Homeland Security: Guidance from Operations Directorate Will	 
Enhance Collaboration among Departmental Operations Centers	 
(20-JUN-07, GAO-07-683T).					 
                                                                 
This testimony summarizes GAO's October 2006 report on the	 
Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) operations		 
centers--centers run by three DHS components and operating 24	 
hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year to conduct monitoring
and surveillance activities of potential terrorist activities and
other crises. Specifically, GAO assessed the extent to which the 
centers implemented key practices GAO's work has shown will	 
enhance and sustain collaboration. In addition, GAO is aware of  
Congress's concerns about the performance of certain DHS	 
components with regard to situational awareness during Hurricane 
Katrina, and the recent efforts made in response to these	 
concerns identified in hurricane after-action studies and	 
reports. Because these efforts to some extent affect DHS's	 
response to the recommendations made in GAO's previous report,	 
this testimony briefly describes some of the steps DHS reported  
that it has taken to address situational awareness problems	 
Katrina exposed. However, because these actions are relatively	 
new, it is too early to assess how well they are being		 
implemented.							 
-------------------------Indexing Terms------------------------- 
REPORTNUM:   GAO-07-683T					        
    ACCNO:   A71047						        
  TITLE:     Homeland Security: Guidance from Operations Directorate  
Will Enhance Collaboration among Departmental Operations Centers 
     DATE:   06/20/2007 
  SUBJECT:   Accountability					 
	     Agency missions					 
	     Counterterrorism					 
	     Federal agencies					 
	     Homeland security					 
	     Hurricane Katrina					 
	     Information management				 
	     Interagency relations				 
	     Monitoring 					 
	     Program evaluation 				 
	     Reporting requirements				 
	     Strategic planning 				 
	     Terrorism						 
	     Terrorists 					 
	     Intelligence gathering operations			 
	     Policies and procedures				 
	     Program coordination				 

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GAO-07-683T

   

     * [1]Scope and Methodology
     * [2]Summary
     * [3]DHS's Four Multi-Agency Operations Centers Have Unique Missi

          * [4]The Centers Do Not Define and Articulate Common Outcomes and
          * [5]The Centers Are at Varying Stages of Assessing Staffing Need
          * [6]Not All Centers Have Established a Definition of Watchstande
          * [7]DHS Has Taken Some Steps to Provide Centers with Standards,
          * [8]Three of Four Centers Had Not Developed Methods to Monitor a
          * [9]The Centers Are at Various Stages of Using Joint Agency Plan

     * [10]DHS's Operations Directorate Has Given Priority to Fixing th
     * [11]Concluding Observations
     * [12]GAO's Mission
     * [13]Obtaining Copies of GAO Reports and Testimony

          * [14]Order by Mail or Phone

     * [15]To Report Fraud, Waste, and Abuse in Federal Programs
     * [16]Congressional Relations
     * [17]Public Affairs

Testimony

Before the Subcommittee on Management, Investigations, and Oversight,
Committee on Homeland Security, U.S. House of Representatives

United States Government Accountability Office

GAO

For Release on Delivery
Expected at 12:00 p.m. EDT
Wednesday, June 20, 2007

HOMELAND SECURITY

Guidance from Operations Directorate Will Enhance Collaboration among
Departmental Operations Centers

Statement of Eileen R. Larence, Director
Homeland Security and Justice Issues

GAO-07-683T

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee:

I appreciate the opportunity to participate in today's hearing to discuss
our work on assessing the relationship among various operations centers of
components of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the agency's
overall National Operations Center in carrying out the important mission
of maintaining situational awareness.

When DHS was established as an organization, we recognized the challenges
it would face in trying to integrate 22 legacy agencies into one new
corporate entity. Therefore, in January 2003 we placed the integration and
transformation of the department on GAO's high-risk list--composed of
those federal agencies, programs, or activities that pose the highest risk
to the nation--because we recognized the country could not afford to have
DHS fail. The Department's transformation remained on our high-risk list
for 2007 because DHS had still not fully addressed its integration,
management, and programmatic challenges.^1 Placing it on this list
obligates us to continue to monitor how well the integration and
transformation is succeeding.

With similar concerns, as well as concerns with the response to events
that have occurred since, such as hurricanes Katrina and Rita and
continuing terrorist threats, the Congress has been overseeing DHS's
transformation. As part of this oversight, the Senate Committee on
Homeland Security and Government Affairs requested that we identify the
DHS operations centers (established to conduct monitoring and surveillance
activities that can help detect, deter and prevent terrorist acts), to
determine if any centers are redundant, and assess the functions and
customers of these centers. Also, as part of this oversight, the Committee
recognized that Hurricane Katrina demonstrated that the department's main
operations center--the Homeland Security Operations Center--was not ready
to effectively coordinate the sharing of information in a time of crisis
and needed repair; therefore, it made a series of recommendations to
address the problems identified and has been monitoring the agency's
efforts to ensure DHS makes these changes.^2

^1GAO, High Risk Series: An Update, [18]GAO-03-119 (Washington, D.C.: Jan.
2003); High Risk Series: An Update, [19]GAO-07-310 (Washington, D.C.: Jan.
2007).

^2Report of the Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs,
Hurricane Katrina: A Nation Still Unprepared, United State Senate.
(Washington, D.C.: May 2006).

