MANAGING FOR 

RESULTS

Enhanced Goal 

Leader Accountability 

and Collaboration 

Could Further 

Improve Agency 

Performance

Report to Congressional Addressees

July 2014

GAO-14-639

United States Government Accountability Office
United States Government Accountability Office

Highlights of GAO-14-639, a report to 

congressional addressees

July 2014

MANAGING FOR RESULTS: 

Enhanced Goal Leader Accountability and 

Collaboration Could Further Improve Agency

Performance

Why GAO Did This Study

Leadership involvement and 

accountability are important factors 

driving successful performance 

improvement in government. GPRAMA 

established the role of the agency 

priority goal leader and assigned 

accountability for achieving APGs to 

these officials. 

This report is one of a series in which 

GAO, as required by GPRAMA, 

reviewed the act’s implementation. It 

assesses (1) the roles and 

responsibilities of agency priority goal 

leaders in managing goal progress and 

the extent to which they are held 

accountable for goal achievement; (2) 

the extent to which goal leaders 

collaborate with other programs and 

agencies that contribute to APG 

achievement; and (3) any challenges 

and practices identified by goal 

leaders, and the extent to which they 

exchange this information with their 

peers. 

To address all three objectives, GAO 

examined nearly half (47 of 103) of the 

APGs for 2012 and 2013, and 

analyzed relevant documentation. 

GAO also interviewed the goal leaders 

and other relevant officials for each of 

the 47 selected goals.

What GAO Recommends

GAO recommends that OMB work with 

agencies to (1) ensure that they 

appoint deputy goal leaders; and (2) 

more clearly link goal leaders’ and 

deputies’ performance plans to APGs, 

and work with the PIC to further involve 

goal leaders and deputies in 

information-sharing related to APGs.

OMB staff generally agreed with 

GAO’s recommendations.

What GAO Found

Agency priority goal leaders GAO interviewed were generally highly-placed within 

their agencies—for example, several were heads of agencies—and reported a 

range of responsibilities related to managing agency priority goals (APG), such 

as laying out goal strategies. A majority of the goal leaders said the goal leader 

designation had benefits for their APGs, such as greater visibility for the goal.

Several also believed that there were benefits to designating the goal leader 

position in conjunction with other requirements from the GPRA Modernization Act 

of 2010 (GPRAMA), such as reviewing priority goal progress at least quarterly. 

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) directs agencies to appoint deputy 

goal leaders. Deputy goal leaders manage day-to-day implementation of APGs 

and provide continuity in the event of goal leader turnover. From the time the

APGs were published in February 2012 to the end of fiscal year 2013 (when they 

were to have been achieved), about 40 percent of the APGs GAO examined had 

a change in goal leader, while about 30 percent had a change in the deputy

position. In addition, although most of the 46 goal leaders GAO interviewed had 

formal deputy goal leaders in place, 11 (24 percent) did not. Without a 

designated deputy goal leader, agencies lack a formally designated official to fill

a key role in goal implementation. Individual performance plans are one of 

several mechanisms to provide goal leader and deputy goal leader accountability 

for APGs. Most goal leaders and all deputy goal leaders had performance plans. 

These plans covered a range of responsibilities, but generally did not fully reflect 

their APGs. In fact, many did not refer to the APG. Performance plans that link 

more directly to APGs could help ensure that officials are evaluated on and held 

responsible for APG progress and outcomes. 

Goal leaders collaborated with officials from outside their agencies to drive 

progress on APGs. However, some goal leaders reported that these outside 

contributors were not included in the quarterly performance reviews. Goal 

leaders also reported that a variety of different types of programs, such as grant 

and regulatory programs, contributes to their APGs. However, they reported few 

mechanisms for sharing information with other agencies related to assessing 

these programs. Further, for a variety of reasons agencies have focused less 

attention on identifying the tax expenditures that contribute to their APGs. These 

findings are consistent with prior recommendations GAO made to OMB regarding 

GPRAMA implementation. OMB has taken some steps to address the 

recommendations.

Goal leaders identified some common challenges and practices in managing 

APGs, but shared this information to a limited extent. For example, goal leaders

commonly cited resource constraints as a challenge, and practices related to 

measuring goal progress as helpful. One of the roles of the Performance 

Improvement Council (PIC), a council made up of agency performance 

improvement officers and chaired by OMB, is to facilitate information exchange. 

The PIC has shared tools and information with goal leaders; however PIC staff’s

primary points of contact are agencies’ performance improvement officers and 

their deputies. Overall, goal leaders and their deputies have had little direct 

interaction with the PIC. More direct outreach from PIC staff could facilitate 

information sharing among goal leaders and their deputies, and help ensure that 

they do not miss opportunities to better manage their APGs.

View GAO-14-639. For more information, 

contact J. Christopher Mihm at (202) 512-6806 

or mihmj@gao.gov. 
Page i GAO-14-639 Role of the Agency Priority Goal Leader 

Letter 1

Background 5

Goal Leaders Are Carrying out Their Roles and Responsibilities 

on Goal Progress, but Their Performance Plans Do Not Always 

Hold Them Directly Accountable 9

Goal Leaders Collaborate with a Diverse Array of Organizations 

and Use Different Types of Programs to Drive Progress on 

Their Agencies’ APGs, but Continue to Miss Opportunities for 

Further Collaboration 22

Goal Leaders Identified Some Common Challenges and Practices 

in Goal Management, but Share This Information to a Limited 

Extent 35

Conclusions 40

Recommendations for Executive Action 42

Agency Comments 42

Appendix I GAO Sample of Agency Priority Goals for 2012-2013 46

Appendix II Objectives, Scope and Methodology 50

Appendix III Comments from the Social Security Administration 55

Appendix IV GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments 56

Tables

Table 1: Requirements of Agency Priority Goal Leaders 6

Table 2: Examples of External Entities with Which Goal Leaders 

Reported Collaborating 23

Table 3: Examples Goal Leaders Provided of How Different 

Program Types Contribute to Their APGs 27

Contents
Page ii GAO-14-639 Role of the Agency Priority Goal Leader 

Figures

Figure 1: OPM’s Goal Leader Core Competencies 7

Figure 2: Goal Leader’s Performance Plan with Clear Link to Goal 19

Figure 3: Goal Leader’s Performance Plan with Weaker Link to 

Goal 20
Page iii GAO-14-639 Role of the Agency Priority Goal Leader 

Abbreviations

APG Agency Priority Goal

BIA Bureau of Indian Affairs

CAP Cross-Agency Priority

COO Chief Operating Officer

DOD Department of Defense

DOJ Department of Justice

DOL Department of Labor

DOT Department of Transportation

Education Department of Education

EPA Environmental Protection Agency

FAA Federal Aviation Administration

GPRA Government Performance and Results Act of 1993

GPRAMA GPRA Modernization Act of 2010

HHS Department of Health and Human Services

HUD Department of Housing and Urban Development

Interior Department of the Interior

NASA National Aeronautics and Space Administration

NSF National Science Foundation

OMB Office of Management and Budget

OPM Office of Personnel Management 

PIC Performance Improvement Council 

PIO Performance Improvement Officer

QPR Quarterly Performance Review

Reclamation Bureau of Reclamation

SBA Small Business Administration

SES Senior Executive Service

SSA Social Security Administration

Treasury Department of the Treasury 

This is a work of the U.S. government and is not subject to copyright protection in the 

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without further permission from GAO. However, because this work may contain 

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Page 1 GAO-14-639 Role of the Agency Priority Goal Leader 

441 G St. N.W.

Washington, DC 20548

July 22, 2014

Congressional Addressees

Leadership involvement and accountability are two of the most important 

factors in driving successful performance improvement. Our prior work 

has found that these two factors are critical to driving change and 

improvement in government by overcoming resistance, marshalling 

resources, building and maintaining organization-wide commitment, and 

ensuring persistent follow through.1 Congress took steps to promote 

leadership involvement and accountability in the federal government 

when it updated the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 

(GPRA) with the GPRA Modernization Act of 2010 (GPRAMA), which 

established certain leadership roles in law and provided the officials in 

these roles with responsibilities for various aspects of performance 

management.2 One of the key leadership roles under GPRAMA is the 

agency priority goal leader. Individuals in this role are responsible for the 

achievement of agency priority goals (APG), which are to reflect 

agencies’ highest priorities.3

 1

GAO, Managing for Results: GPRA Modernization Act Implementation Provides 

Important Opportunities to Address Government Challenges, 

For example, APGs focus on issues related 

to ensuring worker safety, supporting small businesses, and protecting 

the environment. Goal leaders are to play an important role in managing 

and achieving these goals, and in working with other agency officials to 

review progress on them. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) 

guidance directs that goal leaders be individuals authorized to coordinate 

across their agency and program, and that they review goal progress and 

make course corrections as needed, among other responsibilities.

GAO-11-617T (Washington, 

D.C.: May 10, 2011). 

2

Pub. L. No. 111-352, 124 Stat. 3866 (Jan. 4, 2011). GPRAMA updated GPRA, Pub. L. 

No. 103-62, 107 Stat. 285 (Aug. 3, 1993).

3

Certain agencies, as determined by the Office of Management and Budget, are required 

to develop APGs every 2 years. 
Page 2 GAO-14-639 Role of the Agency Priority Goal Leader 

This report is part of a series of reports responding to GPRAMA’s 

mandate that we examine implementation of the act.4

To address all three objectives, we selected a random sample of 47 

APGs for 2012 and 2013, or almost half of the 103 APGs established for 

this time period.

The objectives of 

this report are to (1) evaluate the roles and responsibilities of agency 

priority goal leaders in managing goal progress and the extent to which 

they are held accountable for achievement of priority goals; (2) review the 

extent to which agency priority goal leaders collaborate with other 

programs and agencies that contribute to the achievement of the priority 

goals; and (3) describe any challenges and practices identified by agency 

priority goal leaders in managing goals, and evaluate the extent to which 

they exchange this information with other agency priority goal leaders.

5

 4

GAO, Managing for Results: Executive Branch Should More Fully Implement the GPRA 

Modernization Act to Address Pressing Governance Challenges, 

Although our sample represented a significant portion of 

APGs and goal leaders, we did not generalize information to the 

population of APGs or goal leaders. We chose our sample to ensure that 

it included at least one goal from each of the 24 agencies that had APGs, 

and approximately half of the total number of APGs per agency. For the 

APGs in our sample, we obtained and analyzed documentation related to 

goal leaders’ roles and responsibilities. For example, we obtained 

agendas and minutes from meetings at which APGs were discussed. We 

also obtained and analyzed individual performance plans from the goal 

leaders and deputy goal leaders who had them to understand how those 

GAO-13-518

(Washington, D.C.: June 26, 2013) summarizes our work to date on the implementation of 

the act.

5

The Department of Defense has published limited information about its APG to improve 

cybersecurity, due to the sensitive nature of the goal. According to Performance.gov, 

progress updates for this goal will be internal to the government. Because we used 

publicly available information, we excluded this goal from our sample.
Page 3 GAO-14-639 Role of the Agency Priority Goal Leader 

plans are used to hold officials accountable for goal progress.6 To inform 

our analysis, we also reviewed our prior work on performance 

management leadership roles under GPRAMA, APGs, and interagency 

collaboration.7 To assess goal leader and deputy goal leader 

performance plans, we reviewed our prior work on leading practices 

related to linking individual and organizational performance.8 We also 

reviewed our prior work on data-driven performance reviews (also 

referred to as quarterly performance reviews [QPR]) as part of our 

examination of accountability mechanisms for goal achievement and goal 

leaders’ collaboration.9

 6

The number of goal leaders and deputy goal leaders responsible for the goals in our 

sample does not match the number of APGs because some goals had more than one goal 

leader or deputy goal leader assigned, while other goal leaders and deputies had 

responsibility for more than one APG in our sample. Twelve goal leaders we interviewed 

who were Senate-confirmed presidential appointees did not have performance plans, as 

they were not required. Senate-confirmed presidential appointees are not in the Senior 

Executive Service (SES) and therefore not under the SES performance management 

system. See 5 C.F.R. § 430.302(a) and 5 U.S.C. § 3132(a)(2). Additionally, two goal 

leaders had plans that did not reflect their goal leader roles because they were new to 

their positions or serving in them temporarily. All of the 38 deputy goal leaders for the 

goals in our sample had performance plans, though we excluded 3 deputies’ plans from 

consideration because they were new to the position at the time of our interviews and their 

plans had not been updated to reflect their roles as deputies.

7

See GAO, Managing for Results: Agencies Have Elevated Performance Management 

Leadership Roles, but Additional Training is Needed, GAO-13-356 (Washington, D.C.: 

Apr. 16, 2013); Managing for Results: Agencies Should More Fully Develop Priority Goals 

under the GPRA Modernization Act, GAO-13-174 (Washington, D.C.: Apr. 19, 2013); and 

Managing for Results: Implementation Approaches Used to Enhance Collaboration in 

Interagency Groups, GAO-14-220 (Washington, D.C.: Feb. 14, 2014).

8

See GAO, Results-Oriented Cultures: Creating a Clear Linkage between Individual 

Performance and Organizational Success, GAO-03-488 (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 14, 

2003). As a part of this report, we identified key practices for effective performance 

management that create a clear linkage between individual performance and 

organizational success. We identified these practices by reviewing, among other things, 

experiences of public sector organizations in the United States and abroad. See the 

report’s scope and methodology for additional details.

9

See GAO, Managing for Results: Data-Driven Performance Reviews Show Promise But 

Agencies Should Explore How to Involve Other Relevant Agencies, GAO-13-228

(Washington, D.C.: Feb. 27, 2013). Our prior work identified several leading practices for 

conducting quarterly performance reviews. We identified these practices through a review 

of relevant academic and policy literature and with input from practitioners at the local, 

state, and federal levels. See the report’s scope and methodology for additional details. 
Page 4 GAO-14-639 Role of the Agency Priority Goal Leader 

In addition, we reviewed GPRAMA and related OMB guidance, as well as 

information on the APGs published on Performance.gov, a governmentwide performance website.10

To further address all three objectives, we conducted semistructured 

interviews with the goal leaders for 43 of the 47 APGs in our sample, a 

total of 46 goal leaders.

We used information from Performance.gov 

throughout this engagement, but all references to data from 

Performance.gov in this report are as of May 23, 2014, the date we most 

recently downloaded information from the website. To assess the 

reliability of APG information available through Performance.gov, we 

collected information from agencies and reviewed relevant documentation 

and our prior work. We concluded that information from the website was 

sufficiently reliable for the purpose of drawing our sample of APGs and 

providing contextual information on them. We did not evaluate the 

accuracy of agency data on goal progress to determine if the APG 

progress they described to us and on Performance.gov was accurate. 

But, we did ask agency officials to verify information on the goal progress 

we reported from Performance.gov.

