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An Executive Guide to Practical Transparency: Applying Exchange Networks for Mission Results
The need to collect, exchange, and analyze large amounts of data — about health records, environmental measurements, and stimulus spending, for example — is transforming the way government works. And in the future, agencies will rely even more on information exchange as a means of accomplishing America’s business. The Environmental Protection Agency is on the forefront of tackling this challenge through the EPA Exchange Network. The network is a partnership among states, tribes, and the EPA that is revolutionizing environmental information sharing. This approach provides real-time access to high-quality data while saving time, resources, and money for partner states, tribes, and territories.
At our December 10 webinar, "Practical Transparency: Applying Exchange Networks for Mission Results," Lisa Schlosser, Director of the EPA Office of Information Collection, kicked off an insightful discussion on the development and use of information exchange networks. This engaging discussion provided lessons learned from the EPA’s Environmental Exchange Network and FederalReporting.gov. It also outlined how other agencies and states can improve mission delivery and better meet the mandates of the new Open Government Directive by leveraging EPA's model.
Our executive guide provides background and key takeaways from the discussion, as well as additional on-line information and resources. You’ll also find a link to the archived webinar so you can hear the entire discussion.
Please also put us to work for you collecting the latest news about collaborative government. Just sign up to receive the Collaborative Government Today e-newsletter from the CGI Initiative. Every day, we cull the best reports, newest developments, smartest commentary, breaking leadership announcements, webcasts and podcasts about data sharing, transparency and collaborative government. Get your copy here:
To view the December 10 webinar in archives, please click here.
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New Publication:
Grants and the Recovery Act: Classic Challenges, New Dilemmas, and Best Practices
Almost lost in the directives, memoranda, news coverage, and Web reporting about the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) is the huge role federal grants will play in the success of the stimulus. Grants to state and local governments comprise more than a third of the Recovery Act’s $787 billion in spending. The 95 grant programs included in the Act will provide $287 billion.
Even less attention has been paid to the capacity of federal agencies, states and local governments to manage grant funding of this magnitude. That is why the CGI Initiative for Collaborative Government is particularly proud to bring you this report by grants management expert Dr. Timothy J. Conlan, professor of Government and Politics in the Department of Public and International Affairs at George Mason University. Dr. Conlan’s long experience as both a practitioner and an analyst in the grant-making field make him an especially acute observer of this area at this critical juncture when the Recovery Act is reshaping the federal grant system.
In this report, Dr. Conlan offers five recommendations to help address the challenges intensified by the Recovery Act in distribution, expenditure, and administration of federal grants. He emphasizes the need to balance competing objectives in five key areas: speed and program effectiveness, accountability and flexibility, need and capacity, specialization and coordination, and transparency and sustainability.
Click here to view a copy of this report.
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Practical Transparency: Applying Exchange Networks for Mission Results
The need to collect, exchange, and analyze large amounts of data — about health records, environmental measurements, and stimulus spending, for example — is transforming the way government works. And in the future, agencies will rely even more on information exchange as a means of accomplishing America’s business.
The Environmental Protection Agency is on the forefront of tackling this challenge through the EPA Exchange Network. The network is a partnership among states, tribes, and the EPA that is revolutionizing environmental information sharing. This approach provides real-time access to high-quality data while saving time, resources, and money for partner states, tribes, and territories.
On Thursday, December 10, at 2 p.m. ET, Lisa Schlosser, Director of EPA’s Office of Information Collection, will join Andrew McLauchlin, Director of the CGI Initiative for Collaborative Government, for "Practical Transparency: Applying Exchange Networks for Mission Results." This complimentary webinar, produced by the CGI Initiative in partnership with Government Executive magazine, promises to be a visionary discussion of lessons learned from the EPA’s Environmental Exchange Network. Schlosser will share the story of the network and outline how other agencies and states can improve mission delivery by leveraging the EPA model.
To register for this webinar, please click here.
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An Executive Guide to Collaborative Leadership: The Recovery Act and Beyond
What happens when your budget suddenly balloons 260 percent? What about when such a huge surge in funding isn’t spread evenly across the department, but focused on just a few programs, some of them tiny, and funds need to be delivered almost immediately under unprecedented scrutiny? The Energy Department experienced all of this and more via the Recovery Act. At our Nov. 12 webinar, “Collaborative Leadership: The Recovery Act and Beyond," Energy Department Deputy Chief Financial Officer Owen Barwell kicked off a detailed discussion about the new forms of collaboration and data-sharing the Department used to respond to Recovery Act challenges. Barwell and his colleagues, Jay Hoffman, Director of Policy Analysis and Evaluation and Howard Dickenson, Assistant Director for Recovery Act Operations at PA&E, touched on a variety of intriguing methods and approaches that Energy adopted, including the two-page project operation plan, building Recovery Act risk management into ongoing operations, making Recovery Act response the basis for “the new normal” in budgeting and strategic planning, and a host of others.
Our executive guide provides background and key takeaways from the discussion, as well as on-line resources and contact information for all the featured speakers. You’ll also find a link to the archived webinar so you can hear the entire discussion.
Here, you’ll find information about our upcoming Dec. 10 webinar, “Practical Transparency: Applying Exchange Networks for Mission Results.”
