Despite the Office of Management and Budget's efforts for more than five years to increase the number of federal project managers and improve their skills, most of this effort has gone for naught, according to a new assessment.

A CIO Council Information Technology Workforce Capability Assessment issued today on the organization's Web site found that the number of respondents who said they are project managers decreased by 3.4 percent since 2004, and their proficiency in the skills necessary has remained largely unchanged.

“While there are no large gaps for personnel performing [information technology]  project management functions extensively, specific competencies within the ITPM specialty area remain of concern, such as in capital planning and investment and in project management,” the survey stated. “The largest gaps for those performing ITPM extensively and moderately are in project management software, federal enterprise architecture and earned value management.”

The 2006 survey received responses from 31,759 civilian agency IT workers, which is about 40 percent of the targeted population. The CIO Council conducted similar surveys in 2003 and 2004. It took nearly two years to analyze and issue the results.

“My first reaction was holy cow,” said Norm Lorentz, vice president at the Council for Excellence in Government and a former OMB official. “There is concern about the currency of the report. If so it's important why take so long?”

Overall, the typical IT worker is between 51 and 55 years old, has been in government more than 21 years, is a General Schedule grade 12 or higher and will be eligible to retire in 11 to 20 years.

Although project management remained stagnant, OMB’s effort to improve the workforce’s IT security capabilities has made significant progress, the organization said. The survey found certification rates at some agencies almost doubled since 2004, and skill proficiency has improved across the board for those who perform IT security or information assurance activities extensively.

The number of respondents who said they have information assurance certification since 2004 has increased by 5.9 percent — the third highest among certifications named by IT workers. Certifications in computing, at 9 percent, and network support, at 8.3 percent, increased the most.

Still, the lack of progress around project management remained the biggest surprise from the survey because of how many respondents — 43.9 percent — said they were IT project managers.