11

 10Our 2013 report on the Performance.gov website examined the extent to which the 

website incorporates leading practices for the development of federal websites. See GAO, 

Managing for Results: Leading Practices Should Guide the Continued Development of 

Performance.gov, 

Seven of the goal leaders we interviewed were 

heads or acting heads of their agencies. Appendix I includes a list of the 

goals in our sample and the names and titles of the goal leaders we 

interviewed. Our interview questions focused on their roles and 

responsibilities, including how they are held accountable for goal 

progress, how they collaborate, and how they share promising practices 

and challenges. We also interviewed OMB and Performance 

Improvement Council (PIC) staff about actions the PIC has taken to reach 

out to and facilitate information exchange among goal leaders. Further 

details of our objectives, scope, and methodology are contained in 

appendix II.

GAO-13-517 (Washington, D.C.: June 6, 2013). 

11The number of goal leaders does not equal the number of goals because some goals 

had more than one leader, while some goal leaders were responsible for more than one 

goal in our sample. In most cases where there was more than one goal leader, we 

interviewed all goal leaders. We were not able to interview the goal leaders for four of the 

APGs in our sample because the goal leaders had either left their agencies or were about 

to leave at the time of our interviews. For these goals, we interviewed other agency 

officials who were knowledgeable about the goals. In addition, two of the departing goal 

leaders were able to provide us with written responses to our questions. 
Page 5 GAO-14-639 Role of the Agency Priority Goal Leader 

We conducted our work from June 2013 to July 2014 in accordance with 

generally accepted government audit standards. Those standards require 

that we plan and perform the audit to obtain sufficient, appropriate 

evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions 

based on our audit objectives. We believe that the evidence obtained 

provides a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on 

our audit objectives.

GPRAMA added new requirements for setting and achieving agency 

goals. Every 2 years, GPRAMA requires the heads of certain agencies to 

identify a subset of agency goals to be identified as APGs.12 These goals 

are to reflect the highest priorities of the agency and are to have clearlydefined milestones and ambitious targets that can be achieved within 2 

years.13 GPRAMA also directs agencies to describe how goals are to be 

achieved, including the processes, training, skills and technology, and the 

human, capital, information, and other resources and strategies required 

to meet them. In addition, they are to identify performance indicators to be 

used in measuring progress, among other things.14 The first round of 

APGs was publicly reported in February 2012, and they were to be 

completed by the end of fiscal year 2013.15

 12GPRAMA states that the 24 agencies identified in the Chief Financial Officers (CFO) Act 

of 1990, as amended (31 U.S.C. § 901(b)), are required to develop APGs, unless OMB 

determines otherwise. The 24 agencies that developed APGs for 2012 and 2013 varied 

slightly from the CFO Act agencies. OMB did not require the Nuclear Regulatory 

Commission to develop these goals; but it did direct the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers –

Civil Works program to develop priority goals. The agencies with APGs for 2012 and 2013 

were: the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Education, Energy, Health 

and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, the Interior, 

Justice, Labor, State, Transportation, the Treasury, and Veterans Affairs, as well as the 

U.S. Agency for International Development, Environmental Protection Agency, General 

Services Administration, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, National Science 

Foundation, Office of Personnel Management, Small Business Administration, Social 

Security Administration, and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers – Civil Works. 

New APGs, for 2014 and 

2015, were published on Performance.gov in March 2014. According to 

1331 U.S.C. § 1120(b)(1).

1431 U.S.C. § 1122(b).

15In 2009, prior to the enactment of GPRAMA, OMB required agencies to identify high 

priority performance goals that, among other things, were achievable within 12 to 24 

months and were highly valued by the public or reflecting achievement of agency 

missions. Progress on these goals was not publicly reported. Several of the APGs were a 

continuation of these earlier high priority performance goals. 

Background
Page 6 GAO-14-639 Role of the Agency Priority Goal Leader 

OMB staff, approximately 40 percent of the APGs for 2014 and 2015 

were carried over from and focus on the same areas as the APGs from 

2012 and 2013, although they typically have updated targets for 

achievement. In conjunction with these goal-setting requirements, 

GPRAMA also established a requirement that, for each APG, agencies 

identify an agency official–the goal leader–responsible for goal 

achievement.16

GPRAMA and OMB guidance describe responsibilities and specific tasks 

for goal leaders, including that they participate in quarterly performance 

reviews (QPR) (see table 1). OMB also directs agencies to identify a 

deputy goal leader to support the goal leader, though it does not provide 

details of the responsibilities or specific tasks of the deputy position.

Table 1: Requirements of Agency Priority Goal Leaders 

GPRAMA OMB Circular No. A-11 (2013)

31 U.S.C. § 1120(b)(1)(C)

b

“The agency priority goals shall... have a clearly identified 

agency official, known as a goal leader, who is responsible 

for the achievement of each agency priority goal.”

31 U.S.C. § 1121(b)(1)

“Not less than quarterly, at each agency required to develop 

agency priority goals... the head of the agency and Chief 

Operating Officer, with the support of the agency 

Performance Improvement Officer, shall – for each agency 

priority goal, review with the appropriate goal leader the 

progress achieved during the most recent quarter, overall 

trend data, and the likelihood of meeting the planned level of 

performance.”

Section 200.15 

a

“A goal leader is an official named by the agency head or Chief 

Operating Officer who will be held accountable for leading 

implementation efforts to achieve a goal. A goal leader will lay out 

strategies to achieve the goal, manage execution, regularly review 

performance, engage others as needed and make course corrections 

as appropriate. Agency goal leaders will be individual(s) authorized to 

coordinate across an agency or program to achieve progress on a 

goal.”

Section 270.2 

“COOs must run at least quarterly, data-driven reviews on each of the 

Agency Priority Goals with agency goal leaders or their designees.”

Sources: GAO analysis of laws and guidance. | GAO-14-639

a

Under GPRAMA agencies’ chief operating officers (COO) are to be deputy agency heads or 

equivalent.

b

OMB Circular No. A-11, Preparation, Submission, and Execution of the Budget, pt. 6 (July 2013).

In addition, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has identified 

core competencies for key roles under GPRAMA, including the goal 

 16A similar position existed at some agencies prior to GPRAMA, as earlier OMB guidance 

had encouraged agencies to identify officials who were responsible for high priority 

performance goals.
Page 7 GAO-14-639 Role of the Agency Priority Goal Leader 

leader.17 These competencies are illustrated in figure 1. OPM has also 

identified executive core qualifications for Senior Executive Service 

officials. Some of the competencies for the executive core qualification for 

building coalitions, such as partnering, are the same as those OPM 

identified as core competencies for agency priority goal leaders. Several 

of these competencies are also consistent with ones we identified in our 

prior work as important attributes for collaborative leadership.18

Figure 1: OPM’s Goal Leader Core Competencies

For 

example, these leadership competencies included communication, 

building and maintaining relationships, and setting a vision.

 17See Office of Personnel Management, Memorandum for Chief Human Capital Officers: 

Government Performance and Results Act Modernization Act of 2010 Functional 

Competencies (Jan. 3, 2012).

18GAO-14-220. 
Page 8 GAO-14-639 Role of the Agency Priority Goal Leader 

Under GPRAMA agencies are to make information on APGs available to 

OMB for online publication.19 This information, which includes APG 

strategies, performance indicators, progress updates, and identification of 

the relevant goal leader, is published on Performance.gov. Agencies are 

to update information on each APG at least quarterly. Agencies are also 

to identify programs and activities that contribute to each APG. These 

include organizations, program activities, regulations, policies, and other 

activities, both internal and external to the agency. OMB also directs 

agencies to include, as appropriate, tax expenditures in their identification 

of programs that contribute to their APGs.20

GPRAMA also established in law the Performance Improvement Council 

(PIC), chaired by OMB’s Deputy Director for Management and composed 

of performance improvement officers from various federal agencies.21

According to PIC staff, officials from a broad range of agencies, both 

large and small, participate in the PIC. The PIC is charged with facilitating 

the exchange of successful performance management practices among 

agencies and assisting OMB in implementing certain GPRAMA 

requirements (among other responsibilities).22

Although this report focuses on the goal leaders for APGs, similar 

positions exist for other types of goals as well. At the agency level, OMB 

directs agencies to designate leaders for each agency strategic objective, 

which reflects the outcomes or impacts the agency is intending to 

achieve. OMB’s 2013 guidance directs agencies to conduct annual 

strategic reviews of progress toward strategic objectives to inform their 

 1931 U.S.C. § 1122(b).

20OMB Circular No. A-11, at § 210.12. Tax expenditures are reductions in a taxpayer’s tax 

liability that are the result of special exemptions and exclusions from taxation, deductions, 

credits, deferrals of tax liability, or preferential tax rates. These preferences can have the 

same effects as government spending programs; hence the name tax expenditures. 

21Agency performance improvement officers have various duties, including advising the 

agency head and chief operating officer on goal-setting and measurement, and reviewing 

progress toward agency priority goals. GPRAMA established this role in law and specified 

that it should be filled by a senior executive at each agency. 

22We previously reported on the role of the PIC in facilitating the exchange of best 

practices and improving agency program management and performance. See GAO, 

Managing for Results: Agencies Have Elevated Performance Management Leadership 

Roles, but Additional Training is Needed, GAO-13-356 (Washington, D.C.: Apr. 16, 2013).
Page 9 GAO-14-639 Role of the Agency Priority Goal Leader 

decision making, starting in 2014.23 At the government-wide level, 

GPRAMA requires a lead official to be identified for each cross-agency 

priority (CAP) goal.24 CAP goals either focus on issues that cut across 

agency boundaries or on management improvement across the federal 

government. Each of the 15 CAP goals announced in the President’s 

2015 budget has a leader within the Executive Office of the President and 

within a related agency. Although these other types of goal leaders exist, 

throughout this report, when we refer to goal leaders we are only referring 

to goal leaders for the APGs.

The goal leaders for the goals in our sample were, in general, placed at 

high levels within their agencies and so were in senior leadership 

positions that enabled them to drive progress on their APGs. For 

example, of the 46 goal leaders we interviewed, 7 were heads or acting 

heads of agencies and 9 were agency assistant secretaries or acting 

assistant secretaries. Most (28) of the 46 goal leaders we interviewed 

were in career positions and the remainder (18) were political appointees. 

This high placement of goal leaders is consistent with OMB guidance, 

which states that goal leaders should be officials with the authority to 

coordinate across an agency or program. It is also a practice supported 

by our prior work, in which we noted that personal involvement of top 

 23OMB Circular No. A-11, at § 270.8.

2431 U.S.C. § 1115(a)(3).

Goal Leaders Are 

Carrying out Their 

Roles and 

Responsibilities on 

Goal Progress, but 

Their Performance 

Plans Do Not Always 

Hold Them Directly 

Accountable

Goal Leaders are 

Generally Highly-Placed 

within Their Organizations 

and Reported a Range of 

Roles and Responsibilities
Page 10 GAO-14-639 Role of the Agency Priority Goal Leader 

agency leadership is important to successful management.25 The 

Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), who is the 

goal leader for the Department of Transportation’s (DOT) Reduce Risk of 

Aviation Accidents APG, told us that, in his opinion, having a goal leader 

who is also the head of an agency is important because he or she has the 

authority to engage agency employees to achieve the goal. As an 

example, FAA officials provided us with a list of the Administrator’s site 

visits to FAA facilities around the country. According to DOT, aviation 

fatality rates—this APG’s performance measure—are at historic lows and 

have continued to drop over time.26

Goal leaders we interviewed provided many examples of ways in which 

they fulfill goal leader responsibilities required by OMB guidance, 

including laying out strategies to achieve the goal, managing execution, 

regularly reviewing performance, engaging others as needed, and making 

course corrections as appropriate. They also engage in other activities. 

For example, the Associate Administrator of the Office of Disaster 

Assistance at the Small Business Administration (SBA), who is also the 

goal leader for the Process Disaster Assistance Applications Efficiently

APG, told us that he and others at SBA started developing strategies and 

targets in 2011, prior to the beginning of the fiscal year 2012-2013 agency 

priority goal cycle. He said that it was important to consider reasonable 

targets as part of setting and implementing the APG. This meant 

determining a feasible target for the percentage of disaster assistance 

applications the agency would aim to receive electronically as part of goal 

setting. SBA reported on Performance.gov that the rate of applications 

filed electronically had more than doubled from fiscal year 2011 to 2013, 

when 55 percent of applications were filed electronically.

While officials we interviewed noted 

the importance of having goal leaders at a high enough level that they 

have authority within their agencies, some noted the importance of 

balancing that with the need for a goal leader who has the time for close, 

regular involvement with the goal.

27

 25GAO, Government Performance: GPRA Modernization Act Provides Opportunities to 

Help Address Fiscal, Performance, and Management Challenges, 

In addition, the 

Department of the Treasury’s (Treasury) Fiscal Assistant Secretary, who 

was also the goal leader for the agency’s Increase Electronic 

GAO-11-466T

(Washington, D.C., Mar. 16, 2011).

26For more information, see http://archive-goals.Performance.gov/goal_detail/DOT/349. 

27For more information, see http://archive-goals.Performance.gov/goal_detail/SBA/395.
Page 11 GAO-14-639 Role of the Agency Priority Goal Leader 

Transactions with the Public to Improve Service, Prevent Fraud, and 

Reduce Costs APG, said that a significant part of his work involved 

providing information to the public through press releases and working 

with consumer and community groups to make them aware of the 

changes coming with regard to electronic transactions. Treasury officials 

provided us with examples of press releases and other public 

communications, as well as a list of the Fiscal Assistant Secretary’s 

meetings with advocacy groups and other stakeholders related to the 

goal. The fiscal year 2015 President’s budget highlighted progress made 

under this goal, noting that increased electronic transactions had helped 

the government get money to beneficiaries and into the economy faster, 

and reduced costs associated with collections.28

Several of the goal leaders we interviewed told us that using performance 

information was a central part of managing their goals. Our prior work has 

shown that effective quarterly performance reviews (QPR), at which 

agencies are to review APG performance, require leadership to come 

together to review performance information and progress toward results.29

Additionally, our 2013 federal managers survey found a positive 

relationship between managers’ familiarity with agencies’ QPRs and their 

perceptions of their leadership’s demonstrated commitment to using 

performance information.30

 28See OMB, Fiscal Year 2015 Analytical Perspectives, Budget of the U.S. Government

(Washington, D.C.: Mar. 10, 2014), and http://archivegoals.Performance.gov/goal_detail/TREAS/335.

Goal leaders we interviewed reported using 

performance information to support decision making, monitor 

performance, and report progress. For example, the Department of 

Labor’s (DOL) Assistant Secretary for Occupational Safety and Health, 

who was also one of the two goal leaders for DOL’s Reduce Worker 

Fatalities APG, reported that the agency used worker fatality data in a 

number of industries to target enforcement and educational efforts aimed 

at reducing the number of future deaths. DOL reported on 

Performance.gov that fatality rates for the three sectors on which the APG 

is based had either declined or stayed the same from fiscal years 2012 

29GAO-13-228. In this report we identified several leading practices for conducting QPRs 

through a review of relevant academic and policy literature, and with input from 

practitioners at the local, state, and federal levels.

