Panel chief questions agencies’ emergency planning

House Government Reform Chairman Tom Davis, R-Va., wants to know if agencies are prepared to continue working under emergency conditions and the extent that telework fits into those plans.

Maintaining government operations during natural disasters, fires and other threats is critical, Davis said, and he is concerned that agencies do not do enough to prepare for disaster.

While agencies maintain a set of policies known as continuity of operations plans, which are intended to ensure that critical government services continue to function during emergencies, Davis believes there are shortcomings in those plans and has asked the Government Accountability Office to perform an assessment.

"[W]e remain concerned that many agencies are not adequately prepared to continue providing vital services during emergencies," Davis wrote in a May 4 letter to Comptroller General David M. Walker.

Davis asked that GAO evaluate major agencies' plans for moving to substitute work sites during emergencies and provide an update on agencies' compliance with Federal Emergency Management Agency guidance on using telework for continuity of operations.

While he mentioned telework only once in his one-page letter to Walker, Davis said during a hearing last month that it was vital for agencies to make telework part of their emergency planning.

"Telework is not just common-sense efficiency but an important national security consideration as well," Davis said. "The decentralization of federal agency functions inherent in a healthy telework strategy can greatly increase the survivability of those agencies in the event of a terrorist attack or other disruptive crisis."

In the past, telework was promoted as a means of reducing traffic congestion in large metropolitan areas and as a way to cut back on office space costs. After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, telework advocates started using emergency preparedness as a way of promoting telework.

During the hearing, Linda Koontz, GAO's director of information management issues, testified that many agencies say they use good practices in identifying essential functions that need to continue operating in an emergency, but they lacked documentation that would confirm this.

GAO has reported (GAO-05-577) that the number of essential functions identified by agencies ranged from three to 538, largely because FEMA guidance does not provide criteria for listing agencies' essential functions. The report also noted that only 14 of the 45 plans examined looked at fully identified systems and data that would be critical for continuing operations in the event of an emergency.