Interesting article in Federal Computer Week (FCW) on the move by the US Federal Government to the Cloud for IT activities including financial reporting. According to FCW – 80% of federal government IT budgets are used for maintaining old legacy systems. Efforts are now underway to move the Federal Government to move to the Cloud and update legacy applications like create mobile apps.
As we know -- the private sector is actively moving into the Cloud and clearly the federal Government seriously lags way behind in this effort. New legislation is in the planning stages in the US Congress that seeks to make it easier for federal agencies to move to the Cloud in terms of both financing and obtaining authority to operate for commercial Cloud systems according to FCW.
"Sens. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) and Tom Udall (D-N.M.) are teaming up to sponsor the Cloud Infrastructure Transition Act. The bill would give new authority to the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) to speed accreditation of commercial providers, establish a framework for the federal CIO to set up working capital funds for IT modernization and task agencies with strict reporting requirements designed to expose their reliance on obsolete technology."
We’ll see if this is an opportunity for the federal government modernization to the cloud will also reference the use of XBRL data tagging for government financial data that could be accessed and analyzed for superior financial diagnostics and review for better open government… especially since we have the DATA Act that would mandate the use of XBRL for financial reporting on existing ERP systems…
On a slide note, late last week the US SEC announced that corporate financial reporting disclosure placed on the US EDGAR System would also be transitioned to allow investors and consumers to access information from the cloud using mobile applications that would include XBRL data tagged information critical to the operation of the capital markets. It is clear XBRL is moving across other asset classes reviewed by the US SEC for better transparency and accountability...
The legislation to move the Federal Government into the Cloud would impact more than $80 Billion IT spend annually.
Stay tuned as we learn more about the Federal Government moving into the Cloud to replicate what the private sector is doing (moving away from legacy systems to cloud platforms) for more effective IT activities and if XBRL will be built-out for more effective government financial IT processing and analysis.
The IMA is one of the founding members of XBRL and over the past 15 years where it has been implemented by US banking and securities regulators (Minus other government agencies to date). The IMA has been a big supporter of its use in both the public and private sectors for more effective financial management of accounting/business reporting information to support transparency and accountability to protect the public interest. Today more than 25 countries have implemented XBRL for government regulatory reporting and more than 2/3 of the world's capital markets are using XBRL for better transparency and accountability as governments continue to move forward in rebuilding confidence in the capital markets supporting our joint economic prosperity.