30See GAO-13-518 and GAO, 2013 Federal Managers Survey on Organizational 

Performance and Management Issues, GAO-13-519SP (Washington, D.C., June 2013).
Page 12 GAO-14-639 Role of the Agency Priority Goal Leader 

through 2013.31 In addition, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) within the 

Department of the Interior (Interior) had been collecting data on crime 

before the Reduce Violent Crime in Indian Communities goal was 

designated an APG. But, officials told us that the APG designation led to 

an increased focus on data use. For example, officials developed crime 

rate profiles identifying locations where crimes were historically 

committed, including information on times of day and days of week, and 

used that information to shift police assignments and target proactive 

measures. According to information reported by Interior on 

Performance.gov, BIA, working with tribes, met most of its violent crime 

rate targets in fiscal years 2012 and 2013 for five of the six communities 

originally targeted under the APG.32

A majority of the goal leaders we interviewed said the goal leader 

designation had positive effects on goal progress and achievement. Goal 

leaders and other officials identified one or more benefits that derived 

from the designation, frequently saying that it provided greater visibility for 

the goal, facilitated coordination, heightened focus on the goal, or 

improved access to resources. For example, a deputy goal leader at the 

Federal Railroad Administration, part of DOT, said that goal leader and 

deputy goal leader designations are valuable in the context of competing 

priorities at the department. He said that the designation and related 

requirements elevate the goal, provide additional structure, and 

communicate the department’s commitment to it. DOT reported on 

Performance.gov that the agency initiated construction on five passenger 

rail corridors and 37 individual projects during fiscal years 2012 and 2013 

for the deputy goal leader’s Advance the Development of Passenger Rail 

in the United States APG.33

 31For more information, see http://archive-goals.Performance.gov/goal_detail/DOL/345.

Additionally, the Assistant Secretary for 

Elementary and Secondary Education, who is the goal leader for two of 

the Department of Education’s (Education) APGs–Demonstrate Progress 

in Turning Around the Nation’s Lowest-Performing Schools and Improve 

Outcomes for all Children from Birth through Third Grade–said that her 

32Interior reported on Performance.gov that it discontinued implementation of the APG at 

the sixth community targeted under the goal. Interior reported that the community had 

been unable to meet goal objectives or provide any support to the initiative. For more 

information on the goal, see http://archive-goals.Performance.gov/goal_detail/DOI/381.

33For more information, see http://archive-goals.Performance.gov/goal_detail/DOT/351.

Goal Leaders Report 

Varied Effects from

Goal Leader Designation, 

but Identified Benefits

in Conjunction with

Other Related GPRAMA 

Requirements
Page 13 GAO-14-639 Role of the Agency Priority Goal Leader 

designation as goal leader has caused her to think more about the goals 

and how they relate to other aspects of the department’s work and to 

think more strategically across the whole Office of Elementary and 

Secondary Education. According to data reported by Education on 

Performance.gov, under the APG targeting the lowest-performing schools 

(489 schools receiving Education’s School Improvement Grants), those 

schools demonstrated at least 10 percent increases in reading or math 

scores during fiscal years 2012 and 2013.34 Education also reported that 

under the APG focusing on improved outcomes, 24 states implemented 

plans to collect and report disaggregated data on children entering public 

school kindergarten as part of a comprehensive assessment system.35

About a third of the goal leaders we interviewed told us that the goal 

leader designation did not affect goal achievement. In several cases, goal 

leaders noted the difficulty they had differentiating their role as goal 

leader from the work they would otherwise be doing as part of their other 

roles. For example, the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s

(HUD) Acting Assistant Secretary of the Office of Community Planning 

and Development, who was one of the goal leaders for the agency’s 

Reducing Homelessness APG, told us that the goal leader designation 

was more a description of his continuing role leading agency efforts on 

homelessness rather than a significant change in responsibility or 

position. In addition, some APGs continued work begun under other, prior 

agency goals, and in some cases represent issues that have been 

agency priorities for years. For example, several of the agency priorities 

represented by the APGs in our sample had also been reflected in 

agency high priority performance goals, which were in place prior to 

GPRAMA’s enactment.36

 34For more information, see 

Several goal leaders cited the close 

correspondence between the APG focus and agency mission as a reason 

that the designation of goal leaders made little difference in how the 

agency carried out its work in support of the goal. For example, the Acting 

Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, who was also the goal 

leader for the Department of Commerce’s Advance Commercialization of 

New Technologies by Reducing Patent Application Pendency and 

Backlog APG, told us that the goal leader designation did not have a 

http://archive-goals.Performance.gov/goal_detail/ED/354. 

35For more information, see http://archive-goals.Performance.gov/goal_detail/ED/352. 

36In 2009, OMB required agencies to identify high priority performance goals.
Page 14 GAO-14-639 Role of the Agency Priority Goal Leader 

significant effect because the APG is a firmly-established part of her 

agency’s mission. According to information reported by the Department of 

Commerce on Performance.gov, the agency reduced pendency for first 

and final actions and reduced its patent backlog during fiscal years 2012 

and 2013.37

Several goal leaders we interviewed noted that it is difficult to distinguish 

the impact of the goal leader designation from that of other related 

GPRAMA requirements, such as designating the goal as a priority and 

holding QPRs. For example, benefits that goal leaders attributed to the 

APG designation include making the goal a higher priority and giving it 

greater focus. The Associate Administrator for the Health Resources and 

Services Administration’s Bureau of Primary Health Care, who is also the 

goal leader for the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) 

Increase the Number of Health Centers Certified as Patient Centered 

Medical Homes APG, said that the agency priority goal designation gave 

it additional importance and leverage in the context of the department’s 

competing priorities, and helped to facilitate communication and create 

momentum in working with health centers. HHS reported on 

Performance.gov that the percentage of health centers earning 

certification as Patient Centered Medical Homes had increased from 4 

percent in the first quarter of fiscal year 2012 to 33 percent by the end of 

fiscal year 2013.38 Goal leaders also attributed benefits to QPRs, 

including that they provided opportunities to exchange information with 

other goal leaders and get feedback directly from agency leaders, as well 

as institutionalizing the collection and use of performance data. The 

Deputy Secretary of Interior, who was also the goal leader for the 

department’s Enable Capability to Increase the Available Water Supply in 

the Western States through Conservation Related Programs to Ensure 

Adequate and Safe Water Supplies APG, said that the quarterly meetings 

are valuable because they allow Interior’s six goal leaders to look for 

interrelationships among their APGs and think about ways each goal 

leader could contribute to other Interior goals.39

 37For more information, see 

He said that they help 

foster an interdisciplinary approach to setting and achieving Interior’s 

goals. According to data reported by Interior on Performance.gov, it 

http://archive-goals.Performance.gov/goal_detail/DOC/338. 

38For more information, see http://archive-goals.Performance.gov/goal_detail/HHS/373. 

39At the time of our interview, the Deputy Secretary was the Commissioner of Reclamation 

at Interior.
Page 15 GAO-14-639 Role of the Agency Priority Goal Leader 

funded water conservation projects that enabled nearly 250,000 acre feet 

of water savings during fiscal years 2012 and 2013.40

OMB guidance directs agencies to identify a deputy goal leader to 

support each goal leader, and agencies naming a political appointee as a 

goal leader are encouraged to name a career senior executive as the 

deputy. Twenty-eight of the 46 goal leaders we interviewed were in career 

positions and 18 were political appointees. OMB staff told us that this 

guidance is in place for several reasons. Primarily, it is due to the 

importance of having a person in place who is close to the work being 

done on APGs and who can spend the time needed to implement and 

follow up on related tasks. OMB staff said that the agency sees the 

deputy goal leader as the person who can perform the important function 

of connecting APG leadership and strategy with actual implementation. 

OMB also directed agencies to appoint deputy goal leaders because the 

position may help provide continuity in the event that the goal leader 

leaves the agency, and also provides a point of contact for OMB, 

particularly in situations in which the designated goal leader is very highly 

placed in the agency. OMB staff told us that OMB does not monitor 

whether agencies formally designate deputies or systematically collect 

information, including contact information, on them. Instead, staff said that 

they identify and use deputy goal leaders as points of contact when they 

find it necessary.

Deputy goal leaders for the APGs in our sample supported day-to-day 

goal management and provided continuity during times of transition. Most 

(35 of 46) of the goal leaders we interviewed had deputy goal leaders.41

 40For more information, see 

These goal leaders and their deputies most commonly characterized 

deputies’ roles as involving day-to-day management of the goal or 

managing data collection, analysis, and presentation for QPRs and other 

purposes. In some cases deputies also participated in budget 

management, and developing goals or strategies. Deputies also played a 

role during goal leader transitions. For example, the Department of 

http://archive-goals.Performance.gov/goal_detail/DOI/382. 

41In addition, deputy goal leaders were assigned for three of the four APGs for which we 

did not interview goal leaders, due to the fact that goal leaders had left the position or 

were about to leave it at the time of our interviews. Two goal leaders told us that their 

deputies were “unofficial.” We did not include these goal leaders in the number of goal 

leaders with deputies.

Deputy Goal Leaders 

Were Designated for Most, 

but Not All, Priority Goals
Page 16 GAO-14-639 Role of the Agency Priority Goal Leader 

Justice’s (DOJ) National Coordinator for Child Exploitation, Prevention 

and Interdiction, who also leads the agency’s Protect Those Most in Need 

of Help—With Special Emphasis on Child Exploitation and Civil Rights

APG, explained that her deputy goal leader had provided useful support 

when she started in the goal leader position, especially in terms of helping 

her to understand APG performance measures and how they fit into her 

work. Additionally, two of the goal leaders we interviewed had originally 

been deputy goal leaders, and had taken on the goal leader role when the 

previous goal leader left the position. Our analysis of APGs found that 

there had been somewhat higher rates of turnover among goal leaders 

than deputies between the time the APGs were published in February 

2012 and completed at the end of September 2013. Of the 47 APGs in 

our sample, 20 (slightly more than 40 percent) had a change in goal 

leader during this time period. Of the 37 APGs that had deputy goal 

leaders assigned, 11 (31 percent) had a change in deputy goal leader 

over this time period.

Although most of the goal leaders we interviewed had formal deputy goal 

leaders in place, 11 of the 46 (24 percent) did not. Those goal leaders 

who did not have deputy goal leaders generally reported that they had 

other staff who fulfilled similar roles. For example, none of the goal 

leaders at HUD have deputy goal leaders, but the Director of HUD’s 

Performance Management Division told us that an analyst from the 

agency’s Office of Strategic Planning and Management is assigned to 

each APG. The analyst ensures that APGs comply with GPRAMA 

requirements. Although other agency staff may fulfill many of the roles 

that a deputy goal leader would, officially designating a deputy goal 

leader would be consistent with OMB’s view that deputies serve a key 

role in implementing APGs. In addition, this designation is especially 

important if there is additional turnover in the goal leader position in the 

future.
Page 17 GAO-14-639 Role of the Agency Priority Goal Leader 

Our prior work has found that high-performing organizations recognize 

that their performance management systems are strategic tools to help 

them manage and achieve organizational goals. We also found that an 

explicit alignment of activities with broader results is one of the features of 

effective performance management systems.42 Such an alignment helps 

individuals see the connection between their daily activities and 

organizational goals and encourages them to focus on their roles and 

responsibilities.43 Consistent with our prior work, the Office of Personnel 

Management (OPM), which provides policy direction and leadership in 

performance management, has noted that performance plans have the 

ability to focus employees’ efforts on achieving organizational goals, and 

has supported alignment of all employee performance plans with 

organizational goals. In the context of Senior Executive Service (SES) 

performance management, OPM has emphasized the importance of 

alignment in regulations establishing criteria for certifying that agency 

SES appraisal systems make meaningful distinctions in performance. 

These criteria include, among other things, that performance expectations 

for individual senior employees derive from and clearly link to the 

agency’s mission, strategic goals, and program and policy objectives, and 

that they reflect expected agency and organizational outcomes and 

performance targets or metrics.44 To determine how closely goal leaders’

and deputy goal leaders’ performance plans linked to their APGs, we 

analyzed these officials’ performance plans, where applicable. The 12 

goal leaders we interviewed who were Senate-confirmed presidential

appointees did not have performance plans, as they were not required.45

 42

The seven agency heads in our sample were all Senate-confirmed 

presidential appointees. In addition, two goal leaders had plans that did 

not reflect their goal leader roles because they were new to their positions 

GAO-03-488. We also note in GAO-13-518 that the Office of Personnel Management

and OMB have continued to reinforce the importance of this alignment in improvements in 

SES performance management. See GAO, Managing for Results: Executive Branch 

Should More Fully Implement the GPRA Modernization Act to Address Pressing 

Governance Challenges, GAO-13-518 (Washington, D.C.: June 26, 2013). 

43GAO-03-488. 

44Agencies meeting these and other criteria (as certified by OPM, with OMB concurrence) 

are allowed to apply a higher cap on 1) basic pay, and 2) aggregate compensation for 

SES members. 5 C.F.R. § 430.401.

45Senate-confirmed presidential appointees are not in the SES and therefore not under 

the SES performance management system. 5 C.F.R. § 430.302(a) and 5 U.S.C. § 

3132(a)(2).

Performance Plans of 

Goal Leaders and Deputy 

Goal Leaders Generally 

Did Not Fully Reflect 

Priority Goals
Page 18 GAO-14-639 Role of the Agency Priority Goal Leader 

or serving in them temporarily, so we excluded these plans from our 

analysis. In all, we obtained and analyzed 32 goal leader performance 

plans. We obtained performance plans from all 38 deputy goal leaders for 

the APGs in our sample, but excluded three from our analysis because 

the officials were new to the position and their performance plans had not 

been updated to reflect it.46

According to our assessment of goal leaders’ performance plans, 

agencies are not fully using performance plans as a tool to align APGs 

and goal leader expectations, or make goal leaders accountable for 

progress on and achievement of APGs. The 32 goal leader performance 

plans we analyzed reflected responsibility for goal outcomes to a varying 

extent. They covered a range of responsibilities, but many did not 

reference the APG at all, and few of them explicitly held goal leaders 

responsible for goal outcomes. Specifically, less than half (12 of 32) of the 

plans specified that the official was responsible for the APG, and 1 of the 

32 linked goal leaders’ performance standards to goal outcomes. Some 

goal leaders said that although their plans did not include specific 

references to their APGs, responsibility was implied because the APG 

was covered under broader responsibilities. We found that this was the 

case in almost half (14 of 32) of the plans we analyzed. Figures 2 and 3 

show excerpts from two goal leaders’ performance plans. The 

performance plan in figure 2 clearly links performance standards to 

specific APG outcomes, while the performance plan in figure 3 has a 

weaker connection to the two APGs under the goal leader’s responsibility. 