In response to the Senate Committee's request for GAO to review operations
centers, we decided to assess those centers within DHS's component
agencies that, first, conduct operations 24 hours a day, 7 days a week,
365 days a year (24/7/365), and that, second, have a broader security
mission that DHS has determined requires higher levels of collaboration
from many stakeholders, including DHS component agencies, and other
federal, state, and local agencies. These centers are the Air and Marine
Operations Center and the National Targeting Center, sponsored by U.S.
Customs and Border Protection; the Transportation Security Operations
Center sponsored by the Transportation Security Administration; and the
National Operations Center Interagency Watch, the successor to the
Homeland Security Operations Center, run within the Office of Operations
Coordination at DHS. We assessed the extent to which they implemented key
practices that our work has shown helps to enhance and sustain
collaboration,^3 since such collaboration is important to one of the main
functions of each center, namely, sharing information needed to develop
and maintain situational awareness of potential crises and terrorist
activity nationwide. These key collaborative practices include defining
and articulating a common outcome and joint strategies to guide
multi-agency activities such as information sharing, and assessing
staffing needs to leverage the resources other agencies contribute to the
centers. We found that these practices can help agencies overcome barriers
to collaboration, such as overprotection of jurisdiction and resources, as
well as, incompatible procedures and processes that can result in agencies
operating in a fragmented and uncoordinated way, wasting resources, and
limiting effectiveness.

Based on our work on operations centers, we issued a report in October
2006 with recommendations for the Operations Directorate develop and
provide guidance to the centers to encourage that they implement these key
collaborative practices as a means to enhance their ability to meet their
missions.^4 Today, we would like to, first, briefly review the
collaboration issues and recommendations we presented in our report, then,
give an update of DHS's efforts to respond to these recommendations.

^3GAO, Results-Oriented Government: Practices That Can Help Enhance and
Sustain Collaboration among Federal Agencies, [20]GAO-06-15 (Washington,
D.C.: Oct. 2005).

^4GAO, Homeland Security: Opportunities Exist to Enhance Collaboration at
24/7 Operations Centers Staffed by Multiple DHS Agencies, [21]GAO-07-89
(Washington, D.C.: Oct. 2006).

In addition, we are aware of the Congress's concerns about the performance
of the Homeland Security Operations Center during Hurricane Katrina, and
the recent efforts made in response to these and other concerns identified
in hurricane after-action studies and reports. Because these efforts to
some extent affect DHS's response to our recommendations, we briefly
describe some of the steps DHS recently reported to us that it has taken
to address problems Katrina exposed, although it is too early to assess
these actions to determine how well they are being implemented since a
number of them are relatively new.

Scope and Methodology

To determine the extent to which operations centers managed by different
offices and components within DHS had implemented key practices that our
work has shown can enhance collaboration among federal agencies, during
our original work, we reviewed transition, management integration, and
planning and policy documents from the department. We also reviewed
strategic plans, as well as annual performance reports and planning
documents from DHS and its component agencies. In addition, we reviewed
and analyzed the results of studies undertaken by DHS to assess and
improve coordination and collaboration at the multi-agency centers as well
as reports from GAO, the Congressional Research Service, the DHS Office of
Inspector General, and others that addressed the integration,
coordination, and collaboration of departmentwide program functions. To
determine the extent to which they reflect how DHS has encouraged the use
of the key collaborative practices, we also met with the acting director
and other responsible officials from the Office of Operations Coordination
to discuss its role and responsibilities.

To obtain updated information on DHS's efforts to implement our
recommendations, we visited the National Operations Center, the National
Infrastructure Coordination Center, the National Response Coordination
Center, and Transportation Security Operations Center and met with center
managers. In addition, we spoke to officials at the National Targeting
Center. We also received a series of briefings on organizational and
operational changes implemented since Hurricane Katrina and reviewed
documentation provided to explain these changes. We relied on these visits
and briefings for updated information on DHS's response to our and
post-Katrina after action report recommendations; we did not verify the
accuracy of DHS's officials' statements or the effectiveness of the
implemented actions. We conducted our original and additional audit work
in accordance with generally accepted government accounting standards
between October 2005 through September 2006, and March 2007 through June
2007, respectively.

Summary

In our October 2006 report, we reported that the centers had the
opportunity to better implement most of the key practices we identified
that enhance collaboration. While we did not identify any major problems
or barriers to executing their missions, enhanced collaboration could
further ensure robust situational awareness and support to incident
response. For example, we found that while DHS had implemented one key
collaborative practice--leveraging its resources--by having staff from
multiple agencies work together at the four operations centers, it could
better implement the following collaborative practices:

           o Defining and articulating a common outcome or joint strategies.
           This helps to provide, for example, a compelling rationale for
           agencies to collaborate.
           o Assessing each center's needs in order to leverage resources,
           especially human resources or staffing needs. This helps to ensure
           efficiencies and that the functions of a center are not
           compromised by the workforce limitations of a single agency.
           o Defining roles and responsibilities, especially of the
           watchstanders^5 in each center, those staff who come from other
           agencies and have the important job of conducting surveillance
           activities. This helps to ensure that people at the same center in
           the same role perform their responsibilities consistently. Because
           of the potentially critical, time-sensitive need for decisive
           action at 24/7/365 operations centers, it is important that the
           roles and responsibilities of watchstanders are described and
           understood by both the watch staff as well as the officials
           responsible for managing the operations centers.
           o Establishing compatible standards, policies, and procedures,
           such as those for DHS's Homeland Security Information Network
           (HSIN)^6--the primary network DHS uses to share incident
           management and homeland security information across DHS, and with
           other federal, state, and local partners. This would provide a
           means to operate across agency boundaries and help ensure
           effective communications among the centers.
           o Developing mechanisms to monitor and evaluate results of joint
           operations, such as conducting joint exercises and assessing the
           after-action reports. This helps management, key decision makers,
           and both stakeholders and customers obtain feedback to improve
           governing policy and operational effectiveness.
           o Reinforcing agency accountability for collaborative efforts by
           recognizing joint efforts and outcomes achieved in published
           strategic and annual performance plans and reports. Joint
           accountability and recognition can provide an incentive to
           collaborate.

