http://www.hlswatch.com/2008/06/26/technology-task-force-presents-7-recommendations-to-chertoff/ News and analysis of critical issues in homeland security today. Sat, 11 Feb 2012 21:07:03 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1 http://www.hlswatch.com/2008/06/26/technology-task-force-presents-7-recommendations-to-chertoff/comment-page-1/#comment-110238 William R. Cumming Fri, 27 Jun 2008 14:49:32 +0000 http://www.hlswatch.com/2008/06/26/technology-task-force-presents-7-recommendations-to-chertoff/#comment-110238 Very important issues tucked away here. First, probably does deserve DHS department wide assessment and analysis of needs. By the way some departments as part of their planning and evaluation function have a centralized statistical gathering, processing and analytic function. Don't hear much about DHS and statistics, often in the context of metrics for management purposes now. FEMA for example always collected relatively meaningless statistics when an independent agency and of course had no idea of how important statistics and metrics were for managing and improving the agency. For example, meaningful disaster statistics have now been posted on the PERI website (Public Entity Research Institute) thanks to them and Professor Richard Sylves of Delaware who obtained the statistics (having to virtually pull teeth from FEMA, GAO and others). Professor Sylves just published a book called "Disaster Policy and Politics" published by CQ press that might be of interest to readers of this blog. Too many politicians still in DHS and too few expert managers. Congress needs to limit DHS political appointees to under 300. Still probably close to 900 positions vetted politically in DHS and a highly politicized DHS Human Resources operation. Again, my usual theme, time for amatuer night to end for DHS. Mid-west flooding going to be in news for a long long time probably right up to the Cat 4 or 5 hurricane in September or October to add to election fun. Or is this the year of the BIG One in CA? Very important issues tucked away here. First, probably does deserve DHS department wide assessment and analysis of needs. By the way some departments as part of their planning and evaluation function have a centralized statistical gathering, processing and analytic function. Don’t hear much about DHS and statistics, often in the context of metrics for management purposes now. FEMA for example always collected relatively meaningless statistics when an independent agency and of course had no idea of how important statistics and metrics were for managing and improving the agency. For example, meaningful disaster statistics have now been posted on the PERI website (Public Entity Research Institute) thanks to them and Professor Richard Sylves of Delaware who obtained the statistics (having to virtually pull teeth from FEMA, GAO and others). Professor Sylves just published a book called “Disaster Policy and Politics” published by CQ press that might be of interest to readers of this blog. Too many politicians still in DHS and too few expert managers. Congress needs to limit DHS political appointees to under 300. Still probably close to 900 positions vetted politically in DHS and a highly politicized DHS Human Resources operation. Again, my usual theme, time for amatuer night to end for DHS. Mid-west flooding going to be in news for a long long time probably right up to the Cat 4 or 5 hurricane in September or October to add to election fun. Or is this the year of the BIG One in CA?

]]>