For example, the performance plan does not specifically mention the APG 

or any of its performance measures.

In all, we analyzed 35 deputy goal leader 

performance plans.

 46As mentioned previously, two goal leaders told us that their deputies were “unofficial.”

We did not include these deputies’ performance plans in our analysis. 
Page 19 GAO-14-639 Role of the Agency Priority Goal Leader 

Figure 2: Goal Leader’s Performance Plan with Clear Link to Goal

Note: The performance measures and targets are for fiscal year 2013. The goal leader’s performance 

plan is also for fiscal year 2013.
Page 20 GAO-14-639 Role of the Agency Priority Goal Leader 

Figure 3: Goal Leader’s Performance Plan with Weaker Link to Goal

Note: The performance measures and targets are for fiscal year 2013. The goal leader’s performance 

plan is also for fiscal year 2013.

Our analysis of deputies’ performance plans showed that they also 

reflected responsibility for APGs to a varying extent. In general, the 35 

deputy goal leader performance plans we reviewed did not establish a 

strong connection to APGs and did not make deputies accountable for 

goal outcomes. Our analysis found that 15 of 35 plans named the officials 

as the deputy goal leader or explicitly made them responsible for the APG 

and 1 of 35 linked deputies’ performance standards to goal outcomes. 

Some officials noted that although deputies’ performance plans did not 

specifically mention APGs, they did include responsibility for activities that 

supported the goal. We found this to be the case for nearly half of the 

performance plans we reviewed. Specifically, 14 deputies’ plans identified 

them as responsible for activities that could contribute to the goal, but did 

not reference the goal, goal outcomes, or broader areas of activity that 

could subsume the goal. For example, the performance plan for one of 

the deputy goal leaders on OPM’s Ensure High Quality Federal 

Employees APG specifies that she is responsible for improving and 
Page 21 GAO-14-639 Role of the Agency Priority Goal Leader 

implementing guidance related to the Pathways Program, a streamlined 

process for hiring new federal employees.

Agencies that use performance plans that lack a strong linkage to APG 

outcomes may be missing opportunities to promote accountability. 

Although APGs may fall under goal leaders’ broader responsibilities, 

specifically including the APG and its outcomes in goal leaders’ and 

deputies’ performance plans would help ensure that they are evaluated 

on and held accountable for goal progress. Our prior work makes clear 

the importance of tying performance standards to agency goals and 

making leadership accountable for goal outcomes. This is especially 

important, since APGs are to reflect the highest priorities of the agency.

While not all deputy and goal leader performance plans had clearly stated 

relationships to APGs, goal leaders we interviewed identified other 

mechanisms that they felt held them accountable for progress on APGs. 

These include personal reputation, accountability to agency and other 

leadership, and QPR meetings.47

 47Using QPRs as an accountability mechanism is one of several leading practices we 

previously identified for conducting the reviews. We identified these practices through a 

review of relevant academic and policy literature and with input from practitioners at the 

local, state, and federal levels. See 

For example, the Assistant Secretary of 

Labor for Occupational Safety and Health, who is goal leader for two 

APGs (Reduce Worker Fatalities and Develop a Model Safety and 

Return-to-Work Program), told us that the interest of Congress and DOL’s 

Inspector General, in their respective oversight roles, both operate to hold 

him accountable. In addition, the Federal Railroad Administrator, who is 

the goal leader for the Department of Transportation’s (DOT) Advance the 

Development of Passenger Rail in the United States APG, told us that the 

agency’s regulatory review meetings, which the agency also uses to meet 

the GPRAMA requirement that agencies review priority goal progress at 

least quarterly, act as an additional accountability mechanism. He said 

that the Deputy Secretary and other agency officials place considerable 

importance on these meetings and that it was personally important to him 

that he perform well at them, including being able to respond to all 

questions. While these other mechanisms offer additional accountability, 

our previous work has shown that performance plans offer particular 

benefits. For example, performance plans can allow performance 

managers to (1) document that performance standards align with agency 

GAO-13-228. 

Quarterly Performance 

Reviews and Informal 

Mechanisms Serve as 

Additional Accountability 

Mechanisms
Page 22 GAO-14-639 Role of the Agency Priority Goal Leader 

goals; (2) hold employees accountable for achieving specific and 

measurable results; and (3) make clear distinctions in performance.

Many of the meaningful results that the federal government seeks to 

achieve require the coordinated efforts of more than one federal agency, 

level of government, or sector. OMB’s guidance states that goal leaders 

should be authorized to coordinate across an agency or program to 

achieve progress on a goal. Our recent work on interagency collaboration 

identified leadership competencies related to collaborating effectively, 

including the ability to work well with others, build and maintain 

relationships, and communicate openly with a range of stakeholders.48

The goal leaders we interviewed reported many examples of collaborating 

with other entities to drive progress on their APGs. Table 2 provides some 

examples of how goal leaders reported collaborating with a diverse array 

of entities. 

 48GAO-14-220. 

Goal Leaders 

Collaborate with a 

Diverse Array of 

Organizations and 

Use Different Types 

of Programs to Drive 

Progress on Their 

Agencies’ APGs, but 

Continue to Miss 

Opportunities for 

Further Collaboration

Goal Leaders Collaborate 

with a Diverse Array

of Organizations on

Goal Progress
Page 23 GAO-14-639 Role of the Agency Priority Goal Leader 

Table 2: Examples of External Entities with Which Goal Leaders Reported Collaborating

Types of Entities Goal Leader Examples 

Other federal agencies A Department of Labor goal leader, who is the Acting Director of the Office of Workers’

Compensation Programs, reported that he created an interagency council–the Return to Work 

Council–to assist his office in developing strategies that federal agencies may utilize to increase 

the successful return to work of federal employees who suffered workplace injuries.

State and local governments A Department of Education goal leader, who is the Assistant Secretary for Elementary and 

Secondary Education, described how her office is working with several states to improve the 

data that are collected on early learning and development programs for young children and on 

elementary and secondary schools.

Non-governmental organizations A Department of State goal leader, who was at the time the Acting Principal Deputy Assistant 

Secretary, reported that his agency gives grants to non-governmental organizations in the 

Middle East and North Africa that are seeking to promote democracy in that region.

Industry groups A Department of Transportation goal leader, who is the Federal Aviation Administration’s 

Associate Administrator for Aviation Safety, serves as the government co-chair for a joint 

government/industry group–the Commercial Aviation Safety Team–that seeks to identify and 

mitigate safety risks for commercial aviation. The industry members of this group include 

aircraft manufacturers, labor unions, associations that represent airlines, and others.

Foreign governments A Department of Energy goal leader, who is the Deputy Administrator for Defense Nuclear 

Nonproliferation, explained the importance of negotiating agreements with foreign governments 

to achieve her agency’s priority goal of securing vulnerable nuclear materials. 

Sources: GAO analysis of interviews with goal leaders, information as reported on Performance.gov, and documentation agency officials provided. | GAO-14-639

OMB guidance and leading practices for conducting quarterly 

performance reviews (QPR) note the importance of agencies including all 

relevant contributors to APGs in these reviews.

49

 49OMB guidance states that agencies should, as appropriate, include relevant personnel, 

within and outside the agency, who contribute to the accomplishment of each APG. See 

OMB Circular No. A-11 at § 270.5. Additionally, leading practices for promoting quarterly 

performance reviews note the importance of having all relevant parties, including external 

contributors to the goal, participate in these reviews to solve problems and motivate 

performance improvement. See 

As shown below, we 

have made a prior related recommendation. 

GAO-13-228.

Some Goal Leaders 

Reported That Relevant 

Contributors to Their APGs 

Are Not Included in Their 

Agencies’ Quarterly 

Performance Reviews
Page 24 GAO-14-639 Role of the Agency Priority Goal Leader 

GAO Has Previously Recommended That OMB and the PIC Help Agencies Include 

External Contributors in Quarterly Performance Reviews

In February 2013, we made the following recommendation. OMB staff agreed with our 

recommendation. As of June 2014, OMB and Performance Improvement Council (PIC) 

staff reported that agencies continue to work to implement this recommendation through 

a PIC working group that is intended to help agencies share best practices for conducting 

QPRs, but did not have a specific timeframe in place for full implementation:

To better leverage agency quarterly performance reviews as a mechanism to manage 

performance toward agency priority and other agency-level performance goals, the 

Director of OMB—working with the PIC and other relevant groups—should identify and 

share promising practices to help agencies extend their QPRs to include, as relevant, 

representatives from outside organizations that contribute to achieving their agency 

performance goals.

Source: GAO, Managing for Results: Data-Driven Performance Reviews Show Promise But Agencies Should Explore How to Involve 

Other Relevant Agencies, GAO-13-228 (Washington, D.C.: Feb. 27, 2013).

However, some goal leaders we interviewed reported that APG 

contributors from other federal agencies, and even different components 

within the same federal agency, were not included in these reviews. The 

goal leader for the Department of the Interior’s (Interior) Reduce Violent 

Crime in Indian Communities APG–the Assistant Secretary for Indian 

Affairs–reported that he and his staff work with the Department of Justice 

(DOJ) on the goal, but that DOJ officials are not part of Interior’s QPRs.

50

 50Interior refers to its quarterly performance reviews as “Quarterly Status Reviews.”

Interior officials explained that they meet with DOJ officials in other 

settings. In another example, the Department of Labor (DOL) has 

designated two officials–the Assistant Secretary for Occupational Safety 

and Health and the Assistant Secretary for Mine Safety and Health–as 

co-goal leaders for the Reduce Worker Fatalities APG. The Assistant 

Secretary for Mine Safety and Health told us that he and the Assistant 

Secretary for Occupational Safety and Health have separate QPRs with 

the Deputy Secretary to discuss progress on their joint APG. In 

commenting on a draft of this report, DOL officials noted that this is 

because the Mine Safety and Health Administration covers only mining 

and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration covers other 

industries, and that the two programs have separate outcome metrics for 

the APG reported on Performance.gov. However, the Assistant Secretary 

for Mine Safety and Health told us that Occupational Safety and Health

Administration officials do not attend the reviews of the Mine Safety and 
Page 25 GAO-14-639 Role of the Agency Priority Goal Leader 

Health Administration. OMB guidance and our prior work state that 

agencies should, as appropriate, include relevant personnel within and 

outside the agency who contribute to the accomplishment of each APG.51

Our interviews with goal leaders did, however, identify one case in which 

a goal leader reported that external contributors to the goal attended the 

agency’s QPR meeting. Two Department of Housing and Urban 

Development (HUD) goal leaders who share responsibility for the 

Reducing Homelessness APG, which includes reducing homelessness 

among veterans, reported collaborating with officials from the U.S. 

Interagency Council on Homelessness and the Department of Veterans 

Affairs, which also has an APG focused on reducing veterans’

homelessness. HUD officials told us that every 6 months officials from the 

U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness and the Department of 

Veterans Affairs attend HUD’s QPRs.52 In our previous work on datadriven performance reviews, OMB officials cited this example of two 

agencies that had been using the QPRs to collaborate on their APGs.53

In cases where relevant personnel were not included in QPRs, the goal 

leaders we interviewed emphasized that their agencies use other means 

to collaborate with external contributors to their APGs. However, leading 

practices for conducting QPRs underscore the value of agencies 

extending their QPRs to include, as relevant, external contributors. We 

observed that these reviews have the benefit of bringing together the 

leadership and all the key players to solve problems. Moreover, when key 

players are excluded from QPRs, agencies will need to rely on potentially 

duplicative parallel coordination mechanisms.54

 51OMB Circular No. A-11 at §270.5 states: “the agency head and/or COO [chief operating 

officer] with the support of the PIO [performance improvement officer] and his/her office 

should include, as appropriate, relevant personnel within and outside the agency who 

contribute to the accomplishment of each Agency Priority Goal (or other priority).”

Thus, we continue to 

believe our prior recommendation has merit, and that OMB and PIC 

efforts to work with agencies to fully address it would strengthen these 

QPRs.

52HUD refers to their QPRs as “HUDStat.”

53GAO-13-228. 

54GAO-13-228. 
Page 26 GAO-14-639 Role of the Agency Priority Goal Leader 

GPRAMA requires the agency head and chief operating officer, with the 

support of the performance improvement officer, to assess whether 

relevant organizations, program activities, regulations, policies, and other 

activities are contributing as planned to the agency’s APGs, and to 

identify these contributing programs for publication on Performance.gov.55

Our previous work has identified more specific examples of different 

program types the federal government uses to achieve many of its goals: 

direct services, government contracts, grants, regulations, research and 

development, and tax expenditures.56 Table 3 provides more specific 

definitions of these program types and also provides examples from our 

interviews of how goal leaders reported different program types 

contributed to their APGs.57

 5531 U.S.C. § 1121(b)(3); and 31 U.S.C. § 1122(b)(3)(C). Performance.gov has a section 

for each APG listing the contributing programs agency officials identified.

56See table 2 in GAO-13-518. Our 2013 report focused on these program types because 

agencies have reported difficulties in measuring performance for these program types. 

OMB has identified additional examples of program types, which are not shown in this 

table. See OMB Circular No. A-11 at § 280.11.

57Tax expenditures are not discussed in the table below and will instead be discussed in a 

later section of this report. This is because the goal leaders we interviewed had different 

views on tax expenditures than the other program types described in the table.

Goal Leaders Recognized 

the Contributions Different 

Types of Programs Made 

to Their APGs, but There 

Are Limited Mechanisms 

for Sharing Information 

Across Agencies
Page 27 GAO-14-639 Role of the Agency Priority Goal Leader 

Table 3: Examples Goal Leaders Provided of How Different Program Types Contribute to Their APGs

Program type Program type definition Examples from the goal leaders we interviewed

Direct services Delivery of a good or service by 

government employees that can be 

measured, for example, through an 

agency’s customer service efforts.

The Department of Commerce goal leader for the APG to reduce 

patent application pendency and backlog, who is the Acting Director 

of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, described the strategies 

her office is using to aim to process patent applications in a timely 

manner. The goal leader also reported that her office solicits and 

receives feedback from its customers, such as through an advisory 

committee that represents the users of its services. 

Government 

contracts

A business arrangement between a 

government agency and a private entity in 

which the private entity promises, 

generally in exchange for money, to 

deliver certain products or services to the 

government agency.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration goal leader for 

the APG to advance the development of the next generation human 

space flight system, who is the Assistant Deputy Associate 

Administrator of the Exploration Systems Division, told us that his 

goal relies on the work of several major commercial companies to 

build the space systems, with the majority of his program’s funds 

going to these contracts. 

Grants A payment in cash or in kind from a 

federal government agency to a recipient 

organization (governmental or 

nongovernmental) for a specified purpose 

(of support or stimulation) that is 

authorized by law.