^5For the purpose of our report, we used the term "watchstander" to refer
to an individual required to work full-time on a rotating 24-hour
schedule, 7 days per week, to maintain situational awareness, conduct
information assessment and threat monitoring to deter, detect, and prevent
terrorist incidents. A watchstander may also act as a liaison between his
agency and other agency representatives at the center, and may manage
response to critical threats and incidents.

^6The HSIN is an unclassified, Web-based system that provides a secure,
collaborative environment for real-time information sharing that includes
reporting, graphics, and chat capabilities, as well as a document library
that contains reports from multiple federal, state, local, and
private-sector sources. HSIN supplies suspicious incident and pre-incident
information, mapping and imagery tools, 24x7 situational awareness, and
analysis of terrorist threats, tactics, and weapons.

We found that the Operations Directorate, established in November 2005 to
improve operational efficiency and coordination, provides DHS with an
opportunity to more fully implement these key practices. Therefore, we
recommended that the Secretary of DHS charge the Director of the
Operations Directorate with developing and providing the guidance
necessary to help ensure the four centers take the following six actions
to implement best practices for collaboration and help better position the
centers to achieve their common missions:

           o Define common outcomes and joint strategies for achieving their
           overall mission;
           o Conduct staffing needs assessments to better leverage resources
           within centers;
           o Clarify the roles and responsibilities for watchstanders so that
           they understand each person's expected duties and contributions,
           especially during an emergency;
           o Apply standards, policies, and procedures to promote the more
           extensive use of DHS's information network to improve
           communications;
           o Prepare mechanisms to monitor and evaluate the results of joint
           and collaborative efforts to ensure effectiveness; and
           o Address the results achieved by collaborative efforts in
           strategic and annual performance plans and reports to increase
           accountability.

At the time of our report, DHS agreed with these recommendations, but
according to DHS officials, has yet to implement them. In recent meetings,
DHS said that they believe some changes at the National Operations Center
are responsive to several of these recommendations. For example, the
center is taking steps to better define the role of watchstanders, and DHS
has designed a strategy and set of initiatives to improve the usefulness
of the information network. However, according to Operations Directorate
officials, they have not been directed by DHS to issue the overall
guidance we recommended. They also do not plan to issue such guidance at
this time because they stated they do not have any administrative,
budgetary, or operational authority or control over the other three
component centers. While we understand that these centers have missions
unique to their sponsoring agencies and are not subject to the Operations
Directorate, providing these centers guidance that is not mandatory but
strongly endorsed on ways to better collaborate internally would enhance
their effectiveness within their own centers as well as in providing the
national center the information it needs, especially during a time of
crisis.

DHS officials said another reason they had yet to implement our
recommendations is in part because, instead of focusing on these
intra-department collaboration issues, DHS has been giving priority to
fixing critical inter-agency and inter-governmental issues that hindered
its ability to respond to major, national incidents and disasters,
particularly Hurricane Katrina. DHS officials said there were a number of
post-Katrina initiatives underway which could build relationships among
the centers so that they are more disposed to implement the recommended
key collaborative practices in the future. For example, DHS points to its
efforts to:

           o Establish standard roles and procedures among all stakeholders,
           both within and outside DHS, for reporting information during a
           major incident. Now, according to DHS, information must be
           verified and clarified at the field and headquarters level before
           it is placed on its information network.
           o Create the Common Operating Picture--a real-time, web-based tool
           designed to provide a common view of critical information during a
           crisis--within DHS's Homeland Security Information Network.
           o Create working groups of partners within and outside of DHS to
           enhance information flow on planning, training, and incident
           management, to resolve interdepartmental conflicts, and to
           facilitate decision-making at higher levels.

While it is too early to assess to what extent DHS has successfully
implemented and institutionalized these initiatives since some are only
recently established, they appear to be designed to address several key
recommendations from congressional and administration Post-Katrina
assessments.^7 DHS acknowledges it still has a substantial way to go to
fully implement these initiatives and measure their results, but it has
recently tested some of these initiatives during interagency training
exercises and has plans to do more of these tests in the future.
Continuing to focus on efforts to measure how well these initiatives are
working, and, as importantly, to what extent key stakeholders, such as
state and local governments and the private sector, anticipate that these
initiatives will meet their needs is critical, given that Hurricane
Katrina demonstrated these stakeholders are the first responders and key
to effective disaster response and recovery. Finally, it is clear that
Congressional oversight has been and will continue to be a key driver in
accelerating DHS's efforts to be better prepared to respond to and manage
national incidents.

DHS's Four Multi-Agency Operations Centers Have Unique Missions and
Responsibilities, but Also Have Opportunities to Enhance Collaboration

In our October 2006 report on DHS multi-agency operations centers, we
found that they were not unnecessarily redundant in that they have
distinct missions but also contribute to the larger effort, carried out by
the National Operations Center, to provide national situational awareness
and incident management across DHS. In terms of key collaborative
practices, DHS had implemented one practice--leveraging its resources--by
having staff from multiple agencies work together at the four operations
centers, but could take advantage of other relevant practices we have
found to be important to enhancing and sustaining collaboration among
federal agencies. We also reported that the establishment of the
Operations Directorate provided DHS with an opportunity to more
consistently implement these practices. As of June 2007, DHS had taken
some actions but had not yet implemented our recommendations for several
reasons, including the stated concern that the Operations Directorate does
not have authority over component centers. Nevertheless, we continue to
see merit in the wider use of the key collaborative practices we
identified and a role for the Directorate to encourage their use across
centers.

