Washington, D.C. - The U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) released its report on existing governmentwide information technology (IT) training for federal employees, providing recommendations for improving IT training so the federal work force has the necessary skills to succeed in the new century.

"It is crucial to the success of government that its work force has the information technology skills necessary to function efficiently," OPM Director Kay Coles James stated. "By continually updating and improving the federal work force's IT skills, we are ensuring the effectiveness of government operations so critical in this new era."

"We must do everything possible to ensure a federal work force skilled in all areas of information technology," stated James. "By creating a governmentwide IT framework using OPM-established core competencies, we are raising the bar for federal IT training and education."  

The report reviews and assesses the adequacy of existing governmentwide IT training programs in terms of their capability to address the Clinger-Cohen core competencies, identifies and discusses costs, and makes recommendations for using the IT Exchange Program to support governmentwide IT training. The report also recommends linking the existing governmentwide IT training programs into a consolidated governmentwide IT training framework which will improve the federal government's capacity to effectively manage the federal IT work force through this centralized training framework.

The Clinger-Cohen core competencies were developed in 1997 by the Federal Chief Information Officers' Council to serve as a baseline for use by government agencies in complying with the Information Technology Management Reform Act of 1996, which requires agencies to establish their knowledge and skill requirements and assess the degree to which existing staff meet those requirements.

The Clinger-Cohen competencies are:

• Policy and Organizational
• Leadership/Managerial
• Process/Change Management
• Information Resources Strategy and Planning
• Performance Assessment: Models and Methods
• Project/Program Management
• Capital Planning and Investment Assessment
• Acquisition
• E-Government/Electronic Business/Electronic Commerce
• IT Security/Information Assurance
• Technical
• Desktop Technology Tools

In addition to the core competencies outlined in Clinger-Cohen, OPM conducted a study in 2000 of the federal IT work force and identified IT competencies for the IT Management occupational series and parenthetical specialty titles.

These two sources of competency information represent the critical competencies for the federal IT work force and are the evaluative basis for the report in determining the adequacy of the existing IT programs to address these competencies. To ensure the maximum benefit of both the Clinger-Cohen and OPM IT competencies, OPM has linked the Clinger-Cohen core competencies to the OPM IT competencies.