The Department of Commerce goal leader for the APG to expand 

broadband service, who is the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for 

Communications and Information, told us that grants are an 

important part of his goal. His office awarded grants to all the states 

to fund the construction and upgrade of broadband networks and 

related technologies.

Regulations The means by which government 

agencies establish legally binding 

requirements (codified in the Code of 

Federal Regulations) and typically require 

a desired action or prohibit certain actions 

by regulated parties. 

The Department of Health and Human Services goal leader for the 

APG to reduce foodborne illness, who is the Food and Drug 

Administration’s Deputy Director for Regulatory Affairs at the Center 

for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, told us that one of her 

agency’s primary strategies for achieving its goal is to ensure that 

egg producers comply with a rule intended to reduce salmonella 

contamination in eggs.

Research and 

development 

Efforts intended to increase knowledge or 

to apply existing knowledge in new ways. 

These efforts are most often performed in 

support of the unique mission of the 

funding agencies and address specific 

concerns such as national defense, 

health, safety, the environment, and 

energy security, among other purposes. 

The Department of Energy deputy goal leader for the APG to make 

solar energy as cheap as traditional sources of electricity, who is the 

Director of the Solar Energy Technologies Office, reported working 

closely with the Department’s Advanced Research Projects AgencyEnergy, which he described as focusing on advancing highpotential, high-impact energy technologies that are too early for 

private-sector investment.

Sources: GAO analysis, goal leader interviews, and information as reported on Performance.gov. | GAO-14-639

GPRAMA requires that agencies do more than simply identify the 

different program types that contribute to an APG. An agency must also 

assess whether each relevant program type is contributing as planned to 

the APG. This requirement is important because our previous work has 

identified long-standing difficulties agencies have faced in measuring 
Page 28 GAO-14-639 Role of the Agency Priority Goal Leader 

performance across various program types.58 For example, in prior work, 

we have found that some grant-making agencies have faced difficulties in 

validating and verifying the data grant recipients report and establishing 

performance measures.59

GAO Has Previously Recommended That OMB and the PIC Help Agencies Share 

Information Related to Measuring Program Types

As shown below, we have made a prior related 

recommendation.

In June 2013, we made the following recommendation. As of June 2014, OMB and PIC 

staff reported taking initial steps to implement this recommendation through action plans 

they are developing for certain cross-agency priority goals, including those focused on 

customer service and strategic sourcing. OMB staff did not have a specific time frame in 

place for fully implementing the recommendation.

“Given the common, long-standing difficulties agencies continue to face in measuring the 

performance of various types of federal programs and activities—contracts, direct 

services, grants, regulations, research and development, and tax expenditures—we... 

recommend the Director of OMB work with the PIC to develop a detailed approach to 

examine these difficulties across agencies, including identifying and sharing any 

promising practices from agencies that have overcome difficulties in measuring the 

performance of these program types. This approach should include goals, planned 

actions, and deliverables along with specific time frames for their completion, as well as 

the identification of the parties responsible for each action and deliverable.”

Source: GAO, Managing for Results: Executive Branch Should More Fully Implement the GPRA Modernization Act to Address Pressing 

Governance Challenges, GAO-13-518 (Washington, D.C.: June 26, 2013).

Our discussions with goal leaders identified some examples of specific 

analyses agencies had done to assess the contributions a particular 

program type made to APGs. For example, Interior’s Deputy Secretary 

reported that the Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation) is requiring 

specific information from grant applicants on how to quantify the benefits, 

such as water savings, if the federal government selects a particular 

project to receive funding under Interior’s Increase the Available Water 

 58For example, see GAO, Results-Oriented Government: GPRA Has Established a Solid 

Foundation for Achieving Greater Results, GAO-04-38 (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 10, 2004) 

and The Government Performance and Results Act: 1997 Governmentwide 

Implementation Will be Uneven, GAO/GGD-97-109 (Washington, D.C.: June 2, 1997). 

59Our June 2013 report on initial GPRAMA implementation provides illustrative examples 

of the difficulties agencies have faced in measuring performance for grants and other 

program types. For more information, see table 2 on pp. 54-58 of GAO-13-518.
Page 29 GAO-14-639 Role of the Agency Priority Goal Leader 

Supply in the Western States APG.60

How Interior is Analyzing the Contributions a Grant Made to its APG

Reclamation then uses the 

estimates grant applicants provide to measure progress towards its APG, 

as described in the text box below.

An irrigation district in Montana requested $103,000 in federal grant money for a project 

the district estimated would save 4,158 acre feet of water each year. Interior says a team 

of Reclamation employees assessed the district’s water savings estimate and decided 

the project would receive federal funding. After a financial assistance agreement was 

executed, Interior officials then reported the 4,158 acre feet of estimated water savings 

towards the department’s overall goal of saving a cumulative total of 350,000 acre feet of 

water by the end of fiscal year 2011.a The Interior report adds that Reclamation 

employees are seeking to validate the estimates for certain projects by taking 

measurements before construction begins and then again after construction to measure 

actual water savings.

Source: WaterSMART: A Three Year Progress Report, Department of the Interior (Washington, D.C.: October 2012).

a

For the APG for fiscal years 2012 and 2013, Interior measures cumulative water savings since 2009, 

so this project contributed to the APG.

However, other goal leaders we interviewed reported that their agencies 

are either not analyzing the contributions different program types are 

making or, in other cases, continue to face challenges in measuring the 

performance of different program types. For example, HUD officials we 

interviewed told us that grants contribute to the Preserve Affordable 

Rental Housing APG, but that grants have not been a significant part of 

HUD’s conversations about goal progress.61 The information HUD 

provided on Performance.gov indicated that grants are used in 

combination with other programs, such as vouchers and tax expenditures, 

to provide rental assistance.62

 60At the time of our interview, the Deputy Secretary was the Commissioner of Reclamation 

at Interior.

However, the performance indicators HUD 

61The goal leader position for this APG was vacant during the time of our review. Instead, 

we interviewed HUD’s Performance Improvement Officer (PIO) and the deputy PIO.

62We have previously reported that HUD’s Housing Choice Voucher (voucher) program 

pays subsidies to landlords to help households with very or extremely low incomes rent 

apartments or houses on the private market. See GAO, Housing Choice Vouchers: 

Options Exist to Increase Program Efficiencies, GAO-12-300 (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 19, 

2012). The connection between this APG and tax expenditures is discussed in the next 

section.
Page 30 GAO-14-639 Role of the Agency Priority Goal Leader 

identified on Performance.gov measured the total number of families 

served by different HUD programs. These indicators did not break out the 

number of families served through grants, thereby making it more difficult 

to analyze the contributions grants made to the APG. In other cases, goal 

leaders described challenges they have faced in measuring the 

performance of certain types of programs. For example, the Federal 

Aviation Administration’s (FAA) Associate Administrator for Aviation 

Safety observed that it is difficult to know for certain whether a particular 

regulation prevented an aviation accident from occurring in regards to 

DOT’s Reduce Risk of Aviation Accidents APG. She emphasized that 

there has been a lot of progress made in improving aviation safety and 

pointed to data that show a very low risk of passenger fatalities on 

commercial air carriers. However, she considered it hard to measure the 

precise effect a particular regulation or safety initiative had on the 

outcome that has been identified for this APG.

We discussed with several goal leaders the extent to which they have 

shared information with officials in other agencies working with similar 

types of programs, such as grants and regulations, on common 

challenges in measuring the performance of these types of programs. 

Overall, our discussions did not identify any government-wide working 

groups that would allow officials from different agencies to share this sort 

of information, but a small number of goal leaders interviewed identified 

some more limited mechanisms for sharing this information:

• FAA’s deputy goal leader for DOT’s Reduce Risk of Aviation

Accidents APG told us that he also sits on the department’s Safety 

Council, which provides a forum for FAA officials to share their 

regulatory experience with other DOT agencies, including the Federal 

Transit Administration–which has less experience with regulations. 

The DOT deputy goal leader reported that the benefits of attending 

the Safety Council meetings are learning from and sharing 

experiences between and among departmental agencies and being 

able to apply this information to the agency priority goal. DOT officials 

noted that the Safety Council is limited to DOT agencies and does not 

include other federal agencies with regulatory responsibilities.

• Social Security Administration (SSA) officials who were responsible 

for the Reduce Supplemental Security Income Overpayments APG 

told us they had participated in a now-inactive PIC working group on 

benefits processing during the tenure of an earlier goal leader. The 

Benefits Processing working group focused on promoting consistency 

in agencies’ benefits processing, but OMB staff had previously told us 

that this group no longer regularly meets because it had completed its 
Page 31 GAO-14-639 Role of the Agency Priority Goal Leader 

tasks.63

We continue to believe our prior recommendation has merit, and that 

OMB and PIC actions to fully address it would provide a more 

comprehensive assessment of how various types of programs contribute 

to agency goals.

The SSA officials we interviewed indicated that this group had 

been helpful.

Since 2012, OMB guidance has directed agencies to identify as 

appropriate the tax expenditures that contribute to their APGs and report 

this information for publication on Performance.gov.64 This is important 

because tax expenditures represent a significant federal investment. 

Based on Department of the Treasury (Treasury) estimates for fiscal year 

2013, the federal government had forgone approximately $1.1 trillion in 

tax revenue through 169 tax expenditures, an amount which approaches 

the size of federal discretionary spending. The tax revenue that the 

government forgoes is viewed by many analysts as spending channeled 

through the tax system.65 Since 1994, we have recommended greater 

scrutiny of tax expenditures, as periodic reviews could help determine 

how well specific tax expenditures work to achieve their goals and how 

their benefits and costs compare to those of spending programs with 

similar goals. In 2005, we recommended that OMB, in consultation with 

Treasury, more fully incorporate tax expenditures into federal 

performance management.66

 63

Since then, OMB guidance has shown some 

progress in addressing how agencies should incorporate tax expenditures 

in strategic plans and annual performance plans and reports. OMB 

addressed this recommendation by updating its guidance in 2012 to 

require agencies to identify appropriate tax expenditures, as described 

above. OMB also reported in its 2013 update to this guidance that it will 

GAO-13-356.

64OMB Circular No. A-11, at § 210.10.

65For more information, see GAO’s Key Issues web page on tax expenditures, 

http://www.gao.gov/key_issues/tax_expenditures/issue_summary. 

66GAO, Government Performance and Accountability: Tax Expenditures Represent a 

Substantial Federal Commitment and Need to Be Reexamined, GAO-05-690

(Washington, D.C.: Sept. 23, 2005); and Tax Policy: Tax Expenditures Deserve More 

Scrutiny, GAO/GGD/AIMD-94-122 (Washington, D.C.: June 3, 1994). 

Goal Leaders Have 

Focused Less Attention 

on Identifying Relevant 

Tax Expenditures
Page 32 GAO-14-639 Role of the Agency Priority Goal Leader 

work with Treasury to align tax expenditure information with the APGs.67

GAO Has Previously Recommended That OMB Ensure Agencies Identify Tax 

Expenditures That Contribute to Agency Priority Goals

However, our 2013 review of the extent to which agencies implemented 

certain requirements related to the APGs indicated that OMB and 

agencies may be missing opportunities to identify tax expenditures that 

contribute to APGs. In our 2013 report on APGs, we found that only one 

agency had identified two relevant tax expenditures for one of its APGs. 

As shown below, we made a recommendation to address this issue. 

In April 2013, we made the following recommendation. OMB staff agreed with our 

recommendation and said in June 2014 that they are working to implement the 

recommendation, for example, by engaging with staff at the Department of the Treasury. 

As of June 2014, OMB staff did not have a specific time frame for fully addressing the 

recommendation.

“As OMB works with agencies to enhance Performance.gov to include additional 

information about APGs, we recommend that the Director of OMB ensure that agencies 

adhere to OMB’s guidance for website updates by providing complete information about 

the organizations, program activities, regulations, tax expenditures, policies, and other 

activities—both within and external to the agency—that contribute to each APG.” 

Source: GAO, Managing for Results: Agencies Should More Fully Develop Priority Goals under the GPRA Modernization Act, 

GAO-13-174 (Washington, D.C.: Apr. 19, 2013).

Our review of the information agencies provided on Performance.gov and 

our discussions with goal leaders indicated that agencies and goal 

leaders continue to provide Congress and the public with limited 

information about the contributions of tax expenditures on 

Performance.gov. Specifically, we found that five APGs in our sample had 

related tax expenditures based on our prior work. However, for a variety 

of reasons, only the two discussed below identified relevant tax 

expenditures on Performance.gov:

 67OMB Circular No. A-11, at § 210.12 (2013).
Page 33 GAO-14-639 Role of the Agency Priority Goal Leader 

• HUD identified tax credits that subsidize the building and rehabilitation 

of rental housing as contributing programs to the Preserve Affordable 

Rental Housing APG.68

• Although the Department of Energy did not identify them as 

contributing programs, the department mentioned two tax 

expenditures in its discussion of how it measured performance of the 

Make Solar Energy as Cheap as Traditional Sources of Electricity

APG.69

For a third APG, HUD did not identify relevant tax expenditures as 

contributing to its Prevent Foreclosures APG on Performance.gov. But, 

one of the APG’s goal leaders acknowledged the relevance of a tax 

expenditure and told us that the agency had worked to support its 

extension. Specifically, HUD’s Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Office 

of Single Family Housing noted that borrowers could potentially owe 

taxes if HUD’s efforts resulted in their receiving a reduction in the 

principal on their mortgage.70 Our previous work noted that Congress 

enacted a tax expenditure in 2007 that allowed taxpayers to generally 

exclude from taxable income forgiven mortgage debt to assist taxpayers 

facing foreclosure.71

 68See GAO, Low-Income Housing Tax Credits: Agencies Implemented Changes Enacted 

in 2008, but Project Data Collection Could Be Improved, 

HUD officials reported that their agency had 

consulted with Treasury to suggest that this tax expenditure be extended 

by Congress.

GAO-13-66 (Washington, D.C.: 

Dec. 6, 2012); and Housing Assistance: Opportunities Exist to Increase Collaboration and 

Consider Consolidation, GAO-12-554 (Washington, D.C.: Aug. 16, 2012).

69The two tax expenditures were 1) the energy investment credit, which provides tax 

credits for investments in solar property, and 2) accelerated depreciation recovery periods 

for specific energy property, which allows businesses to recover the costs of investments 

in renewable energy in 5 years through depreciation deductions. See GAO, Wind Energy: 

Additional Actions Could Help Ensure Effective Use of Federal Financial Support, 

GAO-13-136 (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 11, 2013). This report discusses that a number of 

renewable energy technologies may benefit from the tax expenditure related to 

depreciation of specific energy property.

70Our previous work provides more specific information about the actions HUD and other 

federal agencies are taking on foreclosure mitigation. See GAO, Foreclosure Mitigation: 

Agencies Could Improve Effectiveness of Federal Efforts with Additional Data Collection 

and Analysis, GAO-12-296 (Washington, D.C.: June 28, 2012).