^7Executive Office of the President, The Federal Response to Hurricane
Katrina: Lessons Learned. February 2006.

The Centers Do Not Define and Articulate Common Outcomes and Joint Strategies, a
Key Practice Intended to Enhance and Sustain Collaboration

At the time of our review, the three DHS components responsible for the
four multi-agency centers had not developed or documented common goals or
joint strategies that incorporated all the agencies within the centers and
that our work has shown could, in turn, enhance collaboration among these
agencies. Officials at the multi-agency operations centers we visited said
they did consider formally documenting working agreements but concluded it
was not essential since all of the agencies involved were part of DHS.
While this may be true, documenting common outcomes can provide a
compelling rationale for agencies to collaborate and documenting joint
strategies ensures everyone is working in concert toward the end results
that collectively need to be achieved. Our work shows that agencies
strengthen their commitment to collaborate when they articulate agreements
in formal documents such as memorandums of understanding, interagency
guidance, or interagency planning documents.

Last year, officials from the National Operations Center said that the
lack of formal agreements is a reflection of the speed with which the
center was established and the inherent flexibility offered to DHS
agencies in order to get them to staff the operation center positions.
While recognizing the benefits of such flexibility, it is important to
balance the trade-off of ensuring that all participants understand the
common goals and objectives to be achieved. In addition, within DHS,
external and internal memorandums of agreement and other interagency joint
operating plans are often used to document common organizational goals and
how agencies will work together. For example, the Office of Investigations
at Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection's
border patrol have a memorandum of understanding that governs the
interaction between the two components as they carry out their missions to
investigate and reduce vulnerabilities in the customs and immigration
systems and to protect our borders, respectively, and formalizes roles and
responsibilities in order to enhance information sharing. In addition, the
DHS Office of Inspector General has reported that memorandums of
understanding are valuable tools for establishing protocols for managing a
national-level program between two organizations.^8 For these reasons, we
recommended that the Operations Directorate develop and provide guidance
to the three agencies that sponsor the operations centers to help ensure
they define common goals and joint strategies that incorporate all the
agencies working at the centers.

^8Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General, Office of
Inspections and Special Reviews, An Assessment of the Proposal to Merge
Customs and Border Protection with Immigration and Customs Enforcement,
OIG-06-04 (Washington, D.C.: Nov. 2005).

In our recent follow-up to our recommendations, DHS officials said that
they had not issued such guidance, but pointed to several other
post-Katrina actions DHS was taking that it believes are examples of
common strategies and plans that are put into action daily and that
enhance collaboration, and thus, situational awareness. For example, DHS
said it has developed national reporting requirements and a coordinated
national reporting chain for submitting homeland security information
during a crisis, in part in response to Hurricane Katrina lessons learned.
The national reporting requirements and reporting chain is to define
procedures that component centers, among others, are to follow for
inputting and confirming information used during a crisis.

In addition, our past work has demonstrated that agencies should involve
nonfederal partners, key clients, and stakeholders in defining and
articulating outcomes and decision-making. Along those lines, DHS has
created or plans to create several working groups with state, local, and
private sector members to enhance information flow for incident
management, and facilitate decision-making at higher levels. For example,
the Director of the Office of Operations said DHS plans to establish a
HSIN Advisory Council to provide a forum for providing feedback on ways to
improve information sharing among communities of interest.

The Centers Are at Varying Stages of Assessing Staffing Needs; Doing So Could
Help to Ensure Centers Have Enough Staff to Leverage Resources to Increase
Efficiency

The extent to which officials responsible for managing the four
multi-agency operations centers had conducted needs assessments to
determine the staffing requirements of each center as a means to leverage
resources varied at the time of our review. For example, CBP officials
conducted an evaluation in June 2005 that addressed the Air and Marine
Operations Center's capabilities and continuing staffing needs related to
its personnel, but it did not clearly address the need for, or
responsibilities of, U.S. Coast Guard staff assigned to the center.
Transportation Security Operations Center and National Operations Center
officials said they had not documented a needs analysis for staff from
other agencies. They said they viewed cross-agency staffing as a
historical edict based on a general assumption that such expertise was
needed to fulfill the mission of their operations center, and believed
that the supporting agency providing the staff best knew the staffing
requirements to fulfill its role at the centers. Our work has shown that
identifying and leveraging resources, including human resources, ensures
efficiencies and that the functions of a multi-agency operations center
are not compromised by the workforce limitations of a single agency.

Since our report, DHS said it is updating mission requirements for the
Operations Directorate and will subsequently assess the National
Operations Center's staffing needs, although DHS did not say when that
assessment would be completed. On the other hand, Officials at the
National Targeting Center and the Transportation Security Operations
Center told us they have not assessed cross-component staffing needs
because they considered such assessments to be the responsibility of the
agency providing staff. Nevertheless, we maintain that such assessments
continue to be useful to ensure efficiency and that operations centers
have the correct mix of staff to perform their missions. Therefore, while
we understand that the Operations Directorate has taken the position it
does not have control over the component center resources, we maintain
that providing guidance to component agencies to assist them in conducting
such staffing needs assessments would allow the component sponsoring the
center to leverage resources more efficiently to meet the operational
needs of the center.

