Treasury
Inspector General for Tax Administration
Office of Audit
THE
Issued on September 12, 2008
Highlights
Highlights of
Report Number: 2008-20-161 to the
Internal Revenue Service Chief Information Officer.
IMPACT ON TAXPAYERS
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS)
began an Enterprise Systems Management (ESM) initiative to improve the
effectiveness and efficiency of managing computer systems operations and the
availability of business systems services on an enterprise-wide basis. By
improving management practices and controls, this initiative could make better use
of taxpayer dollars by reducing the frequency and duration of computer system
outages, improve service availability for customers, and reduce IRS costs
associated with owning and managing software tools. The initiative is
making progress toward accomplishing its goals. However, the ESM initiative incurred schedule slippage and
$491,952 in additional costs.
WHY TIGTA DID THE AUDIT
This
audit was initiated to assess the efficiency and effectiveness of the ESM
organization implementation and strategy.
The overall strategic direction for the ESM organization is to be an
enterprise-level organization with centralized control over ESM software tools
and processes. To accomplish this
strategy, the following three ESM projects were established: End-to-End Business Systems Monitoring
Project; Tools Centralization and Consolidation Project; and Organization and
Operations Design Project.
WHAT
TIGTA FOUND
TIGTA found that
funding for contractor support was not always provided in a timely manner. Funding for contractor support lapsed in July
2007 and a subsequent contract was not awarded until August 29, 2007. Management commented that it took
approximately 2 months to get the new contractors familiar with the work
previously completed, resulting in $491,952 in additional costs.
Project
governance also needed improvement. It
was not clear which organization was responsible for overseeing the ESM
projects. In addition, significant ESM
project decisions and events were not always documented. For example, the End-to-End Business Systems Monitoring Project did not have any written documentation showing the
four specific applications recommended for future work or to support who
approved the applications and when they were approved because the decisions were
verbal.
During the audit, management implemented corrective actions to address
the documentation issue.
The Tools Centralization and Consolidation Project is
collecting data on software tools within the Modernization and Information Technology Services
organization and entering the data into a database called the Tool Repository. As of April 15, 2008, the Tool Repository listed 240 tools. The numbers of licenses owned and/or used
were incomplete for 112 (47 percent) of the tools. The number of licenses owned and/or used is
not readily available or easily accessible because the IRS does not have a
database or software license tracking tool to assist in identifying and
tracking software used on its servers.
Without the ability to track software licenses and distribution, the IRS
risks paying for additional licenses when unused licenses were available for
distribution or paying for licenses that are not needed.
WHAT TIGTA RECOMMENDED
The
Chief Information Officer should ensure that 1) the ESM projects receive timely
and sufficient funding or revise the projects’ tasks, 2) the ESM projects are
governed by the Infrastructure Executive Steering Committee, 3) software tools
are acquired to track licenses of software used agency-wide on servers to track
and better evaluate software usage and related costs, and 4) all tools meeting
ESM software tool criteria are approved by the ESM organization through the IRS
Web Request Tracking System.
In
their response to the report, IRS officials agreed with the recommendations and
have taken or plan to take appropriate corrective actions.
READ THE
FULL REPORT
To view the report,
including the scope, methodology, and full IRS response, go to:
http://www.treas.gov/tigta/auditreports/2008reports/200820161fr.html.
Email Address: inquiries@tigta.treas.gov
Phone Number: 202-622-6500
Web Site:
http://www.tigta.gov