71For more specific information about this tax expenditure, see GAO, Tax Administration: 

Expanded Information Reporting Could Help IRS Address Compliance Challenges with 

Forgiven Mortgage Debt, GAO-10-997 (Washington, D.C.: Aug. 31, 2010).
Page 34 GAO-14-639 Role of the Agency Priority Goal Leader 

We have previously found that tax expenditures relate to other APGs in 

our sample. However, for these APGs, agencies chose measures to 

assess goal progress and achievement that did not involve tax 

expenditures. As a result, agencies did not include information on tax 

expenditures related to the APGs on Performance.gov.

• The Department of Education Improve Students’ Ability to Afford and 

Complete College APG: We have previously described the 

importance of tax expenditures for helping students and families pay 

for college.72 However, the deputy goal leader, who is the Chief of 

Staff in the Office of the Undersecretary of Education, told us that tax 

expenditures were not a factor in his agency’s strategy to implement 

this goal, which was primarily to develop a web-based college 

scorecard that is intended to help users learn about a specific 

college’s affordability and value.73 The deputy goal leader explained 

that Congress specified in statute a specific formula for his agency to 

use to calculate the average net price of attending a particular college, 

which does not include tax expenditures that may reduce the net price 

many students pay.74

• The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Reduce Greenhouse 

Gas Emissions from Cars and Trucks APG: EPA officials told us that 

some tax incentives relate to the APG’s broader goal of reducing 

greenhouse gas emissions. We have previously reported on tax 

incentives that may affect greenhouse gas emissions from cars and 

trucks, including those for plug-in electric-drive motor vehicles and for 

biodiesel fuel.75

 72GAO, Higher Education: Improved Tax Information Could Help Families Pay for College, 

However, the strategy that EPA developed for this 

goal focused on implementing greenhouse gas emissions standards 

for cars and trucks. For example, the APG’s performance measures 

included the number of tests EPA conducted to confirm the validity of 

GAO-12-560 (Washington, D.C.: May 18, 2012).

73This scorecard is posted on the White House web page. It can be accessed at 

http://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/education/higher-education/college-score-card. 

7420 U.S.C. § 1015a(a)(3).

75“Plug-ins” refer to vehicles that can be plugged into an electrical outlet to charge the 

car’s battery. For more information, see GAO, Federal Energy and Fleet Management: 

Plug-in Vehicles Offer Potential Benefits, but High Costs and Limited Information Could 

Hinder Integration into the Federal Fleet, GAO-09-493 (Washington, D.C.: June 9, 2009); 

and Diesel Pollution: Fragmented Federal Programs That Reduce Mobile Source 

Emissions Could Be Improved, GAO-12-261 (Washington, D.C.: Feb. 7, 2012). 
Page 35 GAO-14-639 Role of the Agency Priority Goal Leader 

manufacturers’ greenhouse gas emission test results. EPA officials 

explained that, therefore, tax incentives were not central to this APG’s 

progress and achievement.

We continue to believe our prior recommendation that OMB ensure 

agencies identify relevant tax expenditures on Performance.gov has 

merit, and that OMB actions to fully address it would provide a more 

comprehensive assessment of how tax expenditures contribute to agency 

goals.

Goal leaders we interviewed identified several common challenges in 

managing APGs. The most commonly-cited challenge was constrained 

resources, including those resulting from spending reductions under 

sequestration.76 A little more than one-third (16 of 46) of the goal leaders 

we interviewed cited resource constraints as a challenge in managing 

 76We previously reported on agencies’ preparation for and implementation of 

sequestration and its effects on agency operations, performance, and services to the 

public. See GAO, 2013 Sequestration: Agencies Reduced Some Services and 

Investments, While Taking Certain Actions to Mitigate Effects, GAO-14-244 (Washington, 

D.C.: Mar. 6, 2014). 

Goal Leaders 

Identified Some 

Common Challenges 

and Practices in Goal 

Management, but 

Share This 

Information to a 

Limited Extent

Goal Leaders Identified 

Some Common 

Challenges and Practices 

in Managing Goals, but 

Have Limited Exchange

of Information with Other 

Goal Leaders
Page 36 GAO-14-639 Role of the Agency Priority Goal Leader 

their goals.77 For example, the Department of the Interior’s (Interior) 

Assistant Secretary for Policy, Management and Budget, who was the 

goal leader for the Support Youth Employment APG, told us that 

sequestration had affected progress on her APG.78 The sequester cuts 

took effect in March of 2013, the same time that Interior bureaus were 

planning youth hiring for the summer. The goal leader told us that as a 

result, Interior bureaus’ youth hiring was lower than expected. This is 

consistent with our prior work, in which we found that Interior officials said 

that a hiring freeze instituted in response to sequestration had adversely 

affected the department’s ability to achieve this APG.79 According to 

information Interior reported on Performance.gov, the department’s youth 

hiring in fiscal year 2013 was nearly 20 percent lower than prior year 

levels, and it did not achieve this APG. Additionally, the Deputy 

Administrator for Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation, who was the goal 

leader for the Department of Energy’s Make Significant Progress Toward 

Securing the Most Vulnerable Nuclear Materials Worldwide within Four 

Years APG, told us that budget uncertainties complicate goal-setting. 

Although GPRAMA states that APGs should have ambitious targets, the 

goal leader told us that these uncertainties may provide an incentive for 

agencies to set goal targets lower than they otherwise would. Other 

commonly-cited challenges included difficulty identifying meaningful 

measures of goal progress and issues with data, such as problems with 

consistency and availability.80

Goal leaders we interviewed also identified common practices that they 

said were helpful in managing APGs. Some of these were related to 

GPRAMA requirements. For example, more than a quarter (14 of 46) of 

goal leaders identified practices related to measuring goal progress, such 

as assigning responsibility for meeting milestones, as helpful in managing 

 77Goal leaders identified challenges in response to an open-ended question about the 

challenges they have faced as goal leaders. 

78The full title of the APG is “Build the next generation of conservation and community 

leaders by supporting youth employment at the Department of the Interior.”

79GAO-14-244.

80Our prior work has identified examples of agency challenges with metrics and data. For 

example, see GAO, Federal Information Security: Mixed Progress in Implementing 

Program Components; Improved Metrics Needed to Measure Effectiveness, GAO-13-776

(Washington, D.C.: Sept. 26, 2013); and Federal Real Property: National Strategy and 

Better Data Needed to Improve Management of Excess and Underutilized Property, 

GAO-12-645 (Washington, D.C.: June 20, 2012).
Page 37 GAO-14-639 Role of the Agency Priority Goal Leader 

APGs.81 GPRAMA states that APGs are to have clearly defined quarterly 

milestones and balanced performance measures for assessing goal 

progress.82 Goal leaders emphasized the importance of not only 

developing measures but developing ones that are meaningful and 

reliable indicators of goal progress. For example, the Chief Operating 

Officer at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), who led the 

agency’s Ensure High Quality Federal Employees APG, said that she had 

worked to make sure the agency used appropriate and consistent 

measures to track goal progress.83

Goal leaders reported that they share information on APG challenges and 

practices for managing their goals, although information sharing outside 

of their agencies is generally limited to officials with whom they are 

already working. They reported several examples of sharing information 

within their agencies, most frequently through agency meetings, such as 

QPRs. For example, the Director of the National Aeronautics and Space 

Administration’s (NASA) International Space Station Division, who is the 

goal leader for the agency’s Sustain Operations and Full Utilization of the 

International Space Station APG, told us that the agency’s baseline 

performance review meetings, through which the agency holds QPRs, 

have facilitated his sharing of lessons learned with another NASA goal 

leader whose APG also involves human space flight. Goal leaders also 

provided some examples of sharing information with officials outside of 

Other commonly-cited practices 

include several related to coordination across an agency or program, 

which OMB guidance specifies that goal leaders should have the 

authority to do. Goal leaders noted effective methods of coordination such 

as reaching out to agency field staff, employee unions, and non-federal 

entities. Goal leaders also identified practices that stem from the 

GPRAMA requirement that agencies review APG progress quarterly. As 

noted earlier, goal leaders cited benefits from quarterly performance 

review (QPR) meetings, which they said have promoted coordination, 

accountability, and attention to goal progress, and have provided 

opportunities to get feedback directly from agency leaders.

 81Goal leaders identified practices in response to an open-ended question about what 

practices and lessons they have learned from their experiences as goal leaders. 

8231 U.S.C. § 1120(b)(1)(E) and 31 USC § 1115(b)(6), respectively. § 1115(b)(6) applies 

to all agency performance goals, of which APGs are a subset.

83At the time of our interview, the goal leader’s title was Associate Director of Employee 

Services. 
Page 38 GAO-14-639 Role of the Agency Priority Goal Leader 

their agencies. In these cases, most examples involved sharing 

information with officials with whom they work on issues related to their 

APGs. These include members of interagency councils and committees 

focused on issues related to their APGs, and officials from agencies doing 

work related to the APG. For example, the Associate Administrator of the 

Small Business Administration’s Office of Government Contracting and 

Business Development, who is the goal leader for the agency’s Increase 

Small Business Participation in Government Contracting APG, told us that 

he shares information with officials from other agencies involved in small 

business contracting through interagency groups such as the White 

House Small Business Procurement Group.

The Performance Improvement Council’s (PIC) duties, which are detailed 

in GPRAMA and OMB guidance, include facilitating among agencies the 

exchange of practices that have led to performance improvements, and 

developing tips, tools, training, and other capacity-building mechanisms to 

strengthen agency performance management and facilitate cross-agency 

learning and cooperation. As specified by GPRAMA, the PIC is chaired by 

OMB’s Deputy Director for Management and composed of the 

performance improvement officers (PIO) from the 24 Chief Financial 

Officers Act agencies, as well as any other PIOs and individuals identified 

by OMB. Our prior work found that the PIC holds two types of meetings—

a “principals only” meeting open only to PIOs and a broader meeting 

open to PIOs and other agency staff. In addition, the PIC sponsors 

working groups focused on issues related to implementation of GPRAMA, 

such as internal agency reviews.84

Although our previous work found that agency PIOs reported that the PIC 

was helpful in facilitating the exchange of successful practices among 

agencies, goal leaders we interviewed generally did not report significant 

direct contact with the PIC.

The PIC also conducts governmentwide training on specific topics, such as strategic planning.

85

 84

Only one of the goal leaders we interviewed, 

who also serves as her agency’s PIO, reported that she attends PIC 

meetings. The deputy goal leaders for the goals in our sample likewise 

did not report significant direct interaction with the PIC. Only one deputy 

GAO-13-356. 

85GAO-13-356. 

The PIC Has Focused Its 

Efforts on PIOs, but Has 

Additional Opportunities to 

Engage Goal Leaders
Page 39 GAO-14-639 Role of the Agency Priority Goal Leader 

goal leader reported participating in the PIC as a member of several of its 

working groups.

OMB and PIC staff explained that the PIC interacts with agency PIOs and 

deputy PIOs as their primary points of contact, so staff generally do not 

reach out directly to agency priority goal leaders. OMB and PIC staff said 

that they see the PIO as the key official in managing agency 

performance, and focus on PIOs and their staff because of the 

importance of equipping them with the capability to provide support within 

their agencies on a variety of issues. Additionally, they focus on the PIO 

rather than other officials to avoid undercutting the PIO’s relevance. In 

line with this, several goal leaders we interviewed noted that interactions 

with the PIC are handled by other offices within their agencies, such as 

performance offices. They rely on these staff to pass along relevant 

information. For example, the Chief of NASA’s Strategic Planning and 

Performance Management Branch explained that either she or the 

agency’s PIO attends PIC meetings, and then shares relevant information 

with goal leaders and others within the agency. NASA officials provided 

us with copies of a monthly newsletter that the agency uses to distribute 

information internally on performance management. The August 2013 

newsletter included information on the latest version of OMB’s Circular A11, and on upcoming deadlines for activities related to the agency’s 

APGs, performance plans, and other products.

Although the PIC has focused to date on working with PIOs to share 

information with agencies, OMB and PIC staff identified several examples 

of information sharing with goal leaders. OMB and PIC staff provided us 

with examples of products the PIC developed for goal leaders, including a 

guide to best practices for setting milestones, a priority goal setting guide, 

and a priority goal evaluation tool, designed to help agencies set APGs 

and drive discussion around them. Additionally, they said that they held 

meetings with agency PIOs shortly after the APGs for 2012 and 2013 

were set, and that these meetings included goal leaders. Agenda items 

included a discussion of agencies’ performance management approaches 

and selected APGs. Additionally, the PIC provided us with copies of 

agendas from PIC meetings, including a January 2012 meeting at which 

there was a goal leader panel. A former goal leader of one of the APGs in 

our sample told us that she participated in the panel and provided a copy 

of her talking points, which focused on her experience working on 

previous agency goals and factors she identified for success. PIC staff 

also told us that they invited goal leaders to a recent meeting they held in 

February 2014 focused on implementing successful strategic reviews.
Page 40 GAO-14-639 Role of the Agency Priority Goal Leader 

Although the PIC has developed products and information aimed at goal 

leaders, it may be missing opportunities to facilitate greater information 

sharing among them. As described earlier in this report, goal leaders we 

interviewed have encountered common challenges in managing APGs, 

and also identified practices that may be useful to other goal leaders and 

deputy goal leaders. Additionally, goal leaders of APGs of similar program 

types may be interested in sharing information. For example, several of 

the APGs in our sample relied on program types such as grants, 

contracts, regulations, and research and development. Although goal 

leaders reported sharing information within their agencies and with 

outside officials working on issues related to their goals, they and their 

deputy goal leaders lacked the means to identify and share information 

with other goal leaders who are facing similar challenges or interested in 

similar topics. The deputy goal leader for DOT’s Advance the 

Development of Passenger Rail in the United States APG told us that he 

would find it useful to discuss common issues with others working on 

APGs, in particular related to performance measures. As highlighted 

earlier, our prior work has found that agencies have experienced common 

issues in measuring various types of programs, and recommended that 

the Director of OMB work with the PIC to develop a detailed approach to 

examine these difficulties, including identifying and sharing any promising 

practices.86 Such an approach could also include direct outreach by OMB 

and the PIC to goal leaders and deputy goal leaders.

Senior agency officials’ commitment to and accountability for improving 

performance are important factors in determining the success of 

performance and management improvement initiatives. GPRAMA’s 

provision that agencies assign responsibility for achieving APGs—which 

reflect agencies’ highest priorities—to goal leaders is a powerful 

mechanism for promoting greater involvement and accountability in 

performance management. Although goal leaders we interviewed cited 

several positive effects of the goal leader designation and related 

GPRAMA requirements, there are areas where goal leader effectiveness 

could be improved. These lessons learned may also be relevant for 

leaders of other high-level goals, such as agency strategic objectives and 

government-wide cross-agency priority goals.

 86GAO-13-518.