Not All Centers Have Established a Definition of Watchstander Roles and
Responsibilities for All Agencies at Each Center; Doing So Would Help Ensure
Staff Understand Each Others' Duties during Emergencies

Our work has shown that collaborating agencies should work together to
define and agree on who will do what and how they will organize their
joint and individual efforts, and that this facilitates decision-making.
Agencies use handbooks, charters, standard operating procedures, and other
methods to document these agreements. We found, however, that while three
of the four multi-agency operations centers had developed descriptions for
the watchstander position staffed by their own agency at the time of our
review, only one center--the Air and Marine Operations Center--had
developed a position description for staff assigned to the center from
another DHS agency. For example, at this center, officials require that
Coast Guard staff meet a standardized set of requirements for radar
watchstanders. The other centers relied on the components that provide
staff to define their watchstanders' roles and responsibilities. While we
recognize components may be in the best position to define how their staff
should contribute, we maintain that it is important that each
watchstander's position within a center be clearly defined and
communicated so that staff understand not only their individual role, but
each other's responsibilities and span of control, as well as their
expected joint contributions, most critically during major events. In
addition, because of the potentially time-sensitive need for decisive
action at 24/7/365 operations centers, it is important that the roles and
responsibilities of watchstanders are described and understood by both the
staff and the officials responsible for managing the operations centers to
enhance and sustain collaboration. Further, a definition of the
watchstander role and responsibilities is important for supporting agency
officials who must make staffing decisions about assigning qualified and
knowledgeable personnel to the centers.

According to DHS, since our report, it has taken steps to further define
the role and responsibilities of the watchstanders in its National
Operations Center and documented them in its Standard Operating
Procedures, as well as to develop Memoranda of Agreements with the
components that will codify the role of the watchstanders they provide to
the National Operations Center. Such an action, like that of the Air and
Marine Operations Center with regard to Coast Guard watchstanders, helps
ensure that the staff received from partnering organizations possess the
necessary skills to support the operations center to which they are
assigned. Given that DHS has recognized the importance of this key
practice within these two instances, we continue to maintain it is
important for DHS to ensure the other centers likewise have clearly
defined and communicated the roles and responsibilities of watchstanders.

DHS Has Taken Some Steps to Provide Centers with Standards, Policies, and
Procedures, Especially for Information Sharing, to Operate across Agency
Boundaries, but Challenges Remain

Since January 2005, we have designated information sharing for homeland
security a high-risk area because the federal government still faces
formidable challenges in analyzing and disseminating key information among
federal and other partners in a timely, accurate, and useful manner.^9
Likewise, Hurricane Katrina demonstrated that the inability to share
information during a disaster can impair the speed of response and
recovery efforts. Each operations center shares information so as to
understand threats, maintain situational awareness, and facilitate the
management of responses to incidents. One of the key technical tools DHS
has decided to use to provide for this information-sharing is the HSIN,
and organizations participating in multi-agency operations centers need to
be connected to the network and have the training and guidance that
enables its use, among other things. DHS implemented HSIN in 2004 and
reports that 18,000 individuals across DHS, other federal agencies, as
well as state and local government and private entities are authorized to
use it. However, we, the DHS IG, and the department itself have identified
continuing concerns with this system, which is used for sharing a variety
of information, including law enforcement and emergency response
information used to support situational awareness and incident response

^9GAO. High-Risk Series: An Update, [22]GAO-07-310 (Washington, D.C.: Jan.
2007).

In April 2007, we reported^10 that DHS did not fully adhere to
collaborative practices or Office of Management and Budget (OMB) guidance
in coordinating its efforts to implement HSIN through state and local
information-sharing initiatives. OMB guidance requires DHS to foster such
coordination and collaboration as a means to improve government
performance, including enhancing information sharing and avoiding
duplication of effort. Key practices to help implement the guidance
include establishing joint strategies and developing compatible policies
and procedures to operate across agency boundaries. However, DHS did not
fully adhere to these practices or guidance in coordinating its efforts on
HSIN with key state and local stakeholders. As a result, the department
faces the risk that, among other things, effective information sharing is
not occurring and that its HSIN system may duplicate state and local
capabilities. The department has efforts planned and underway to improve
coordination and collaboration, but these efforts have just begun or are
being planned with implementation milestones yet to be established. As a
result, we made recommendations to the Secretary of Homeland Security to
ensure that HSIN is effectively coordinated with state and local
government information-sharing initiatives. The Inspector General's June
2006 report had similar findings that DHS did not provide adequate
guidance, including clear information sharing processes, training, and
reference materials, needed to effectively implement HSIN^11 so that
stakeholders were sure of how to use the system.

The HSIN program manager pointed to a number of initiatives being
implemented to address these challenges. These actions include the
issuance of a strategic framework and implementation plan, creation of a
Mission Coordinating Committee to define component information
requirements for the network, and, as mentioned previously, the planned
establishment of a HSIN advisory committee comprised of experts, users,
and other stakeholders involved in homeland security operations around the
country. This committee is intended to provide DHS with comments and
feedback on how the HSIN program can better meet user needs, examine DHS's
processes for deploying HSIN to the states, assess state resources, and
determine how HSIN can coordinate with these resources. Nevertheless, the
program manager also identified challenges in getting components to
participate in the process of identifying user needs, and said that the
department still faced challenges in gaining widespread acceptance and use
of this tool. Furthermore, one component that sponsors a key portion of
HSIN, the Preparedness Directorate, is considering whether to continue to
support and maintain portals to provide connectivity to private sector
owners and operators of critical infrastructure sites, or whether to
pursue other alternatives, raising questions about the overall utility of
HSIN. Finally, the DHS Office of Inspector General plans to conduct an
evaluation of the HSIN beginning later this year as a follow-up to its
2006 report to determine the progress the Department has made in fixing
the shortcomings identified.^12

^10GAO, Information Technology: Numerous Federal Networks Used to Support
Homeland Security Need to Be Better Coordinated with Key State and Local
Information-Sharing Initiatives, [23]GAO-07-455 (Washington, D.C.: April
2007).

