The Biden-Harris administration’s recently released vision statement for the President’s Management Agenda (PMA) establishes goals to overhaul how the government recruits and retains its workforce, harnesses technology to provide citizens with better digital services, and undertakes acquisitions in a way that provides advantages to the domestic economy.
Jason Miller, Deputy Director for Management at the Office of Management and Budget, stated that the goals laid out in the PMA vision are heavily reliant on improving the Federal government’s use of technology.
“Technology is the enabler across the entirety of this agenda,” Miller told reporters during a press briefing on the PMA vision, “both powering our personnel systems and making sure we have the right tech talent inside the Federal government strengthening our delivery systems. One piece of that, that is part of OMB, is the U.S. Digital Service, which we’ve been ramping up under this administration, and supporting efforts across the board, across our priorities,” he said.
Additionally, Federal CIO Clare Martorana has cited the need for increased technology reliance in several past public addresses. She has called for the government to better harness technology and provide a seamless and secure customer experience to the American people. “Government interacts with millions of people every single day,” she said, “we need to put ourselves in our customers’ shoes.”
The PMA vision calls for the government to deliver “excellent, equitable, and secure Federal services and customer experience” and states three strategies focused towards those goals.
- Improving service design, digital products, and customer-experience management of Federal High-Impact Service Providers by reducing customer burden, addressing inequities, and streamlining processes
- Building and managing government service delivery for “key life experiences” that cut across Federal agencies
- Prioritizing the development of Federal shared products, services, and standards that enable simple, seamless, and secure customer experiences across High Impact Service Providers
When asked about support and funding needed for Federal agencies to help make effective tech-driven citizen service improvements, Miller replied, “undoubtedly, as we move forward on all those, we’re going to be looking at the FY 2023 budget for … incremental resources to deliver on the citizen service priority. We do have a number of resources available for additional funding, including Technology Modernization Fund (TMF) investments,” Miller said.