Daniels creates e-government task force

Office of Management and Budget Director Mitch Daniels has created an interagency task force to coordinate President Bush's e-government agenda. Daniels last week asked the heads of all executive departments and agencies to choose "a senior e-government leader" to represent them on the e-government task force, which will be headed by Mark Forman, associate director for information technology and e-government at OMB. The task force will identify "high payoff e-government opportunities and set in motion a transformation of government around customer needs," Daniels said in a July 18 memorandum. Daniels said the task force will start meeting later this month for five to six weeks to "define an action plan and a road map." Forman will act as the project executive and report to Daniels and an executive steering committee of unidentified officials. E-government is one of the five key elements of President Bush's management and performance plan. The President's budget calls for a $100 million interagency e-government fund to be used over the next three years. The task force grew out of the President's e-government budget initiatives, Daniels said, and will identify needed actions in four areas. First, the task force will find ways to deploy "one-stop" shops for citizens, including single points of access to government services. Second, it will aim to serve businesses by eliminating redundancies in reporting requirements. Third, the group will search for ways to ease federal reporting requirements on states. Fourth, it will identify ways to improve internal government efficiency by reducing administrative costs and using e-business best practices in areas such as financial, supply chain and knowledge management, Daniels said. Daniels said the task force would be modeled after private sector initiatives "to identify applications of Internet technologies to reform the way our organizations do business."