Conclusions
Page 41 GAO-14-639 Role of the Agency Priority Goal Leader 

First, a number of the goal leaders we interviewed did not have deputy 

goal leaders, although OMB guidance states that they should. OMB staff 

also stated that the deputy performs the important function of connecting 

goal strategy with goal implementation. Additionally, a little more than 40 

percent of the APGs in our sample had changes in goal leaders between 

February 2012 and September 2013. This level of turnover may be higher 

as the current presidential administration nears an end and goal leaders 

who are political appointees leave their positions. Officially designating a 

deputy goal leader provides clear responsibility and accountability for goal 

achievement, and as shown already, deputies can help provide continuity 

during times of goal leader transition.

Another missed opportunity in implementing the goal leader role is to fully 

utilize performance plans as an accountability mechanism for both goal 

leaders and their deputies. Performance plans are a tool for ensuring that 

officials are evaluated on and held accountable for defined outcomes, but 

the majority of the performance plans we reviewed did not fully reflect 

responsibility for APGs. Although other mechanisms, such as QPRs, also 

promote accountability, agencies that do not clearly link goal leader and 

deputy performance plans with APGs may be missing opportunities to 

ensure that goal leaders and deputies are held accountable for goal 

progress. Because APGs by definition reflect the highest priorities of each 

agency, accountability is especially important.

Goal leaders also identified several common challenges and practices 

related to managing APGs, but may be missing opportunities to share this 

information with their peers across government. We found that they have 

shared this information to some extent within their agencies and with 

officials from outside agencies who are working on similar issues. 

However, they lacked a means through which to identify others facing 

similar challenges or interested in similar topics. One such missed 

opportunity concerns sharing information among goal leaders about how 

to measure the performance of similar types of programs, such as grants, 

that multiple agencies use to drive progress on their APGs. Similarly, our 

review indicates that there are different views among goal leaders and 

agencies on how to implement OMB’s requirement that they identify and 

make public information about tax expenditures that contribute to APGs. 

The PIC, which is charged with facilitating the exchange of information 

among agencies, could play a greater role in fostering information sharing 

on these issues and others among goal leaders and deputy goal leaders 

to help improve agency performance.
Page 42 GAO-14-639 Role of the Agency Priority Goal Leader 

To ensure goal leader and deputy goal leader accountability, we 

recommend that the Director of OMB work with agencies to take the 

following two actions:

• Appoint a deputy goal leader to support each agency priority goal 

leader.

• Ensure that agency priority goal leader and deputy goal leader 

performance plans demonstrate a clear connection with agency 

priority goals.

To better promote the sharing of information among goal leaders and 

their deputies, we recommend that the Director of OMB work with the PIC 

to further involve agency priority goal leaders and their deputies in 

sharing information on common challenges and practices related to 

agency priority goal management.

We provided a draft of this report to the Director of the Office of 

Management and Budget (OMB) and to the 24 agencies that developed 

agency priority goals (APG) for 2012 and 2013. A full list of these 

agencies is shown in appendix I. OMB staff provided us with oral 

comments and generally agreed with our findings, conclusions, and 

recommendations. OMB staff, as well as officials from the Department of 

Health and Human Services, National Aeronautics and Space 

Administration, and Office of Personnel Management (OPM) also 

provided technical comments, which we incorporated, as appropriate. 

On July 1, 2014 our liaison from the Department of Labor’s (DOL) Office 

of the Assistant Secretary for Policy e-mailed us a summary of DOL 

officials’ comments on the draft report. DOL officials disagreed with some 

of the findings, conclusions, and recommendations in our draft report. We 

discuss their specific comments and our evaluation of them below:

• DOL officials raised concerns about our characterization of the 

department’s quarterly performance reviews (QPR) for the Reduce 

Worker Fatalities APG, which is jointly led by two goal leaders, each 

from a different DOL component agency. DOL officials stated that our 

report implies that DOL’s practice of conducting separate reviews of 

safety and health agencies is a barrier to coordination of efforts to 

achieve the shared APG. In response, we made changes to the draft 

report to include the DOL officials’ views on the purposes of their 

separate reviews. Regardless of the formats of agencies’ performance 

reviews, however, both OMB guidance and our prior work emphasize 

Recommendations for 

Executive Action

Agency Comments
Page 43 GAO-14-639 Role of the Agency Priority Goal Leader 

the importance of including relevant contributors to APGs in these 

reviews. 

• DOL officials stated that they believe our report gives the incorrect 

impressions that 1) organizing QPRs by components is a 

shortcoming, and 2) the sole purpose of QPRs is to manage APGs. 

As we previously explained, we do not take issue with DOL holding 

QPRs by component, and agree with DOL officials that this format is 

not a shortcoming. We also agree that QPRs may focus on broader 

issues than APGs. For both of these issues, what is important is that 

QPRs include relevant APG contributors. 

• DOL officials commented on our discussion of including external 

parties in QPRs. They stated that they have other sufficient ways of 

collaborating with outside contributors. They do not believe it would be 

beneficial to include stakeholders with very specific concerns in a 

detailed policy and operations review of all agency component 

performance management issues in these reviews. In response, we 

clarified in the report that both OMB guidance and our prior work 

emphasized including relevant external goal contributors in these 

performance reviews. 

• DOL officials stated that they consider figure 1, which lists goal leader 

competencies identified by OPM, to be misleading because it implies 

that the goal leader position is new. They suggested that we remove 

the figure. They referenced our finding that some officials were 

already serving in a similar role before becoming goal leaders. While 

this is true, the GPRA Modernization Act of 2010 established the goal 

leader position in law and assigned specific responsibilities to goal 

leaders. Figure 1 depicts the goal leader competencies described in 

OPM’s January 2012 memorandum for chief human capital officers. 

So, we retained this figure in the report. 

• DOL officials raised concerns about whether the report includes 

sufficient evidence to support our conclusion that additional OMB and 

Performance Improvement Council (PIC) outreach to goal leaders and 

deputies would improve goal management. As we stated in the report, 

while we acknowledged that the PIC has already conducted some 

limited outreach to agency goal leaders, we found that goal leaders 

and their deputies could benefit from additional information sharing 

facilitated by the PIC. OMB staff agreed with our recommendation 

related to this finding, so we did not make any changes to the report 

to address this concern. 

• Finally, DOL officials recommended removing or revising our 

recommendation that OMB ensure that agencies have deputy goal 
Page 44 GAO-14-639 Role of the Agency Priority Goal Leader 

leaders in place because they felt it implies that the designation of a 

deputy drives goal achievement. Our recommendation is based on 

several factors, including OMB guidance requiring agencies to assign 

deputy goal leaders, and OMB staff’s view that deputies perform the 

important function of connecting APG leadership and strategy with 

implementation, as discussed in our report. Furthermore, OMB staff 

agreed with this recommendation, so we did not make any changes to 

the report to address this concern.

The following agencies had no comments on the draft report: Department 

of Agriculture, Army Corps of Engineers – Civil Works, Department of 

Commerce, Department of Defense, Department of Education, 

Department of Energy, Environmental Protection Agency, General 

Services Administration, Department of Homeland Security, Department 

of Housing and Urban Development, Department of the Interior, 

Department of Justice, National Science Foundation, Small Business 

Administration, Social Security Administration, Department of State, 

Department of Transportation, Department of the Treasury, U.S. Agency 

for International Development, and the Department of Veterans Affairs. 

The written response from the Social Security Administration is 

reproduced in appendix III.

We are sending copies of this report to the Director of OMB as well as 

appropriate congressional committees and other interested parties. In 

addition, this report is available at no charge on the GAO website at 

http://www.gao.gov.

If you or your staff members have any questions about this report, please 

contact me at (202) 512-6806 or mihmj@gao.gov. Contact points for our 

Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on 

the last page of this report. GAO staff who made key contributions to this 

report are listed in appendix IV.

J. Christopher Mihm

Managing Director, Strategic Issues
Page 45 GAO-14-639 Role of the Agency Priority Goal Leader 

List of Congressional Addressees

The Honorable Thomas R. Carper

Chairman

The Honorable Tom Coburn, M.D.

Ranking Member

Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs

United States Senate

The Honorable Mark R. Warner

Chairman

Task Force on Government Performance

Committee on the Budget

United States Senate

The Honorable Elijah E. Cummings

Ranking Member

Committee on Oversight and Governmental Reform

House of Representatives
Appendix I: GAO Sample of Agency Priority 

Goals for 2012-2013

Page 46 GAO-14-639 Role of the Agency Priority Goal Leader 

Agency/ Goal Goal Leader(s) at the time of GAO interviews

Department of Agriculture: Assist rural communities build and maintain 

prosperity through increased agricultural exports.

Darci Vetter, Deputy Under Secretary for Farm and 

Foreign Agricultural Services

Army Corps of Engineers – Civil Works: Help facilitate commercial 

navigation by providing safe, reliable, highly cost-effective, and 

environmentally-sustainable waterborne transportation systems.

James R. Hannon, Chief, Operations and Regulatory 

Community of Practice

Army Corps of Engineers – Civil Works: Improve the current operating 

performance and asset reliability of hydropower plants in support of 

Executive Order 13514.

James R. Hannon, Chief, Operations and Regulatory 

Community of Practice

Department of Commerce: Advance commercialization of new 

technologies by reducing patent application pendency and backlog.

Teresa Rea, Acting Under Secretary of Commerce for 

Intellectual Property and Acting Director of the United 

States Patent and Trademark Office

Department of Commerce: Expand broadband service to communities. Lawrence Strickling, Assistant Secretary for 

Communications and Information

Department of Defense (DOD): Reform DOD’s acquisition process. Nancy Spruill, Director of Acquisition Resources and 

Analysis

Department of Defense: Improve energy performance. Joseph Sikes, Director, Science and Technology for 

Installations and Environment

(Note: At the time of our interview, Mr. Sikes was Director, 

Facilities Energy and Privatization.)

Department of Education: Improve outcomes for all children from birth 

through third grade.

Deborah S. Delisle, Assistant Secretary for Elementary 

and Secondary Education

Department of Education: Demonstrate progress in turning around the 

nation’s lowest-performing schools.

Deborah S. Delisle, Assistant Secretary for Elementary 

and Secondary Education

Department of Education: Improve students’ ability to afford and 

complete college.

Martha Kanter, Under Secretary of Education1

Department of Energy: Make significant progress toward securing the 

most vulnerable nuclear materials worldwide within 4 years.

Anne Harrington (key leader), Deputy Administrator for 

Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation;

Bruce Held, Acting Under Secretary for Nuclear Security2

Department of Energy: Reduce the cost of batteries for electric drive 

vehicles to help increase the market for plug-in hybrids and all-electric 

vehicles and thereby reduce petroleum use and greenhouse gas 

emissions.

Kathleen Hogan, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Energy 

Efficiency

Department of Energy: Make solar energy as cheap as traditional 

sources of electricity.

Steven Chalk, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Renewable 

Energy

 1

Ms. Kanter was about to leave her position at the time of our interview. She provided us 

with written responses, and we met with her deputy goal leader to discuss follow-up 

questions.

2

While the Department of Energy (DOE) identified both Mr. Held and Ms. Harrington as 

goal leaders, we only interviewed Ms. Harrington because DOE identified her as the 

APG’s primary goal leader. 

Appendix I: GAO Sample of Agency Priority 

Goals for 2012-2013 
Appendix I: GAO Sample of Agency Priority 

Goals for 2012-2013

Page 47 GAO-14-639 Role of the Agency Priority Goal Leader 

Agency/ Goal Goal Leader(s) at the time of GAO interviews

Department of Energy: Prioritization of scientific facilities to ensure 

optimal benefit from federal investments.

Patricia Dehmer, Acting Director, Office of Science; 

Deputy Director for Science Programs

Environmental Protection Agency: Clean up contaminated sites and 

make them ready for use.

Barry Breen, Principal Deputy Assistant Administrator, 

Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response

Environmental Protection Agency: Reduce greenhouse gas emissions 

from cars and trucks.

Elizabeth A. Shaw, Deputy Assistant Administrator, Office 

of Air and Radiation

General Services Administration: Manage customer agency real 

estate portfolio needs in a cost-effective and environmentally sustainable 

manner.

Dorothy Robyn, Commissioner, Public Buildings Service

Department of Health and Human Services: Reduce foodborne illness 

in the population.

Roberta Wagner, Deputy Director for Regulatory Affairs, 

Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, Food and 

Drug Administration

Department of Health and Human Services: Increase the number of 

health centers certified as patient centered medical homes.

Jim Macrae, Associate Administrator, Bureau of Primary 

Health Care, Health Resources and Services 

Administration

Department of Health and Human Services: Improve health care 

through meaningful use of health information technology.

Judy Murphy, Deputy National Coordinator for Programs 

and Policy, Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT

Department of Homeland Security: Improve the efficiency of the 

process to detain and remove criminal aliens from the United States.

Thomas Homan, Executive Associate Director, 

Enforcement and Removal Operations

Department of Housing and Urban Development: Reducing 

homelessness.

Jennifer Ho, Senior Advisor to the Secretary;

Mark Johnston, Acting Assistant Secretary, Office of 

Community Planning and Development 

Department of Housing and Urban Development: Preserve affordable 

rental housing.

Position vacant at the time of our interviews (we met 

instead with the performance improvement officer and 

deputy performance improvement officer)3

Department of Housing and Urban Development: Prevent 

foreclosures.

Charles Coulter, Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Office 

of Single Family Housing, Office of Housing

Ivery Himes, Director, Office of Single Family Asset 

Management

Department of the Interior: Build the next generation of conservation 

and community leaders by supporting youth employment at the 

Department of the Interior.

Rhea Suh, Assistant Secretary, Policy, Management, and 

Budget

Department of the Interior: Reduce violent crime in Indian 

communities.

Kevin Washburn, Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs

Department of the Interior: Enable capability to increase the available 

water supply in the western states through conservation related 

programs to ensure adequate and safe water supplies.

Mike Connor, Deputy Secretary

(note: at the time of our interview, Mr. Connor’s title was 

Commissioner of Reclamation)

Department of Justice: Protect those most in need of help - with special 

emphasis on child exploitation and civil rights.

Anne Gannon, National Coordinator for Child Exploitation

Prevention and Interdiction, Office of the Deputy Attorney 

General

 3

A HUD official explained that the performance improvement officer at the time of our 

interview had served as “de facto” goal leader after the position became vacant.
Appendix I: GAO Sample of Agency Priority 

Goals for 2012-2013

Page 48 GAO-14-639 Role of the Agency Priority Goal Leader 

Agency/ Goal Goal Leader(s) at the time of GAO interviews

Department of Justice: Reduce gang violence. Position vacant at the time of our interview (we met instead 

with the deputy goal leader)

Department of Labor: Create a model safety and return-to-work 

program.