^11Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General, Office of
Information Technology, HSIN Could Support Information Sharing More
Effectively, DHS/OIG-06-38 (Washington, D.C.: June 2006).

Three of Four Centers Had Not Developed Methods to Monitor and Evaluate the
Results of Joint Efforts

With the exception of the Air and Marine Operations Center, the
multi-agency centers had not developed methods to monitor and evaluate the
results of joint efforts at the time of our review, a key practice for
ensuring collaboration. For example, the Office of Management and Budget's
assessment of the National Operations Center for 2005 determined that
center officials had not established effective annual or long-term
performance goals, a first step in an effective performance management and
measurement process. Nor were performance measures or other mechanisms in
place to monitor and evaluate the joint efforts of multiple DHS agencies
at the Transportation Security Operations Center and the National
Targeting Center. Without annual goals and a means to measure performance,
it is difficult for an organization to determine how well it is
functioning and identify how it could be more effective. Likewise, our
work has shown that developing performance measures and mechanisms can
help management, key decision makers, and both stakeholders and customers
obtain feedback to improve operational effectiveness and policy.

^12Department of Homeland Security, Office of Inspector General, Office of
Information Technology, Homeland Security Information Network Could
Support Information Sharing More Effectively, OIG-06-38, June 2006.

To date, DHS has not provided guidance to the multiagency centers to help
implement mechanisms to monitor and evaluate the results of collaborative
efforts. However, as we further discuss later in this statement, the
Operations Directorate said the National Operations Center, and, as
relevant, other centers, have participated in, and will be participating
in, exercises to test some of the changes the centers have implemented.
These exercises provide a means to monitor and evaluate collaboration
during real or hypothetical events, and the after-action reviews or
lessons learned reviews conducted such as Katrina after-action reports and
recommendations, as well as its own exercises and lessons learned, such as
the exercises to test and revise HSIN and the Common Operating Picture
(COP). The center director also described several new inter-agency groups
designed to improve operations that also offer a means to monitor and
evaluate results as well.

The Centers Are at Various Stages of Using Joint Agency Planning and Reporting
to Reinforce Accountability for Collaborative Efforts

In our prior work, we determined that neither DHS nor the component
agencies responsible for managing multi-agency operations centers
consistently discussed, or included a description of, the contribution of
the centers' collaborative efforts in the components' strategic or annual
performance plans and reports. Our work has shown that federal agencies
can use these plans and reports as tools to drive collaboration with other
agencies and partners, as well as to establish complementary, consistent,
and reinforcing goals and strategies for achieving results. Published
strategic and annual performance plans and reports make agencies
answerable for collaboration, and help to ensure that Congress has the
information necessary to monitor, oversee, and effectively make investment
decisions.

In terms of using strategic and performance plans to reinforce
collaboration, the most recent DHS strategic plan, issued in 2004, neither
included a discussion of performance goals for, nor addressed the joint
operations of, the multi-agency centers. On the other hand, the Air and
Marine Operations Center's strategic plan for 2005 generally discussed the
importance of strengthening collaboration with other component agencies
and included a goal to strengthen component agency partnerships to
maximize homeland security strategies.

In terms of using published reports to increase accountability for
collaboration, CBP's 2005 annual report on the operations of the National
Targeting Center did include a section dedicated to the contributions of
personnel from other DHS components. But, reports from the other
components that manage the centers did not address the roles and
contributions of supporting agencies in accomplishing the centers'
missions. Thus agencies are missing an opportunity to reinforce the value
of partner agency contributions and investments. Likewise, reports from
the DHS agencies that provide staff to these centers also did not address
their participation in their own performance reports.

DHS's Operations Directorate Has Given Priority to Fixing the Problems that
Hurricane Katrina Exposed

According to DHS officials, the Operations Directorate and the National
Operations Center have been focused on responding to the congressional and
administration reports and corresponding recommendations generated in the
aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. These reports pointed to a number of
failures and problems attributed to the predecessor to the National
Operations Center--the Homeland Security Operations Center--including
unclear roles and responsibilities; problems with the flow of information
in and out of the center, especially to senior leadership; a lack of
planning; problems confirming and validating information, and clarifying
conflicting information; and untimely reporting. The reports concluded
that as a result, senior leaders in the Department and the Administration
were not aware of problems with the levees and flooding as early as they
should have been. To address these problems, the after action reports made
a series of recommendations, including the:

           o Creation of a national operations center to provide national
           situational awareness, facilitate incident management, and a
           common operating picture;
           o Establishment of a permanent planning element for incident
           management and a national planning and execution system; and
           o Creation of a national reporting system as well as national
           information requirements and a reporting chain.

In response to these concerns, among others, DHS reported that it made a
series of changes to its operations, organization, and procedures for
sharing information in order to maintain situational awareness and provide
for incident management. The changes included giving priority to improving
coordination with external stakeholders, such as other federal agencies,
state and local entities who are the first responders and ultimately
manage recovery efforts, and its own components and their respective
operations centers. The DHS National Operations Center staff with whom we
spoke maintained that implementing these changes could in turn create an
environment where the components and centers may be more disposed to
implementing the key practices for improving collaboration that our work
has identified.

