Policy briefs

GSA sets up performance office

The General Services Administration has established an office that will oversee agencywide efforts to improve performance and incorporate the President's Management Agenda into GSA's practices, the agency announced last week.

GSA Administrator Stephen Perry named Boyd Rutherford as the associate administrator of the new Office of Performance Improvement. The office will lead the implementation of the initiatives developed during the past year when GSA evaluated its management processes, including a study performed by Accenture to determine the impact of overlap between the agency's two contracting services.

After the evaluation, GSA set six agencywide strategic goals for performance improvement, closely mirroring the goals of the President's Management Agenda.

E-Authentication RFI released

GSA last week released a request for information for the proposed governmentwide gateway to authenticate users for e-government services.

GSA is the lead agency on the e-Authentication initiative, one of 24 cross-agency initiatives overseen by the Office of Management and Budget as part of the President's Management Agenda. The gateway would consolidate the validation of multiple levels of authentication — such as a password or digital certificate — through a single interface that could be used to access other cross-agency services.

The RFI, released July 12, outlines nine areas where the GSA team wants input from industry on the best solution to meet the government's needs. The team is looking for advice on matters ranging from potential acquisition strategies and types of credentials to privacy concerns and Web technologies.

Responses to the RFI are due by Aug. 8 and must address all nine areas.