**GAO-07-1081T**                      Published: Sep 06, 2007. Publicly Released: Sep 06, 2007.                  

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## Highlights

The Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) recent 4-year anniversary provides an opportunity to reflect on the progress DHS has made. The creation of DHS was one of the largest federal reorganizations in the last several decades, and GAO has reported that it was an enormous management challenge and that the size, complexity, and importance of the effort made the challenge especially daunting and critical to the nation's security. Our prior work on mergers and acquisitions has found that successful transformations of large organizations, even those faced with less strenuous reorganizations than DHS, can take at least 5 to 7 years to achieve. This testimony is based on our August 2007 report evaluating DHS's progress since March 2003. Specifically, it addresses DHS's progress across 14 mission and management areas and key themes that have affected DHS's implementation efforts.

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## Topics

Homeland Security

Agency missionsFederal agency reorganizationHomeland securityInformation managementInteragency relationsInternal controlsPerformance measuresProgram evaluationProgram managementRisk managementStrategic information systems planningStrategic planningAgency organizational structureInformation sharingProgram coordinationProgram goals or objectivesProgram implementation