A new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) recommends that the Social Security Administration (SSA) assess and review the amount of funds the agency uses in acquiring software licenses, and the possible duplication of licenses that it buys.
The June 4 report comes as the GAO adds assessing software licenses to the watchdog agency’s list of open recommendations that it says SSA should implement to improve the agency’s operations.
“Each year, the federal government spends more than $100 billion on information technology and cyber-related investments, including the purchase of software licenses. Federal agencies buy thousands of software licenses annually,” said GAO. “However, they do not know whether they have the right number of licenses for their needs.”
GAO asked SSA to develop and implement new procedures to compare license inventories to purchase records.
“Implementing this recommendation would better position SSA to regularly identify opportunities to reduce costs and make more informed investment decisions about its widely used licenses,” said the GAO.
