Objectives

Our audit objectives were to: (1) identify all research, plans, studies, and evaluations that the Department of Justice (Department) has produced, or is in the process of producing, concerning IT systems, needs, plans, and initiatives; and (2) analyze the depth and scope of the problems the Department has experienced in the formulation of its IT plans.

Scope and Methodology

The audit was performed in accordance with the Government Auditing Standards and included tests and procedures necessary to accomplish the objectives.

This audit was performed in response to a congressional request included in the Department’s appropriation for FY 2006. This report is the final in a series of three reports prepared by the OIG in response to the congressional request. Specifically, Congress instructed the OIG to present to the Committees on Appropriations: (1) an inventory of all major Department information technology (IT) systems and planned initiatives, and (2) a report that details all research, plans, studies, and evaluations that the Department has produced, or is in the process of producing, concerning IT systems, needs, plans, and initiatives. The report is also to include an analysis that will identify the depth and scope of problems the Department has experienced in the formulation of its IT plans. This report responds to the request for a report that details the research, studies, plans, and evaluations.

We identified relevant federal, Departmental, and component-specific requirements and standards for IT research, studies, plans, and evaluations, and merged the various standards into a generic set of documents.

We performed fieldwork at the:

Justice Management Division, Washington, D.C.;

Drug Enforcement Administration, Arlington, Virginia; and

Federal Bureau of Investigation, Washington, D.C.

We reviewed policy and procedures regarding processes related to capital planning and investment control, information technology investment management, and system development life-cycle processes.

We requested and obtained documents from the components to develop the inventory, and assessed compliance with the document standards for the major systems in the inventory. We did not limit the time period of documents we requested, because some of the systems and projects had been operational for many years and may have already prepared studies, plans, and evaluations.

To evaluate problems the Department has experienced in planning, we reviewed relevant audit and other independent reports, extending the scope of our audit work to some systems and projects that were not included in the inventory of major systems. We also analyzed the evaluations obtained for information about problems the Department has experienced in formulating IT plans.