DHS encouraged to improve IT workforce planning

A Government Accountability Office report issued on Monday expressed concerns that a lack of a timeline and clear requirements for implementation threaten the Homeland Security Department's strategy for shaping its information technology workforce.

GAO praised many elements of DHS' technology human capital planning, including plans to complete a comprehensive inventory of staff skills, efforts to involve stakeholders such as the chief information officer and chief human capital officer, and the formation of a CIO Council and IT Human Capital Resource Center. But it said there were gaps between goals and their actual implementation.

"Unless DHS has a complete plan," the report concluded, it "will continue to be at risk of not having sufficient people with the right knowledge, skills and abilities to manage and deliver the IT systems that are essential to executing the department's mission and achieving its transformation goals."

Steven Pecinovsky, the director of the GAO/OIG Liaison Office at DHS, said in his response to the report that the department generally concurred with the observations, but that GAO's assessment relied too heavily on the 2005 DHS IT Human Capital Strategic Plan, which was intended "to paint a broad picture of IT workforce strategy, not to draw a blueprint for execution."

The report, however, said GAO investigators relied not simply on the 2005 plan, but on a 2007 analysis of skill gaps and interviews with department executives. In particular, GAO noted that Office of Management and Budget reporting requirements and agency-level human capital efforts were driving implementation of IT human capital plans, rather than departmentwide efforts.

"CIO and human capital officials with the Coast Guard, Customs and Border Protection, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency told us that although they were aware of the plan, they were in large part not aware of a requirement to implement it," the report concluded. Those three agencies use 33 percent of DHS' IT budget and employ 60 percent of the department's IT personnel.

Despite the lack of coordination, "these officials stated that they have been taking actions consistent with some aspects of the plan as part of their quarterly reporting to OMB on such issues as progress in filling mission-critical positions and delivering IT training," GAO said.

One of DHS' greatest challenges has been providing a common IT infrastructure for the 22 agencies drawn together under the department's umbrella. DHS plans to establish its headquarters at the old St. Elizabeth's Hospital complex in Washington, but now maintains offices at a number of locations.

"We acknowledge that IT-related strategic and business priorities have shifted from human capital planning to building and strengthening DHS' information technology infrastructure," Pecinovsky wrote.

"Our perspective is that in order to leverage technology for mission effectiveness, you've got to improve your infrastructure," said Randolph Hite, who wrote the GAO report. "But the means by which you do that is determined by the qualifications and capabilities of people working in that area, not just today, but in the future."

That focus on and devotion of financial resources to infrastructure development rather than to human capital goals has prevented DHS from making long-term plans and setting goals for its IT workforce, department executives told GAO.

GAO concluded that the lack of a concrete timeline and the lack of resources reinforced each other, because "milestones help to ensure that resources needed to execute plans are allocated, and they provide a basis for measuring progress."

The lack of resources also has hindered coordination across the department. The last IT Human Capital Resource Center program manager, who was responsible for implementing the departmentwide IT workforce plan, resigned in November 2006, and officers in the department's CIO and CHCO offices told GAO that the department has not provided the funding for a replacement.

In fiscal 2007, DHS requested $4.16 billion for IT projects. The department has requested $4 billion for fiscal 2008.

"We understand the importance of IT human capital planning," Pecinovsky wrote, "and will continue to dedicate resources to ensure a highly skilled and effective IT workforce that can meet the challenges required to protect the homeland."