guidance, but did find that in some cases the same topics or content were covered.

GAO Recommendation:

GAO recommended that USDS and 18F work together to establish and document an approach to coordinate on the IT guidance they provide to agencies.