Federal agencies are advancing their IT systems just enough to get a passing grade from their employees, according to a recent survey. However, those employees believe any progress being made is an effort to meet mandates rather than a desire to innovate using digital tools.
On average, feds gave their agencies a C-plus for effort in adopting the Digital Government Strategy outlined by the administration in 2012, which included focus areas to improve digital services offered to the public.
The survey conducted by Acquia and Government Business Council polled 357 federal employees representing 30 agencies and the full spectrum of seniority, with two-thirds identifying as GS/GM-13 or above.
Some 35 percent of respondents rated their federal agency as “unsatisfactory” or “poor” in implementing new technologies, with only 11 percent describing their agency as “excellent.”
Maybe more telling, about 42 percent said IT advancement was motivated by compliance, rather than mission-directed innovation. Cost efficiency, productivity and better quality of service for customers were second through fourth on the list.
“Fewer than 12 percent ranked [innovation] as one of the top three factors driving efforts in their agency, the lowest of all potential answer choices,” the report stated.
The areas that received the most focus did so because they were the easiest to track and report progress on, analysts suggested.
“Agency progress in areas managing risk (i.e., security and privacy) or direct cost savings (e.g., consolidating duplicative IT systems) is generally farther along than efforts to provide better customer service or data accessibility,” the report noted, suggesting this is “possibly because of the difficulty of measuring return on investment.”
More heartening, security was a priority focus for almost 90 percent of respondents, while 88 percent said their agency is serious about the privacy of user data.
Other interesting findings:
■56 percent of respondents “agree” or “strongly agree” that their agency attempts to make data open and easily accessible;
■ 40 percent said their agency’s data are publicly searchable;
■ 60 percent “agree” or “strongly agree” that their agency works internally to eliminate duplicative services;
■ Only 42 percent gave the same response for working with other agencies to achieve the same result;
■ 52 percent said their agency uses social media effectively;
■ 56 percent said their agency does not gauge user satisfaction with digital services;
■ 69 percent believed data stored in a cloud was appropriately secure; and
■ 63 percent cited budgets as a major impediment, the single most-identified challenge.