David Michaels, Assistant Secretary of Labor for 

Occupational Safety and Health;

Gary Steinberg, Acting Director, Office of Workers’

Compensation Programs

Department of Labor: Reduce worker fatalities. David Michaels, Assistant Secretary of Labor for 

Occupational Safety and Health;

Joseph Main, Assistant Secretary of Labor for Mine Safety 

and Health

National Aeronautics and Space Administration: Sustain operations 

and full utilization of the International Space Station.

Sam Scimemi, Director, International Space Station 

Division

National Aeronautics and Space Administration: Develop the nation’s 

next generation human space flight system to allow for travel beyond low 

earth orbit.

William Hill, Assistant Deputy Associate Administrator, 

Exploration Systems Division

National Science Foundation (NSF): Increase opportunities for 

research and education through public access to high-value digital 

products of NSF-funded research.

Alan Blatecky, Director, Office of Cyberinfrastructure4

Office of Personnel Management: Reduce federal retirement 

processing time.

Kenneth Zawodny, Jr., Associate Director, Retirement 

Services 

Office of Personnel Management: Ensure high quality federal 

employees.

Angela Bailey, Chief Operating Officer

(note: at the time of our interview, Ms. Bailey’s title was 

Associate Director of Employee Services)

Small Business Administration: Increase small business participation 

in government contracting.

John Shoraka, Associate Administrator, Office of 

Government Contracting and Business Development

Small Business Administration: Process disaster assistance 

applications efficiently.

James E. Rivera, Associate Administrator, Office of 

Disaster Assistance

Social Security Administration: Reduce Supplemental Security 

Income overpayments.

David Foster, Assistant Deputy Commissioner, Office of 

Quality Performance

Department of State/U.S. Agency for International Development:

Democracy, human rights, and good governance.

Ambassador Michael Kozak, Acting Principal Deputy 

Assistant Secretary, State Department

Sarah Mendelson, Deputy Assistant Administrator; 

Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance, USAID

Department of State/U.S. Agency for International Development:

Procurement reform.

Elizabeth Warfield, Local Solutions Coordinator, USAID

Department of State/U.S. Agency for International Development: 

Economic statecraft.

Jose W. Fernandez, Assistant Secretary, Bureau of 

Economic and Business Affairs, State Department

Department of State/U.S. Agency for International Development:

Food security.

Beth Dunford, Deputy Assistant Administrator, Bureau for 

Food Security, USAID 

 4

Dr. Blatecky was about to leave NSF at the time of our interview, so we met instead with 

his deputy goal leader. Dr. Blatecky also provided us with written responses.
Appendix I: GAO Sample of Agency Priority 

Goals for 2012-2013

Page 49 GAO-14-639 Role of the Agency Priority Goal Leader 

Agency/ Goal Goal Leader(s) at the time of GAO interviews

Department of Transportation: Reduce risk of aviation accidents. Michael P. Huerta, Administrator of the Federal Aviation 

Administration;

Margaret Gilligan, Associate Administrator for Aviation 

Safety, Federal Aviation Administration

Department of Transportation: Advance the development of passenger 

rail in the United States.

Joseph Szabo, Federal Railroad Administrator 

Department of the Treasury: Increase electronic transactions with the 

public to improve service, prevent fraud, and reduce costs.

Richard L. Gregg, Fiscal Assistant Secretary

Department of Veterans Affairs: Assist in housing 24,400 (12,200 per 

year) additional homeless veterans and reduce the number of homeless 

veterans to 35,000 in 2013, to be measured in the January 2014 point-intime homelessness count.

Lisa M. Pape, Director, Veterans Health Administration 

Homeless Programs

(Note: At the time of our interview, Ms. Pape’s title was 

“National Director, Veterans Health Administration 

Homeless Programs.”)

Source: GAO analysis of information provided by agencies and on Performance.gov. | GAO-14-639
Appendix II: Objectives, Scope and 

Methodology

Page 50 GAO-14-639 Role of the Agency Priority Goal Leader 

The GPRA Modernization Act of 2010 (GPRAMA) requires GAO to review 

the act’s implementation. This report is part of a series of reviews planned 

around the requirement. The objectives of this report are to: (1) evaluate 

the roles and responsibilities of agency priority goal leaders in managing 

goal progress and the extent to which they are held accountable for 

achievement of priority goals; (2) review the extent to which priority goal 

leaders collaborate with other programs and agencies that contribute to 

the achievement of the priority goals; and (3) describe any challenges 

and practices identified by priority goal leaders in managing goals, and 

evaluate the extent to which they exchange this information with other 

priority goal leaders.

To achieve our objectives, we focused our review on the goal leaders for 

a random sample of agency priority goals (APG) for 2012 and 2013. 

There were 103 APGs for 2012 and 2013, across 24 agencies.1 The 

number of APGs per agency ranged from two to eight. The sample we 

selected included nearly half (47) of these APGs.2

To inform our work on all three objectives, we reviewed GPRAMA and 

related Office of Management and Budget (OMB) guidance, along with 

We chose our sample 

to ensure that it included at least one goal from each of the 24 agencies 

and approximately half of the total number of APGs per agency. Although 

our sample represented a significant portion of APGs and goal leaders, 

we did not generalize information to the population of APGs or goal 

leaders. Appendix I includes a list of the APGs in our sample and the 

associated goal leaders we interviewed.

 1

GPRAMA states that the 24 agencies identified in the Chief Financial Officers (CFO) Act 

of 1990, as amended (31 U.S.C. § 901(b)), are required to develop APGs, unless OMB 

determines otherwise. The 24 agencies that developed 2012 to 2013 APGs varied slightly 

from the CFO Act agencies. OMB did not require the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to 

develop these goals, but it did direct the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers – Civil Works 

program to develop priority goals. The agencies with APGs for 2012 and 2013 were: the 

Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Education, Energy, Health and Human 

Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, the Interior, Justice, 

Labor, State, Transportation, the Treasury, and Veterans Affairs, as well as the U.S. 

Agency for International Development, Environmental Protection Agency, General 

Services Administration, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, National Science 

Foundation, Office of Personnel Management, Small Business Administration, Social 

Security Administration, and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers – Civil Works. 

2

We excluded from our sample a Department of Defense APG to improve cybersecurity 

compliance, due to the sensitive nature of the goal and the resulting limited published 

information available on it.

Appendix II: Objectives, Scope and 

Methodology
Appendix II: Objectives, Scope and 

Methodology

Page 51 GAO-14-639 Role of the Agency Priority Goal Leader 

our prior work on performance management roles, APGs, and 

interagency collaboration.3 We also reviewed information on APGs and 

goal leaders published on Performance.gov, a government-wide 

performance website.4

We conducted semistructured interviews with the goal leaders for 43 of 

the 47 APGs in our sample, for a total of 46 goal leaders. The number of 

goal leaders does not equal the number of goals because some goals 

had more than one leader, while some goal leaders were responsible for 

more than one goal in our sample. In most cases where there was more 

than one goal leader, we interviewed all goal leaders. The one exception 

was for a goal for which the agency had identified two goal leaders, but 

noted that one was the primary goal leader. In that case, we only 

interviewed that official. The goal leaders for the other four APGs in our 

sample had either left their agencies or were about to leave at the time of 

our interviews. For these goals, we interviewed other agency officials who 

were knowledgeable about the goals, such as deputy goal leaders and 

performance management staff. Two of the departing goal leaders 

provided us with written responses to our questions. We also interviewed 

Performance Improvement Council (PIC) and OMB staff.

We used information from Performance.gov 

throughout the engagement, but all references to data from 

Performance.gov in this report are as of May 23, 2014, the date we most 

recently downloaded information from the website. To assess the 

reliability of APG information available through Performance.gov, we 

collected information from agencies and reviewed relevant documentation 

and our prior work. We concluded that information from the website was 

sufficiently reliable for the purpose of drawing our sample of APGs and 

providing contextual information on APGs. We did not evaluate agency 

data on goal progress to determine if APG progress they described to us 

and on Performance.gov was accurate. But, we did ask agency officials to 

verify information on goal progress we report from Performance.gov.

 3

See GAO, Managing for Results: Agencies Have Elevated Performance Management 

Leadership Roles, but Additional Training is Needed, GAO-13-356 (Washington, D.C.: 

Apr. 16, 2013); Managing for Results: Agencies Should More Fully Develop Priority Goals 

under the GPRA Modernization Act, GAO-13-174 (Washington, D.C.: Apr. 19, 2013); and 

Managing for Results: Implementation Approaches Used to Enhance Collaboration in 

Interagency Groups, GAO-14-220 (Washington, D.C.: Feb. 14, 2014).

4

Our 2013 report on the Performance.gov website examined the extent to which the 

website incorporates leading practices for the development of federal websites. See GAO, 

Managing for Results: Leading Practices Should Guide the Continued Development of 

Performance.gov, GAO-13-517 (Washington, D.C.: June 6, 2013).
Appendix II: Objectives, Scope and 

Methodology

Page 52 GAO-14-639 Role of the Agency Priority Goal Leader 

To address our first objective, we obtained and analyzed documentation 

from goal leaders related to their roles and responsibilities, such as 

records showing how they track and communicate goal progress. We also 

obtained individual performance plans from all goal leaders and deputy 

goal leaders who had relevant plans—32 goal leaders and 35 deputy goal 

leaders—and analyzed them to understand how they are used to hold 

officials accountable for goal progress.5 We focused our analysis on how 

closely expectations in the plans were aligned to the APG for which the 

officials were responsible. Specifically, we evaluated (1) whether the 

plans specify that officials are responsible for the APG; (2) whether 

performance standards are linked to APG outcomes; (3) if the plans 

include broad responsibilities for an office or mission area under which 

the APG is likely to fall; and (4) if they hold officials responsible for one or 

more activities that could contribute to progress on the APG. To assess 

goal leader and deputy goal leader performance plans, we reviewed our 

prior work on individual and organizational performance.6 We also 

reviewed our prior work on data-driven performance reviews (also 

referred to as quarterly performance reviews) as part of our examination 

of accountability mechanisms for goal achievement and goal leaders’

collaboration.7

 5

Some goal leaders and deputies either did not have performance plans or had ones that 

did not reflect their current positions. Twelve goal leaders we interviewed who were 

Senate-confirmed presidential appointees did not have performance plans, as they were 

not required. Senate-confirmed presidential appointees are not in the Senior Executive 

Service (SES) and therefore not under the SES performance management system. 5 

C.F.R. § 430.302(a) and 5 U.S.C. § 3132(a)(2). Additionally, two goal leaders had plans 

that did not reflect their goal leader roles because they were new to their positions or 

serving in them temporarily. All of the 38 deputy goal leaders for the goals in our sample 

had performance plans, though we excluded three deputies’ plans from consideration 

because they were new to the position at the time of our interview and their plans had not 

been updated to reflect their roles as deputy.

We also reviewed Office of Personnel Management (OPM) 

6

See GAO, Results-Oriented Cultures: Creating a Clear Linkage between Individual 

Performance and Organizational Success, GAO-03-488 (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 14, 

2003). As a part of this report, we identified key practices for effective performance 

management that create a clear linkage between individual performance and 

organizational success. We identified these practices by reviewing, among other things, 

experiences of public sector organizations in the U.S. and abroad. See the report’s scope 

and methodology for additional details.

7

See GAO, Managing for Results: Data-Driven Performance Reviews Show Promise But 

Agencies Should Explore How to Involve Other Relevant Agencies, GAO-13-228

(Washington, D.C.: Feb. 27, 2013). Our prior work identified several leading practices for 

conducting quarterly performance reviews. We identified these practices through a review 

of relevant academic and policy literature and with input from practitioners at the local, 

state, and federal levels. See the report’s scope and methodology for additional details. 
Appendix II: Objectives, Scope and 

Methodology

Page 53 GAO-14-639 Role of the Agency Priority Goal Leader 

guidance and regulations on performance management, although we 

recognize that not all of the performance plans we reviewed were within 

the coverage of OPM guidance and regulations. To further address this 

objective, we also included questions in our interviews with goal leaders 

about their roles and responsibilities, deputy goal leader roles and 

responsibilities, accountability for goal achievement, and their 

assessments of the effects of the goal leader designation. We also 

included related questions in our interview with OMB and PIC staff.

To address our second objective, we obtained and analyzed 

documentation from goal leaders related to collaboration, such as 

minutes and agenda of meetings during 2012 and 2013 at which APGs 

were discussed, and records of agency analysis of different program 

types that contribute to APGs, such as grants. To determine how 

agencies are identifying and analyzing the contribution of tax 

expenditures to their APGs, we identified five APGs in our sample that 

have a close connection to tax expenditures.8

To address our third objective, we obtained and analyzed examples of 

ways in which goal leaders shared information, such as talking points

used at presentations and copies of e-mail between agencies and OMB 

and the PIC. We included questions in our interviews with goal leaders 

about what they consider to be promising practices and lessons learned 

in managing APGs, and the extent to which they and deputy goal leaders 

share this type of information within and outside of their agencies. We 

also asked OMB and PIC staff about actions the PIC has taken to reach 

out to and facilitate information exchange among goal leaders.

For this subset of APGs, 

we included questions during our interviews with goal leaders and their 

staff about agencies’ consideration of tax expenditures. We also asked 

goal leaders about how they coordinate within and outside of their 

agencies, and how they identify and analyze the contributions of different 

program types. We asked related questions in our interview with OMB 

and PIC staff.

 8

The five APGs we identified as having a close connection to tax expenditures are: 1) the 

Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Preserve Affordable Rental 

Housing APG; 2) HUD’s Prevent Foreclosures APG; 3) the Department of Energy’s Make 

Solar Energy as Cheap as Traditional Sources of Electricity APG; 4) the Department of 

Education’s Improve Students’ Ability to Afford and Complete College APG; and 5) the 

Environmental Protection Agency’s Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions for Cars and 

Trucks APG. 
Appendix II: Objectives, Scope and 

Methodology

Page 54 GAO-14-639 Role of the Agency Priority Goal Leader 

We conducted our work from June 2013 to July 2014 in accordance with 

generally accepted government audit standards. Those standards require 

that we plan and perform the audit to obtain sufficient, appropriate 

evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions 

based on our audit objectives. We believe that the evidence obtained 

provides a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on 

our audit objectives.
Appendix III: Comments from the 

Social Security Administration

Page 55 GAO-14-639 Role of the Agency Priority Goal Leader 

Appendix III: Comments from the 

Social Security Administration
Appendix IV: GAO Contact and Staff 

Acknowledgments

Page 56 GAO-14-639 Role of the Agency Priority Goal Leader 

J. Christopher Mihm, (202) 512-6806 or mihmj@gao.gov

In addition to the contact named above, Sarah Veale, Assistant Director, 

and Kathleen Padulchick, Analyst-in-Charge, supervised the development 

of this report. Jenny Chanley, Karin Fangman, Erik Kjeldgaard, Michael 

O’Neill, and Cynthia Saunders made significant contributions to all 

aspects of this report.

Appendix IV: GAO Contact and Staff 

Acknowledgments

GAO Contact

Staff 

Acknowledgments

(451052)
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