And now, you can put us to work for you collecting the latest news about collaborative government. Just sign up to receive the Collaborative Government Today e-newsletter from the CGI Initiative. Every day, we collect the best reports, newest developments, smartest commentary, breaking leadership announcements, webcasts and podcasts about data sharing, transparency and collaborative government. Get your copy here:
To view the November 12 webinar in archives, please click here.
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An Executive Guide to Making Data Public, Meaningful and Effective
During our first webinar, on October 29, “Making Data Public, Meaningful and Effective,” former EPA CIO Molly O’Neill began a fascinating dialogue with leaders in government at all levels about the intricacies of sharing data with trusted partners and with the public. Our executive guide provides all of her key points, as well as a treasure trove of on-line resources, and a seven-minute video interview of O’Neill delving deeper into data sharing, and other helpful examples and tips. You’ll also find a link to the archived webinar so you can hear the entire discussion.
Here, you’ll also find information about our two upcoming webinars “Collaborative Leadership: The Recovery Act and Beyond” and “Practical Transparency: Applying Exchange Networks for Mission Results.”
And beginning today, you can have us collect all the latest news about collaborative government for you! Just sign up to receive the Collaborative Government Today e-newsletters from the CGI Initiative. Every day, we collect the best reports, newest developments, smartest commentary, breaking leadership announcements, webcasts and podcasts about data sharing, transparency and collaborative government.
To view the October 29 webinar in archives, please click here.
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Tackling Improper Payments with Reduced Risk and Higher Payback |
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By Andrew McLauchlin, Director, CGI Initiative for Collaborative Government
October 22, 2009
Congratulations to Danny Werfel, who was confirmed Oct. 13 as the new controller of OMB’s Office of Federal Financial Management (OFFM). Back in July, when Werfel was nominated, OMB Director Peter R. Orszag pointed out that Werfel will work closely with Deputy Director for Management Jeff Zients to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the federal government. The controller also coordinates policy on financial reporting, audits, internal controls, fraud and error reduction, and grants management.
During his confirmation hearing, Werfel set his course. The first item on his list of key areas and priorities was eliminating improper payments. “The amount of remaining improper payments on the government’s books is staggering and must be corrected,” he testified.
Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE), who presided over the hearing, also focused heavily on improper payments. It was an appropriate focus, especially during this era of increased government spending to relieve national economic distress. With the Recovery Act, Congress made spending accountability and transparency critical factors in evaluating the success or failure of economic stimulus.
According to Carper, an important step in overcoming improper payments is increasing the level of transparency to “prevent mistakes before they happen.” Another key step is aggressively recovering misspent funds, he said. Werfel said he will address these goals in part by taking advantage of low-risk, low-cost technologies and processes emerging from the private sector to support transaction processing and reporting.
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Using Government Data to Improve Citizen Services |
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By Andrew McLauchlin, Director, CGI Initiative for Collaborative Government
October 12, 2009
Making government data available to citizens has emerged as a major priority for federal agencies, given the recent launch of data-driven sites like Data.gov and the IT Dashboard, and the highly anticipated government transparency directive expected to be released soon. Departments and agencies are under heavy pressure to become more transparent, participatory, and collaborative.
The Obama administration is committed to releasing data that relates to public policy issues, including health care, energy, and education. The federal government has a vast amount of data stored in disparate systems across agencies operating within these policy areas. Making this data available for public use is an important first step for agencies to drive innovation, improve transparency and accountability, and better serve the citizens that depend on their services.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) offers a model of the use of Web 2.0 tools to expose data in context and in useful fashion to enable the public to make better decisions to improve their lives. CMS is practicing transparency and collaboration with stakeholders and the public to enable Americans to participate far more effectively in their own health care by making better-informed decisions about health care options.
Online tools available through the Medicare.gov Web sites not only make government data accessible, but do so in a user friendly format. For example, the Hospital Compare and Nursing Home Compare tools “mash up” geographical data from Google maps with health care provider quality-of-care information collected by CMS. Thus, users can locate and assess health care facilities near them. The Home Health Compare and Dialysis Facilities tools also allow beneficiaries to evaluate service providers based on quality measures.
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Sustaining High-Quality Jobs Beyond the Recovery Act |
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By Andrew McLauchlin, Director, CGI Initiative for Collaborative Government
October 7, 2009
One of the questions bubbling among federal, state, and local government leaders and observers interested in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is: How can we sustain jobs over the long term after the stimulus money runs out?
One approach these leaders can consider is to invest in high-quality jobs in the communities that most need them. An example already under way is the creation of information technology centers of excellence in rural and disadvantaged regions. In a 2008 research report “Creating Jobs in America: Case Studies in Local Economic Development.” published by the CGI Initiative, George Mason University’s Dr. Darrene Hackler describes two examples of this approach in Russell County, Va., and Northeast Pennsylvania.
In another 2008 report the CGI Initiative published, Dr. Lester Salamon, Director of the Center for Civil Society Studies at Johns Hopkins University, recommended expanding on this model. He advocated “the creation of a National Technology Initiative to promote the development of skilled, technology-oriented jobs in disadvantaged American communities.” His recommendation was based on the need to build up U.S. information technology expertise as a matter of national security, as well as the imperative to create high-quality U.S. jobs.
To address this challenge, Dr. Salamon called for the creation of “at least a dozen economically competitive centers of information technology in disadvantaged rural and urban areas of the United States over the next 10 years, with similar objectives possible in other technology areas.”
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