OMB’s Office of Federal Financial Management (OFFM) is responsible for all financial and grants management policy in the US federal government. They have just published their new five year plan (here). Here’s what it has to say about grants management. 

The FY 2012 Targets are: 

• Expand searchable public website to include sub-grant awards. 
• Complete migration by major grant-making agencies to the Grants Management Line of Business (GMLoB) consortia.
• Make available FIND and APPLY capabilities on Grants.gov for 100% of all discretionary grants.

See page 15 of the document for more details on the interim objectives and FY 2008 priority actions. 

The document also includes a section titled “Improving Grants Management” (page 25). This gives a potted history of grants modernization efforts since 1999 but also looks toward the future: 

Future efforts to streamline the grants management process include completing the establishment

of Government-wide standards for post-award reporting: financial, performance/progress, and

property (intellectual, real, and tangible personal property); adopting a new approach to award

content and format that has potential payoffs for both recipients and agencies in applying and

complying with administrative and national policy requirements; reducing the number of system

variations and disparate business processes, including those related to grant payment; enhancing

the quality of Single Audits under OMB Circular No. A‑133; and establishing training and

certification standards for Federal grants managers. 

The commitment to completing the goals of P.L. 106–107 is laudable and appropriate. Now, does anyone think it’s actually going to happen? 

Finally, I wasn’t aware that the Grants Policy Committee had the formal name of “Grants Governance Transformation Team”! I like it. Alliteration is a good thing!