FITARA 8.0 was released in June 2019 communicating a snapshot of the current state of compliance with IT modernization in each of the 24 largest government agencies. For those who require a refresher, FITARA (Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act) was passed in 2014 to modernize the federal government’s IT. Since then, the scorecard has been released every six months as a joint effort between the House Committee on Oversight and Reform and the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

The latest installment reveals similar scores for most agencies as compared to the last scorecard – however with a major change in grading that involves the addition of one category and the removal of another. A new category called “Cybersecurity” has been added, and the “Data Center Optimization Initiative” (DCOI) category was removed. Despite the change in grading, overall scores remained mostly stable. Five agencies saw their overall scores go up, five agencies received a lower score, and the remaining fourteen agencies kept the same score. The biggest change in score appeared to come from NASA, which dropped from a B+ to a D-.

Specifically, in the category that’s most relevant to the SLM Council – Software Licensing – we see a significant improvement in the scores of HUD and Treasury. With the support of SIE Consulting Group, through the GSA Software License Management as a Service (SLMS) and Centers of Excellence (COE) programs, these two Agencies moved their scores go from an F to an A. The SLMS and COE programs have achieved these improvements by helping the Agencies cut unnecessary software license spending and implement controls on the software license management lifecycle.

 

Summary of FITARA 8.0

  1. The Software Licensing category saw only improvements, with HUD and Treasury jumping from F to A, with the support of SIE Consulting Group, through the GSA SLMS and COE programs.
  2. Two major grading changes were implemented: the addition of a Cybersecurity category and removal of the DCOI category.
  3. Overall scores remained stable – the majority remained unchanged, while the number of increased scores equaled the number of decreased scores.