Role of the CIO in Electronic Government- USA

1
Role of the CIO in Electronic Government- USA

• Alisoun Moore
• Chief Information Officer
• Montgomery County, Maryland

2
Advent of Net-centric and Info-centric World
Transformed ICT Role in Government

• ICT became strategic to organization
• No longer relegated to back room data centers
• Expensive for organizations to implement
• Considered critical to meeting mission of
  organization
• Electronic government allowed direct service to
  citizens
• Old data center director role inadequate to meet
  technology revolution
• Often buried in organization
• Not strategic tasked with keeping things
  running not implementing
• Often became an impediment to progress
• Creation of CIO
• Strategic focus on ICT
• Senior manager, member of senior team
• Critical to for strategic direction of
  organization and implementation of ICT for entire
  organization

3
U.S. Established CIO Position and Management

• Technology Importance - Government agencies use
  technology to deliver services
• Internal Revenue Service
• Department of Defense
• Health and Human Services
• U.S. Recognized special role of CIO as a senior
  manager in charge of technology for agencies
• Codified role in Information Technology Reform
  Act of 1996 (Clinger-Cohen Act)
• Requires all agencies to have a CIO at senior
  management level
• U.S. Recognized importance of electronic
  government and inter-agency management of ICT
• Codified in E-Government Act of 2002
• Centralized e-government office in OMB
• Established an Administrator of Electronic
  Government

4
CIO Role Easier said than done

• CIOs have technical expertise in information and
  technology management, but also are leaders in
  management and organizational change
• Serves as a critical member of senior management
  team a trusted partner much like CFO, COO, etc.
• CIOs needed to professionally develop and
  implement technology for an agency in a
  cost-effective way
• Always a tension between centralized and
  decentralized technology development between
  centralized authority versus business units
  need both!
• CIOs must be trusted and skilled in working
  within their organizations to effect change
  therefore need support of agency head and senior
  management team
• Electronic Government requires inter-agency
  collaboration and planning this is a new role
  for CIOs

5
Some Results of Strategic ICT Leadership

• 53 million Americans filed their taxes on-line
  last year and the IRS exceeded the figure this
  year
• IRS closed 2 regional centers
• Refocused personnel to enforcement
• SECs EDGAR system receives, processes, and
  disseminates to the public between 12 and 16
  million pages of information annually from over
  28,000 corporate, investment companies, and
  individual filers