itif.org
Reviving and Reimagining the Federal
Data Strategy for Mission Success
ERIC EGAN | JUNE 2023
The Federal Data Strategy (FDS) suffers from a lack of leadership and fails to link its well-
defined principles and practices to government-wide and agency-level missions. The Biden
administration must revive and reimagine it in order to succeed in transforming the federal
government into a 21st century organization.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
While federal agencies initially pursued activities such as developing governance
structures, inventorying data, and responding to the COVID-19 pandemic partly in
response to the FDS, progress with the FDS has since stalled.
OMB has not provided updates on the progress of the 2021 Action Plan—the mechanism
that specifies which activities federal agencies need to complete in support of the FDS—
and has not published the annual Action Plans since the 2021 plan.
Agencies are not prioritizing activities from the FDS but rather focusing on their own
agency-level data strategies that are more aligned with their individual business
outcomes.
The FDS does not clearly link its overarching mission to “fully leverage the value of
federal data” with government-wide priorities, thereby limiting the strategy’s impact to
improve operations, service delivery, and customer experience.
While federal agencies get advisory support from the Federal CDO Council, the
governance body created specifically to help drive the FDS, OMB’s Federal Data Policy
Committee, has not engaged in any activity to advance the strategy.
