Summary: Pursuant to an Office of Management and Budget (OMB) request, GAO commented on proposed changes to OMB Circular A-130. GAO found that: (1) the proposed changes are positive steps to ensure more effective information resources management (IRM) governmentwide; (2) the changes include its recommendations for improving agencies' IRM practices; (3) it agrees with the provision for agencies to apply information technology to reengineer their mission processes rather than automating existing ones, but the reengineering effort should consider processes that extend across boundaries of subcomponents, agencies, and government levels and coincide with the flow of information; (4) OMB should require agencies to develop strategic business and IRM plans and information on service delivery improvements or reduced costs before proceeding with computer infrastructure improvements; (5) agencies should manage and control their information management and technology investments at the strategic and project levels and update their cost benefit analyses as performance measures are established; (6) the circular should clearly define the roles and responsibilities for managing information and information technology; (7) OMB should give sufficient attention to agencywide system architectures; and (8) OMB needs to broaden its definition of the term "user" to include any persons or organizations that use information generated by an agency information system.
