Federal Data Strategy Is Doomed to Fail Unless the White House Revamps It, New ITIF Report Finds

WASHINGTON—The U.S. government needs to master data governance to capitalize on rapid advances in artificial intelligence (AI). But the government’s official plan to improve how it uses data—known as the Federal Data Strategy (FDS)—suffers from a lack of leadership and fails to incorporate government-wide or agency-level mission goals, according to a new report from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF).

“The Biden administration should revive and reimagine the FDS if it hopes to execute the strategy by 2030 as originally envisioned,” said Eric Egan, a policy fellow for digital government at ITIF who wrote the report. “Government operations and public services increasingly must function digitally to meet citizens’ needs and expectations, so using data effectively is not optional; it’s essential.”

The report breaks down the FDS’s content and structure and examines problems in its implementation since its inception in 2019. ITIF finds that the strategy has a well-defined set of aspirational principles and best practices for what a mature data organization should be able to do with its data. The FDS’s largest flaw, according to the report, is that it fails to clearly incorporate the federal government’s overarching priorities and agency-level mission outcomes.

The report reveals that the FDS’s action plans, which are meant to implement the principles and practices, fail to offer precise-enough guidance for agencies or cross-agency entities to incorporate into their own data-related activities. Another problem is that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) guidance and governance around the FDS are lacking, leaving agency chief data officers (CDOs) struggling with direction and support in implementing the strategy. The report also finds that CDOs lack the resources to fully advance their own priorities, let alone the FDS.

“The FDS reads like a set of guidelines that could be applied to any organization rather than a strategy to leverage the power of data to specifically drive the federal government’s mission outcomes,” said Egan. “While OMB clearly understands there is great value in data, the federal data strategy it oversees doesn’t do enough to connect its considered data principles and practices to known mission priorities.”

To get the FDS back on track and ultimately improve how the U.S. federal government leverages data, ITIF offers five recommendations:

• OMB should amend the FDS to clearly connect the strategy’s principles and practices with both government-wide priorities and agency-level mission outcomes, including changing its approach to the annual Action Plans.
• OMB should establish a Federal CDO that will chair the Federal CDO Council and act as a critical executive in driving FDS implementation while providing support to agency CDOs.
• The Federal CDO Council should publish annual scorecards or progress trackers based on the annual Action Plans.
• OMB’s Federal Data Policy Committee (FDPC) should become fully realized as an oversight and governance body for the FDS and commit to providing critical guidance for open data and standards as soon as possible.
• Congress should provide greater funding access to agency CDOs to support delivering FDS actions and legislative requirements as well as increasing workforce and data skills development.

“The FDS is an important initiative, but it requires improvements and greater commitment from its stakeholders if it’s to truly transform how the federal government operates,” said Egan.

Read the report.