Clare Martorana says FITARA scorecard should retain CIO reporting relationship metric
Federal chief information officer Clare Martorana Friday pushed for the retention of CIO reporting relationship metrics within the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act scorecard.
Giving evidence during a federal IT modernization House Subcommittee on Government Operations hearing Friday morning, she highlighted the role the scorecard has played in codifying the authority of CIOs within the c-suite of federal government departments.
“[W]e have found that agency CIOs must also have a voice as strategic executive ‘C-suite’ partners to ensure the cybersecurity posture of the agency is strong and the agency is on an accelerated path to IT modernization. We therefore recommend that the CIO Reporting Relationship metric be retained in the FITARA Scorecard,” she said in evidence to lawmakers.
Currently, the scorecard includes a “CIO direct reporting” component, which assesses how much real authority agencies give to their IT leaders. It is intended to give visibility of the ease with which CIOs can make their views heard to the head or deputy head of their respective government department.
Martorana’s comments come amid a debate among technologists and lawmakers over what information should be included within the FITARA biannual scorecards. Earlier this year, grades of eight agencies fell following a revision of the methodology used to assess federal government departments’ IT modernization progress as part of the scorecard.
The agencies whose scorecard grades decreased were the departments of Commerce, Defense, Homeland Security, Transportation, and Treasury; Environmental Protection Agency; National Science Foundation; and Office of Personnel Management.
The FITARA scorecard has also ensures agencies used IT portfolio management tool PortfolioStat to achieve best possible value for taxpayers.
PorfolioStat, which was launched by the Office of Management and Budget in 2012, is a tool used by agencies to assess the current maturity of their IT portfolios and eliminate duplication across their organizations.
