kentoh / Shutterstock.com

OMB Rolls Out Plan for Governance Body to Boost Shared Services

GSA will host centralized push for interagency financial management, payroll and IT tasks.

The Obama administration’s management agenda entered a new phase on Thursday when a key White House official unveiled plans to create a central governance board to steer agencies toward a greater use of shared services.

David Mader, the acting deputy director for management at the Office of Management and Budget, said six months of interagency steering committee meetings have produced “an incredibly aggressive plan for 2016” to “bring all shared services elements together” in a central strategic body, which would steer tasks to be executed by a unit housed at the General Services Administration.

Shared services is an approach long used in the private sector in which specialized agency units perform human resources, financial management or acquisition tasks under contract with other agencies. Expanding its use to save money has been one of the administration’s cross-agency policy goals; OMB established a Strategic Sourcing Leadership Council in December 2012.

Under the new plan announced to an audience of 250 at the nonprofit Partnership for Public Service, a more visible governance body will begin meeting in mid- to late-November. It will consist of 16 representatives from agency service providers, customers, and policy agencies—the Office of Personnel Management, the Treasury Department and GSA. A sub-organization called the United Shared Services Management Organization will be tasked with executing the governance board’s strategy.

In unveiling the organizational chart, Mader cited as a “major milestone” this week’s announcement that the Housing and Urban Development Department on Oct. 1 became the first Cabinet-level agency to move core financial systems to a Federal Shared Service Provider. HUD’s financial management and procurement operations are now being performed by Treasury’s Administrative Resource Center.  “This transition will enable HUD to focus its 7,500-plus workforce on serving the nation’s housing and community development needs by reducing employees’ administrative burden,” said Joe Hungate, HUD’s acting chief financial officer, in a release. “Furthermore, it will provide the framework for HUD to comply with federal financial management regulations.”

The new broader effort to “sync up people in different departments” on strategies and service-level agreements, Mader said, will be a “big leap, an organizational and cultural change.” Many will ask, “Why trust these other people to pay our organization,” he said. But the new attitude should be “Let them do that and the rest of us focus on the core mission.” The goal is not only to drive a consistent level of services, but to do it “at a price point so that they can actually take dollars and move them to the core mission.”

Such a massive change can be made only “incrementally, when you can prove what can do,” added Mader, who disparaged the term “overhead” in favor of “mission support functions.” He predicted agencies will move beyond sharing financial management, acquisition and travel services and eventually tackle the growing problem of cyber-threats and the government’s massive grants program, which he called a “major” opportunity.

“This is good government, not policy--it’s not R’s and D’s,” Mader said. “We need to be at a place when the new administration comes in and we can we can hand off a strategy they can embrace.” OMB also plans to use shared services strategies in proposing funding hikes and legislative changes to modernize the systems when it prepares the president’s fiscal 2017 budget in the next few months.

“We have to take this now or it’s not sustainable,” he warned. “We can get through 2016 but not afterward.” He announced OMB’s intention to move the entire government to electronic payments by 2018.

Mader credited the George W. Bush administration’s 2002 “lines of business” effort as an antecedent to the new shared services push, while also acknowledging guidance from the National Academy of Public Administration, the Partnership for Public Service, ACT-IAC, the Association of Government Accountants and private accounting firms.

GSA chief Denise Turner Roth appeared with Mader to stress her agency’s full commitment to boosting shared services. “It’s important that we not only host the office but that we have accountability for its success,” she said. “It’s an opportunity for GSA to really own” shared services as part of its mission as an administrative services office.

Ellen Herbst, chief financial officer at the Commerce Department, which has been implementing shared services for a year, said it is important to create a “healthy ecosystem of capability and capacity” for providers and a healthy demand side. “The path we’re on now is not sustainable without shared services,” she said, praising the “increasing maturity of the discussion.”

Dave Lebryk, the fiscal assistant Treasury secretary working with OMB on the new governance approach, said the board “will help define what collaboration will be like, with best practices.”

Angela Bailey, chief operating officer of the Office of Personnel Management, called the governance structure “long overdue. The process shows there’s a logistical tail to these policies,” which is why the chief officer councils will be involved in providing diverse perspectives on required technical changes.

Several private-sector specialists were on hand to comment on the administration’s shared services push. John Marshall, founder and CEO of the Shared Services Leadership Coalition, said in a statement, “What Dave Mader announced today is a milestone for shared services, and it’s directly in line with the future vision that’s captured the imagination of the industry and good government communities. He’s putting in place fundamental building blocks of a solid foundation for long-term modernization.” New legislation, however, is essential, Marshall added. “We can seize the moment if stakeholders can keep pulling together and convince Congress that good government is good politics.”    

Bill Beyer, a principal with Deloitte Consulting LLP, said OMB’s “first steps” should go further. ““For this structure to be effective, OMB should consider a shift from a focus on governance and technology services sharing to a commercial model,” he said. This model should include “updated business processes, consolidation, flexibility for capital investments for Federal Shared Services Providers, emphasis on multifunctional shared services, and incentives and penalties to push agencies into considering shared services,” he added.

(Image via  / Shutterstock.com)

NEXT STORY: FCC Slashes Prison Phone Rates

X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.