Governance

Overview

The COE's most singular accomplishment to date is the development of an operational consortia model whose effectiveness has convinced individual agencies and departments to give up control of their own mission critical grants management systems and become COE partners. The COE recognized that simply providing a technical solution that is widely acknowledged as being strong, comprehensive and flexible, was a necessary, but not a sufficient condition if the costs of managing grants were to be dramatically reduced by eliminating redundant grants management systems across the government.  Over time and with some trial and error, the COE has developed an operating consortia model where powerful departments with a history of relying upon in-house capabilities have found that their individual needs are most effectively addressed in partnership.  The model consists of three components:

1. The COE Executive Board (CEB)

2. The COE Users Group

3. The COE Change Control Board (CCB)

COE Governance Diagram

Text only version of COE Governance Diagram ( .doc - 21 kb )

COE Executive Board

The COE Executive Board (CEB) is a multi-agency executive review board responsible for reviewing current base operations of the COE, as defined below, and for approving the budget and business plan for development, modernization and enhancement of grant systems and operations not covered under the base operations budget.

Current base operations are defined as the FY 2007 budget of $ 5.5M, and the services provided to current COE Members under that budget.  This amount represents the total of individual interagency agreements of current COE members and ACF contributions for FY 2007. In the future, the CEB will approve the annual budget and services for base operations for any year that base operations for the current COE members ( ACF, AOA, OPHS, IHS, CMS and HRSA )exceeds the current base operations budget of $5.5M. The CEB is responsible for approving an annual budget and business plans for all development, modernization and enhancement of grant systems and operations proposed by the COE in excess of the current base operations budget including any such proposals for FY 2007, unless voluntarily funded by an agency. The CEB must approve funding for operations and maintenance associated with newly developed systems or modules not included in current base operations budget unless voluntarily funded by an agency. Approval by the CEB is also required for all proposed service and service level reductions; and unit cost increases for individual COE partners. In addition, the CEB oversees implementation of COE program goals and objectives and provides recommendations for improving COE operations.

COE Users Group

The COE Users Group is a user forum where both technical and program office representatives come together with the COE Project Team to discuss evolving COE Partner needs and the current, under development or proposed capabilities of the GrantSolutions.gov system and any other systems that may be developed and/or operated by the COE. Although not a policy-making body, the COE Users Group provides a mechanism for the user community to provide feedback on the quality and cost of current operations and to identify opportunities for program improvements.

Specifically, the COE Users Group will:

• Exchange information, ideas and experiences concerning the implementation and use of GrantSolutions.gov as well as any other systems that may be developed and/or operated by the COE,

• Review and analyze new product developments and future product direction,

• Review and assess the COE Change Control Board (CECCB) activities that may impact the COE user community and report their impact to the user community,

• Inform the COE Project Team of upcoming changes in the legislative, regulatory and program requirements of the COE partners,

• Propose product enhancement ideas, and

• Report to the COE Director any problems or issues having significant impact on the ability of the COE user community to effectively execute the financial and programmatic stewardship of their grant programs.

COE Change Control Board

The COE Change Control Board is the committee responsible for administering and managing the change control process for all system maintenance modifications and all enhancements approved by the COE Executive Board. Proposed changes to the GrantSolutions.gov system, as well as other systems developed and/or operated by the COE may result from legislative, regulatory and/or programmatic requirements. The primary objective of the COE Change Control Board is to ensure that these changes are implemented in a cost effective and achievable manner and take in to account the needs of the COE Partners and their budget resources. The COE Change Control Board provides the central technical direction needed to ensure that baseline changes are properly considered by all concerned parties, that changes are authorized before implementation, and that the development plans, schedules and project-related issues are managed effectively.