Federal chief information officers should have more responsibility, says the Office of Management and Budget in an Aug. 8 memo.

The memo, signed by OMB Director Jack Lew, outlines four areas where agency CIOs should have a lead role: governance, commodity IT, program management and information security. Lew doesn't cite legislation or an executive order that would change the role of the CIO as currently implement in federal agencies, but he does point to the 25 point plan for reforming IT that OMB released in December 2010.

The plan, he says, calls for federal CIOs to drive agencies' IT investment review process through TechStat meetings and for them to "have responsibility over the entire IT portfolio for an agency." What Lew means by "responsibility," he doesn't say--for example, whether it means that an agency CIO must have direct control over the IT spend or whether an agency CIO's review of proposed spending for compliance with an agency enterprise architecture is a sufficient degree of responsibility.

When it comes to commodity IT, the memo says agency CIOs shall eliminate duplication across agency components in spending areas such as data centers, networks, cybersecurity, web infrastructure and business systems.

As for program management, Lew says agency CIOs shall identify, recruit and hire their own IT program managers. They shall also conduct a formal performance evaluation of component CIOs. "CIOs will be held accountable for the performance of IT program managers," the memo adds (without saying how that accountability will be enforced).

In the area of information security, Lew says agency CIOs shall have authority and primary responsibility for an agency-wide cybersecurity program that is supported by CyberStat session run by the Homeland Security Department.

For more:
- download the OMB memo, 11-29 (.pdf)

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