Federal Manager's Daily Report Monday, August 23, 2004 Published by FEDweek, the federal government's largest information resource with now over one million weekly readers to its electronic newsletters.
*********************************************************** Federal Manager's Daily Report is a brand new FREE daily electronic report for all federal managers and supervisors featuring the day's top stories on management and workforce issues. Please pass this information on to your fellow colleagues. You can sign up for this free daily report at http://www.fedweek.com/subscribepopup.htm. *********************************************************** In Today's Issue: 1. Gray Areas Remain for DHS Enterprise, IT Architecture, Says GAO 2. Study Says Governments Joining Private Sector in HR Outsourcing 3. OPM Cites Personnel Flexibilies in Storm Response http://www.opm.gov/viewDocument.aspx?q=524. *********************************************************** 1. Gray Areas Remain for DHS Enterprise, IT Architecture, Says GAO The Department of Homeland Security's initial enterprise architecture may offer a partial foundation to build future versions, but it's missing many key elements of a well-defined structure such as "descriptions of business processes, information flows among these processes, and security rules associated with these information flows," the Government Accountability Office has said. DHS says it issued its initial enterprise architecture hastily and with limited resources to meet its 2004 IT budget request, and that it plans to release a more complete one next month. But while DHS's initial architecture shares similar language with the Federal Enterprise Architecture issued by the Office of Management and Budget, it is unclear if that corresponds to architecture structures and functions, according to GAO-04-777. GAO said that therefore it's unclear if "the substance and intent of the respective architectures are in fact aligned, meaning that, if both were implemented, they would produce similar outcomes." This ambiguity is partly the result of OMB having failed to define what it expects the relationship to be between agency enterprise architectures and the FEA, namely what is meant by "architectural alignment," according to GAO. Nonetheless, it said even those key elements that are present in the initial version were not reached according to architecture-development best practices, but were instead based on assumptions about a DHS national or corporate business strategy and are a collection architectures, portfolios and investments projects of the 22 agencies that fed into DHS at its creation. As a result, GAO said, DHS currently lacks "the necessary architectural blueprint to effectively guide and constrain its ongoing business transformation efforts and the hundreds of millions of dollars that it's investing in supporting information technology assets." 2. Study Says Governments Joining Private Sector in HR Outsourcing Federal and state governments are increasingly outsourcing HR and other functions, a new study from The Conference Board has said. Sponsored by Accenture HR Services, the study said early adopters such as the UK and Australia moved to outsourcing to save costs, reduce capital spending and to change fixed costs to variable ones -- but noted potential negatives of the practice: "job losses, skills transfers, unemployment costs and the disruption of local services against the promised benefits." The study said outsourcing is a way public sector organizations can centralize disparate HR processes and help HR departments focus on keeping talented workers and improve service. "Through technology tools and processes that most public-sector organizations could not afford to build internally, outsourcing can provide much improved and more convenient services for employees," says Ton Heijmen, Senior Advisor to the Conference Board on Outsourcing and Off-shoring. "This is a particular concern for public-sector organizations, which generally cannot compete with the private sector's pay packages to attract and retain talent." State governments, faced with the need to replace legacy IT systems at a cost of $80 million -- $100 million and are reluctant to do so given rapid technological change and pressure to reduce costs, something the study says is driving public organizations to contract out the services. It said the "trend" would likely be focused at the federal and state levels because scale is necessary to leverage savings and justify costs. 3. OPM Cites Personnel Flexibilies in Storm Response The Office of Personnel Management issued personnel flexibility guidelines in advance of Hurricane Charley that landed in Florida last week that it says should bring the heads of federal agencies and managers up to date regarding actions to be taken in preparation for the next natural disasters. "These actions with respect to Hurricane Charley are consistent with our guidance in previous natural disasters such as Hurricane Isabel last year," said OPM director Kay Coles James. In a recent memo she wrote, "I strongly encourage managers to grant excused absence to employees who are requested to assist in authorized emergency law enforcement, relief, and clean-up efforts in affected communities by federal, state, or other officials having jurisdiction and whose participation in such activities has been approved by their employing agency." The memo offered guidance to hire additional federal staff for a quicker response and asked agencies and departments to "excuse from duty without charge to leave or loss of pay federal employees who are affected by Hurricane Charley and its aftermath and who can be spared from their usual responsibilities." The flexibilities allow for premium pay for employees performing emergency overtime work subject to annual pay limitations rather than bi-weekly limits, said OPM. It said the president may direct it to establish an emergency leave transfer program so employees in an executive agency may donate unused annual leave to other comparable employees affected by the hurricane so they don't have to use their own paid leave. OPM also granted direct hire and emergency critical hiring authority for 30-day appointments in the excepted service, to fill a critical hiring need at the senior level or below, where agencies determine the qualifications required. It also said agencies may contract with private sector temporary employment firms for services to meet emergency staffing needs for 120 days, and extendable by as much. To access the guidance, go here: http://www.opm.gov/viewDocument.aspx?q=524. Published by FEDweek LLC 11551 Nuckols Rd. 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