To address problems with collecting, analyzing, and timely disseminating
of critical information during an incident that Katrina exposed, DHS
officials said the Operations Directorate and the National Operations
Center established several initiatives within the last year or so. Among
other things, these initiatives included a new notification system aimed
at providing protocols for sharing information on a graduated scale (from
steady state to awareness, concern, and finally urgency). The Operations
Directorate and the National Operations Center also defined a reporting
structure, ranging from more real-time, unvetted information available
from and to a wide range of stakeholders to reports intended to be more
complete, vetted and validated through designated lead agencies and
higher-level summaries geared for more senior leadership. DHS has
initially developed these protocols and processes for sharing information
for hurricane response and recovery and is expanding them to other
scenarios and concerns.

One other major DHS initiative to better share information for situational
awareness and decision support that responds to key post-Katrina
recommendations also depends on HSIN. DHS has created the Common Operating
Picture within HSIN as a web-based tool designed to be available to all
HSIN users, including key federal, state, and joint field office homeland
security partners, to provide the information needed to make critical
decisions during crises. Initially, DHS created COP templates to address
hurricane disasters in time for the 2006 hurricane season. The tool
includes, among other things, current summaries of specific situations,
the location and operational status of critical infrastructure, media
reports, and streaming video from the field that provides a real-time
picture of developments, especially at an incident site, to enhance
situational awareness. DHS also has created COP Training Teams that
provide training and technical support to DHS components, and other
partners. DHS said training was provided to 17 states on the Gulf and East
coasts in 2006, the most hurricane-prone areas of the country. However,
DHS is still resolving operational issues with COP. For example, DHS
reported in January 2007 that a comprehensive backup capability for the
COP was under development but that the Department was prepared for
contingencies related to power, telecommunications and server outages. DHS
also reported that it continues to develop information requirements for
use in other scenarios, such as pandemics and incidents involving nuclear
devices, among others, as well as to further refine the system.

DHS officials said they have created several new working groups and
organizational entities within the Operations Directorate or National
Operations Center aimed at improving capabilities. The new units include:

           o Senior Leadership Group. It is comprised of key DHS officials
           across the major components and intended to provide a forum for
           the Secretary to obtain critical advice from those with the most
           direct incident management responsibilities, to communicate
           decisions, to facilitate the integration and coordination of
           intradepartmental operational missions, activities, and programs
           at the headquarters level; and to assist in resolving
           intradepartmental issues. The group convenes as necessary, such as
           during an actual incident or major exercise, although the
           Secretary or the Director of Operations Coordination may convene
           the group at any time.
           o Incident Management Planning Team--consisting of 53 members
           drawn from 22 DHS components, 25 partner departments or agencies,
           and the American Red Cross--that has begun the coordination of
           existing plans and the use of resources for domestic disasters.
           According to DHS officials, the team is developing plans for the
           most likely, and then the most dangerous, of the National Planning
           Scenarios--the 15 all-hazards planning scenarios for use in
           national, federal, state, and local homeland security preparedness
           activities that are representative of the range of potential
           terrorist attacks and natural disasters and the related impacts
           that face our nation.
           o Disaster Situational Awareness Teams. These teams are to be
           comprised of field staff from Immigrations and Customs Enforcement
           since they can be more easily deployed and are to be at a site
           within 24 hours to provide situational awareness reporting and
           other assistance.
           o Crisis Action Teams. These multi-agency teams, whose membership
           overlaps in part with the new planning teams, are to provide
           interagency incident management capabilities and to, among other
           things, recommend courses of action, help prioritize incidents and
           resources, and serve as a central point for information
           collection, evaluation, and coordination, especially for complex
           or multiple incidents.

Finally, DHS has completed a study of its operational capabilities and
gaps to guide its future mission and initiatives. Called the Operations
Mission Blueprint, DHS operations staff said the results are still under
review; therefore, that they could not provide us with a copy. Part of
this study includes a plan to consolidate DHS operations centers in
headquarters and its components in a facility located at the St.
Elizabeth's West Campus in Washington, D.C.^13 The plan cites a number of
organizational benefits to collocating facilities, including enhancing
collaboration by bringing together a large number of DHS executives and
line employees currently dispersed across the region.

^13Department of Homeland Security, National Capital Region Housing Master
Plan: Building a Unified Department, Washington D.C., October 2006.

While DHS provided us with background briefings, some supporting
documentation, and some after action reports on the initiatives we have
outlined, we did not evaluate the extent to which they have been
implemented and are effective at addressing the problems Katrina
identified, in part because they are so new and in some cases still
concepts. DHS officials themselves, however, identified some challenges
and next steps in implementation. These include, for example, continuing
to outreach to and better integrate DHS components as well as other
stakeholders in planning and implementation, such as state, local, and
private sector partners.

As to this latter challenge, DHS has tested several of its new
initiatives, such as the COP, through daily use, as well as interagency
exercises. For example, through an exercise conducted last year, the
National Operations Center identified opportunities to improve
implementation of the COP. DHS recently completed two other exercises and
plans additional exercises this fall and over the next two years that can
also provide helpful performance information. We agree that the use of
exercises, and more importantly the after-action and lessons learned
analyses and recommendations to fix identified problems, are good methods
to help determine how well initiatives are working, especially when
testing under live, real-time circumstances is not possible.

Complementing this with more systematic performance measures and ways to
obtain feedback from key users and stakeholders on how well the
initiatives meet their needs would also be helpful. For example, officials
noted that there are systematic methods for evaluating what has been
achieved. The objectives of the HSIN implementation include providing
measurable performance metrics as well as obtaining stakeholder feedback
through its new Advisory Committee, when constituted. Implementation of
the system is to be based on both agency and industry best practices.
Following through on implementation of these types of measures and
feedback loops is particularly important for state and local stakeholders,
as Katrina demonstrated, since they are the first responders and key to
effective incident response planning and implementation.

