The Corporation for National and Community Service’s IT system for grant tracking needs work, according to a GAO audit.
CNCS is modernizing its IT on two levels, one to monitor grants and the other to provide more functionality for grant monitoring centered on a risk-based process.
While CNCS and the IT development contractor worked out requirements for grant monitoring, “because business needs for a risk-based monitoring process have not been determined, OIT officials and system stakeholders have not defined requirements for the second version of the future system, as intended by CNCS’s IT modernization plans,” GAO found.
CNCS IT modernization has also experienced delays. An April 2016 deadline was pushed back to September 2016, and now October 2017.
“Weaknesses in CNCS’s practices introduced risks to successful delivery of the system,” GAO noted. “In particular, the system development project schedules could not be used to track progress because they did not include actual dates when activities were started and finished. In addition, although CNCS and its contractor conducted testing according to plans, the grant monitoring system was not included in all phases of testing.”
GAO recommended that CNCS align its IT requirements with business needs, and ensure more rigorous testing.
