A group of federal and private-sector experts on the government’s grant-making functions are trying to jump-start the development of data standards for back-end systems.
The National Grants Partnership, a public-private group working on grants administration issues, wants to use the success of the Grants.gov e-government project as a model for the government to create a set of data elements that can be used by all grant-making agencies.
“Grants.gov gave agencies a method to standardize how they publish grant opportunities and receive applications,” said David Cassidy, a vice president of Turner Consulting Group Inc. of Washington and co-chairman of the NGP White Paper Series. “The other major parts of the grant process should benefit from similar efforts instead of the stovepiped way it has developed over the years.”
NGP issued a white paper addressing in detail this and a host of other issues this summer, after the Government Accountability Office released a critical report on the lack of coordination among agency organizations.
NGP also hopes the white paper revives the Grants Management Line of Business Task Force, which has been dormant since January. The Grants LOB is one of five led by the Office of Management and Budget. Last year, under OMB comptroller Linda Springer, who left in January, the task force announced it would take a consortium approach, where one agency would act as the lead with others connecting to its hardware and software.
But since Springer left, the project has all but stopped, amid a lack of coordination among the task force, Grants.gov and the group implementing the Federal Financial Assistance Management Improvement Act of 1999.
Karen Evans, OMB’s administrator for e-government and IT, said the LOB task force is working with the newly established Chief Financial Officers Council Grants Committee on policy and with Grants.gov on technology issues.
Evans added that the Grants Executive Board, which oversees Grants.gov, also will serve an advisory role for the line of business.
“Direct coordination with these two governing bodies will better ensure consistent policy, efficient architecture and clear goals for individual agencies, as well as for the three grant-related initiatives,” Evans said.
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