Concluding Observations

Our prior work demonstrated that the three component multi-agency
operations centers we reviewed have a critical mission to meet for their
own agencies, as well as a common mission to support the National
Operations Center, the key hub for sharing information on nationwide
situational awareness and for coordinating federal support during major
disasters. Centers rely on staff from multiple agencies to achieve their
missions, so it is important that the centers can collaborate effectively
among the agencies within a center. Our work provides a blueprint of key
practices the centers could use to achieve this collaboration, and also
demonstrates that they have opportunities to implement these practices
more extensively. The payoff can include assurance that all staff clearly
understands roles and responsibilities, especially during a crisis, and
that centers have a common goal for achieving their joint missions, the
right staff from across agencies to do so, and ways to evaluate results
achieved and implement needed corrective actions. In turn, this can better
position DHS, and the nation, to prevent, mitigate and respond to a
critical event, help the Congress to fulfill its oversight and homeland
security responsibilities, and help the department better integrate into a
cohesive unit. While we understand that the Directorate does not control
component centers and is reluctant to issue guidance to them on ways to
implement these best practices as we recommended, we continue to think
that the Directorate can reinforce these practices through such guidance
and example, not only as it works with external stakeholders, but also
with its internal component centers. We believe the Directorate could be
more proactive to accelerate implementation so that centers achieve
anticipated benefits sooner given current priorities and available
resources.

We also understand that the department set its priorities to first focus
on fixing the problems Katrina exposed, as the Congress and Administration
tasked, and recognize that such focus has, and will continue to be, a key
driver in effecting change to improve situational awareness and incident
management capabilities at DHS. We also believe that the initiatives DHS
is implementing in response appear to be the proper steps moving forward,
given that they focus on better planning for disaster response and better
information sharing, as well as include the necessary key players.
However, while these initiatives are aimed at putting the right players,
processes, protocols, and practices in place, both we and the department
recognize that implementation is early, measures of effectiveness must
still be put in place, and challenges must be overcome.

Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, this completes my prepared
statement. I would be happy to respond to any questions that you or any
members of the subcommittee may have at this time.

For information about this testimony, please contact Eileen Larence,
Director, Homeland Security and Justice Issues, at (202) 512-8777, or
[email protected]. Other individuals making key contributions to this
testimony include Christopher Keisling, Nancy Briggs, Katherine Davis and
Tony DeFrank.

(440606)

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Highlights of [31]GAO-07-683T , a testimony before the Subcommittee on
Management, Investigations and Oversight, Committee on Homeland Security,
U.S. House of Representatives

June 20, 2007

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY

Guidance from Operations Directorate May Enhance Collaboration among
Departmental Operations Centers

This testimony summarizes GAO's October 2006 report on the Department of
Homeland Security's (DHS) operations centers--centers run by three DHS
components and operating 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year to
conduct monitoring and surveillance activities of potential terrorist
activities and other crises. Specifically, GAO assessed the extent to
which the centers implemented key practices GAO's work has shown will
enhance and sustain collaboration.

In addition, GAO is aware of Congress's concerns about the performance of
certain DHS components with regard to situational awareness during
Hurricane Katrina, and the recent efforts made in response to these
concerns identified in hurricane after-action studies and reports. Because
these efforts to some extent affect DHS's response to the recommendations
made in GAO's previous report, this testimony briefly describes some of
the steps DHS reported that it has taken to address situational awareness
problems Katrina exposed. However, because these actions are relatively
new, it is too early to assess how well they are being implemented.

To complete this work, GAO spoke to DHS officials and reviewed relevant
documentation.

The DHS operations centers GAO studied--the Air and Marine Operations
Center, the National Targeting Center, the Transportation Security
Operations Center, and the National Operations Center--could improve
implementation of the key practices GAO identified as having a positive
effect on inter-agency collaboration. These key practices include (1)
defining common outcomes and joint strategies; (2) assessing each center's
needs to leverage resources; (3) defining the roles and responsibilities
of the personnel conducting surveillance activities; (4) establishing
compatible standards, policies, and procedures for using DHS's primary
information sharing network; (5) developing mechanisms to monitor and
evaluate results of joint operations; and (6) reinforcing accountability
by recognizing joint efforts and outcomes achieved in annual performance
plans and reports. The Operations Directorate, established in November
2005 to improve operational efficiency and coordination, provides DHS with
an opportunity to more fully implement these key practices by providing
guidance to the operations centers. Although GAO recommended that the
Directorate provide this guidance, DHS stated that the Directorate does
not have control over the component operations centers; therefore, it has
not provided guidance to improve collaboration among the centers.

According to DHS, it has given priority to fixing issues that affect
situational awareness and its ability to respond to national incidents and
disasters, such as Hurricane Katrina. The actions in response to Katrina
include establishing standard roles and procedures for reporting
information during a major incident and creating a Web-based tool to
provide a common view of critical information during a crisis. While DHS
has not fully responded to GAO's recommendation for implementing key
collaborative practices, it maintains that the initiatives it has
implemented since Katrina will improve collaboration and create an
environment to address the recommendations in the future.

Staff Conducting Surveillance Activities at Operations Centers

References

Visible links
  18. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-03-119
  19. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-07-310
  20. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-06-15
  21. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-07-89
  22. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-07-310
  23. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-07-455
  31. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-07-683T
*** End of document. ***