PSC Welcomes Publication of White House Federal IT Modernization Report 

December 15, 2017

Arlington, V.A (Dec. 15, 2017)—The Professional Services Council (PSC) welcomed publication of the White House “Report to the President on IT Modernization,” which sets a strategic vision and outlines steps to upgrade outdated technology systems and strengthen cybersecurity across the federal government.  The final report released Wednesday incorporates recommendations from PSC related to transitioning to cloud computing, legacy IT replacement, and expanding shared services. 

“PSC commends the Trump administration’s commitment to bringing more innovation into government. The report released this week sets an important strategic vision for modernizing and securing federal IT systems,” said Kevin Cummins, PSC vice president of technology. “We are encouraged that the White House publicly released a draft report and incorporated stakeholder feedback into the final version We look forward to working with the American Technology Council (ATC) as it seeks to amplify these efforts moving forward.” 

In a September letter to Chris Liddell, the director of the White House ATC, PSC responded to a request for feedback from industry on its Aug. 30 draft report. As the voice of the government technology and professional services industry, PSC’s recommendations focused on leveraging commercial best practices to modernize government technology. 

The final report includes recommendations to accelerate the adoption of cloud computing, improve cybersecurity and expand the use of shared services. Notably, the final White House report does not include an earlier draft recommendation to halt all upcoming procurements related to legacy systems, which PSC argued would not be feasible given the large amount of legacy IT still in use across the federal government. The final report also emphasizes that the ATC will amplify the efforts outlined in the report with additional implementation-level actions across government.

“The federal government today has a tremendous opportunity to increase access innovation from the best ideas and solutions that the private sector has to offer,” Cummins continued. “The publication of the IT modernization report follows the president’s Tuesday signing of the National Defense Authorization Act, which includes the Modernizing Government Technology Act, a law PSC supports as a meaningful step to help agencies improve cybersecurity and deliver better results at better value to taxpayers.”
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Media Contact: 
Ashlei Stevens
Director, Media Relations
703.875.8974 
stevens@pscouncil.org 
 
About PSC: PSC is the voice of the government technology and professional services industry. PSC’s more than 400 member companies represent small, medium and large businesses that provide federal agencies with services of all kinds, including information technology, engineering, logistics, facilities management, operations and maintenance, consulting, international development, scientific, social, environmental services, and more. Together, the trade association’s members employ hundreds of thousands of Americans in all 50 states. Follow PSC on Twitter @PSCSpeaks. To learn more, visit www.pscouncil.org.