GAO-04-270R Succession Planning and Management 

United States General Accounting Office

Washington, DC 20548 

November 14, 2003 

The Honorable Jo Ann Davis 

Chairwoman 

Subcommittee on Civil Service and Agency Organization 

Committee on Government Reform 

House of Representatives 

Subject: Posthearing Questions Related to Succession Planning and Management

Dear Madam Chairwoman: 

On October 1, I testified before your Subcommittee at a hearing entitled “Human 

Capital Succession Planning: How the Federal Government Can Get a Workforce to 

Achieve Results.”1

 This letter responds to your request that I provide answers to 

follow-up questions from the hearing. Your questions, along with my responses, 

follow. 

1. The GAO report discusses how agencies in other countries have used 

succession planning to address specific human capital challenges. What are 

some of these challenges and how have agencies abroad used their succession 

planning and management initiatives to meet them?

We reported that government agencies around the world are using succession 

planning and management to achieve a more diverse workforce, maintain their 

leadership capacity as senior executives retire, and increase the retention of highpotential staff.2

 Leading organizations recognize that diversity can be an 

organizational strength that contributes to achieving results. For example, the United 

Kingdom’s Cabinet Office created Pathways, a 2-year program that identifies and 

develops senior managers from ethnic minorities who have the potential to reach the 

Senior Civil Service within 3 to 5 years. In addition, Canada uses its Accelerated 

Executive Development Program as a tool to help achieve a governmentwide 

diversity target. Specifically, the government has set a goal that by 2003, certain 

minorities will represent 20 percent of participants in all management development 

programs. 

Succession planning and management can help agencies maintain leadership 

capacity. Both at home and abroad, a large percentage of senior executives will be 

 

1

 U.S. General Accounting Office, Human Capital: Succession Planning and Management Is Critical 

Driver of Organizational Transformation, GAO-04-127T (Washington, D.C.: Oct. 1, 2003). 2

 U.S. General Accounting Office, Human Capital: Insights for U.S. Agencies from Other Countries’ 

Succession Planning and Management Initiatives, GAO-03-914 (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 15, 2003). 
Page 2 GAO-04-270R Succession Planning and Management 

eligible to retire over the next several years. In the United States, we reported that 

the federal government faces an estimated loss of more than half of the career 

Senior Executive Service by October 2007.3

 Canada is also using its Accelerated 

Executive Development Program to address impending retirements of assistant 

deputy ministers—one of the most senior executive-level positions in its civil 

service. For example, 76 percent of this group is over 50 and approximately 75 

percent are eligible to retire between now and 2008. 

To increase retention of high-potential staff, Canada’s Office of the Auditor General 

uses succession planning and management. According to a senior human capital 

official, to provide an incentive for high-potential employees to stay with the 

organization, the office provided them comprehensive developmental opportunities 

in order to raise the “exit price” that competing employers would need to offer to lure 

them away. 

2. Can you highlight some of the ways in which other countries have used 

succession planning and management to facilitate broader agency and 

government transformation efforts? 

Effective succession planning and management initiatives provide a potentially 

powerful tool for fostering broader governmentwide or agencywide transformation 

by selecting and developing leaders and managers who support and champion 

change. For example, in 1999, the United Kingdom launched a wide-ranging reform 

program known as Modernising Government to improve government services, and 

subsequently started restructuring the content of its leadership and management 

development programs to reflect this new emphasis on service delivery. Similarly, the 

Family Court of Australia’s Leadership, Excellence, Achievement, Progression 

program is preparing future leaders who could help the organization successfully 

adapt to recent changes in how it delivers services. Specifically, the court considers 

this increased emphasis on the needs of external stakeholders when selecting and 

developing program participants. 

3. Succession planning is sometimes thought of as simply a human capital 

issue, yet I noted in your report that some organizations have used it as a 

way to work past organizational boundaries and other barriers. Could you 

describe in greater detail some of the examples you have found in this 

regard?

Succession planning and management can help the organization become what it 

needs to be, rather than simply recreating the existing organization. In Canada, 

succession planning and management initiatives provide this broader perspective. 

Since 1997, as the basis for Ontario’s governmentwide succession planning and 

management process, the head of each ministry is to develop a succession plan that 

(1) anticipates the ministry’s needs over the next couple of years, (2) establishes a 

process to identify a pool of high-potential senior managers, and (3) links the 

selection of possible successors to both ministry and governmentwide opportunities 

and business plans. Similarly, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police’s succession 

planning and management system provides it with an organizationwide picture of 

 

3

 U.S. General Accounting Office, Senior Executive Service: Enhanced Agency Efforts Needed to 

Improve Diversity as the Senior Corps Turns Over, GAO-03-34 (Washington, D.C.: Jan. 17, 2003). 
Page 3 GAO-04-270R Succession Planning and Management 

current and developing leadership capacity across the organization’s many functional 

and geographic lines. It is responsible for a wide range of police functions on the 

federal, provincial, and local levels and provides services in 10 provinces and three 

territories. 

4. We often hear about the importance of top leadership commitment to 

implementing management improvement initiatives. Can you describe some 

of the specific ways agency leaders demonstrated their commitment to 

succession planning and management initiatives in the agencies you studied? 

In other governments and agencies, top leadership demonstrates its support of 

succession planning and management when it actively participates in these 

initiatives. For example, each year the Secretary of the Cabinet, Ontario’s top civil 

servant, convenes and actively participates in a 2-day succession planning and 

management retreat with the heads of every government ministry to discuss the 

anticipated leadership needs across the government as well as the individual status of 

about 200 high-potential executives who may be able to meet those needs. 

Top leadership also demonstrates its support of succession planning and 

management when it regularly uses these programs to develop, place, and promote 

individuals. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police’s senior executive committee 

regularly uses the agency’s succession planning and management programs when 

making such decisions of its top 500—600 officer and civilian employees. 

Lastly, top leaders demonstrate support by ensuring that their agencies’ succession 

planning and management initiatives receive sufficient funding and staff resources 

necessary to operate effectively and are maintained over time. For example, at 

Statistics Canada—the Canadian federal government’s central statistics agency—the 

Chief Statistician of Canada has set aside a percentage, in this case over 3 percent, of 

the total agency budget for training and development, thus making resources 

available for the operation of the agency’s four leadership and management 

development programs. 

_ _ _ _ _ _ 

For additional information on our work on federal agency transformation efforts and 

strategic human capital management, please contact me on (202) 512-6806 or at 

mihmj@gao.gov. 

Sincerely yours, 

J. Christopher Mihm 

Director, Strategic Issues 

(450282)