Subject: [NEXTEL-1] GAO: Project Safecom Making Limited Progress

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 17 Apr 2004 22:30:51 -0400

GAO: Project Safecom Making Limited Progress

By Eric Chabrow
April 16, 2004

The investigative arm of Congress says the project is making
only limited progress in improving communications among first
responders in government.

One of the Bush administration's E-government initiatives,
Project Safecom, is making very limited progress in addressing
its goal of improving communications among first responders at
all levels of government, the General Accounting Office said in
a report released Friday.

Highlights of the Report:
http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d04494high.pdf

Report (GAO-04-494)
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d04494.pdf

The White House Office of Management and Budget's E-government
objectives of improving operating efficiency and achieving budgetary
savings also have been largely stymied by the project, which is headed
by the Department of Homeland Security, the GAO report said.

The GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, cites two main reasons
for the project's limited progress:

lack of consistent executive commitment and support and an
inadequate level of interagency cooperation.

In its 2-1/2-year history, Project Safecom has had four management
teams in three different agencies. Though the current team is laying
the foundation for future interoperability - including establishing a
governance structure that emphasizes collaboration with stakeholders
and developing guidance for making grants that can be used to
encourage public-safety agencies to plan for interoperability - it has
yet to reach written agreements with several major stakeholders on
their roles in the project or establish a stable funding mechanism, the
GAO said. The major stakeholders include the departments of Agriculture,
Defense, Energy, Health and Human Services, Justice, and Interior.

"Until these shortcomings are addressed, the ability of Project Safecom
to deliver on its promise of improved interoperability and better
response
to emergencies will remain in doubt," Linda Koontz, GAO's director of
information management issues, wrote in the 27-page report.

The agency recommended that Homeland Security direct its undersecretary
for science and technology to complete agreements with the project's
federal and nonfederal stakeholders that define how they will contribute
to
Safecom and measure program progress. Homeland Security, commenting
on a draft of this report, noted that draft agreements have been sent to
all
of the project's federal funding partners.

http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=18901906

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