Testimony 

Before the Subcommittee on 

Environment, Technology, and Standards, 

Committee on Science, House of 

Representatives

United States General Accounting Office 

GAO

For Release on Delivery 

Expected at 10:00 a.m. EST 

Thursday, March 11, 2004 PERFORMANCE 

BUDGETING 

OMB’s Performance Rating 

Tool Presents Opportunities 

and Challenges For 

Evaluating Program 

Performance 

Statement of Paul L. Posner 

Managing Director, Federal Budget Issues 

Strategic Issues 

GAO-04-550T 
www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-04-550T.

To view the full product, including the scope 

and methodology, click on the link above. 

For more information, contact Paul L. Posner 

at (202) 512-9573 or posnerp@gao.gov. 

Highlights of GAO-04-550T, a testimony 

before the Subcommittee on Environment, 

Technology, and Standards, Committee 

on Science, House of Representatives 

March 11, 2004 

PERFORMANCE BUDGETING 

OMB’s Program Assessment Rating Tool 

Presents Opportunities and Challenges 

for Evaluating Program Performance 

PART helped structure OMB’s use of performance information for internal 

program and budget analysis and stimulated agency interest in budget and 

performance integration. Moreover, it illustrated the potential to build on 

GPRA’s foundation to more actively promote the use of performance 

information in budget decisions. OMB deserves credit for inviting scrutiny of its 

federal program performance reviews and sharing them on its Web site. 

The goal of PART is to evaluate programs systematically, consistently, and 

transparently. OMB went to great lengths to encourage consistent application of 

PART in the evaluation of government programs, including pilot testing the 

instrument, issuing detailed guidance, and conducting consistency reviews. 

Although there is undoubtedly room for continued improvement, any tool is 

inherently limited in providing a single performance answer or judgment on 

complex federal programs with multiple goals. 

Performance measurement challenges in evaluating complex federal programs 

make it difficult to meaningfully interpret a single bottom-line rating. The 

individual section ratings for each PART review provided a better understanding 

of areas needing improvement than the overall rating alone. Moreover, any tool 

that is sophisticated enough to take into account the complexity of the U.S. 

government will always require some interpretation and judgment. Therefore it 

is not surprising that OMB staff were not fully consistent in interpreting complex 

questions about agency goals and results. 

The lack of program performance information at the agency level also creates 

challenges in effectively measuring program performance. PART provides an 

opportunity to consider strategically targeting the assessments on groups of 

related programs contributing to common outcomes to more efficiently use 

scarce analytic resources and focus decision makers’ attention on the most 

pressing performance issues cutting across individual programs and agencies. 

The relationship between PART and the broader GPRA strategic planning 

process is still evolving and highlights the critical importance of defining the unit 

of analysis for program evaluation. Although PART can stimulate discussion on 

program-specific performance measurement issues, it is not a substitute for 

GPRA’s strategic, longer-term focus on thematic goals, and department- and 

governmentwide crosscutting comparisons. 

PART clearly serves OMB’s needs, but questions remain about whether it serves 

the various needs of other key stakeholders. If PART results are to be 

considered in the congressional debate, it will be important for OMB to 

(1) involve congressional stakeholders early in providing input on the focus of 

the assessments; (2) clarify any significant limitations in the assessments and 

underlying performance information; and (3) initiate discussions with key 

congressional committees about how they can best leverage PART information 

in congressional authorization, appropriations, and oversight processes. 

The Office of Management and 

Budget’s (OMB) Performance 

Assessment Rating Tool (PART) is 

meant to provide a consistent 

approach to evaluating federal 

programs during budget 

formulation. The subcommittee 

asked GAO to discuss its overall 

findings and recommendations 

concerning PART, based on a 

recent report, Performance 

Budgeting: Observations on the 

Use of OMB’s Program Assessment 

Rating Tool for the Fiscal Year 

2004 Budget (GAO-04-174). 

In the recent report on PART, GAO 

recommended that the Director of 

OMB (1) address the capacity 

demands of PART, (2) strengthen 

PART guidance, (3) address 

evaluation information scope and 

availability issues, (4) focus 

program selection on critical 

operations and crosscutting 

comparisons, (5) expand the 

dialogue with Congress, and 

(6) articulate and implement a 

complementary relationship 

between PART and GPRA. 

OMB generally agreed with GAO’s 

findings, conclusions, and 

recommendations and said it is 

already taking actions to address 

many of the recommendations. 

GAO also suggested that Congress 

consider the need for a structured 

approach to articulating its 

perspective and oversight agenda 

on performance goals and priorities 

for key programs. 
Page 1 GAO-04-550T 

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee: 

I am pleased to be here today to discuss performance budgeting and the 

Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) Program Assessment Rating 

Tool (PART). Since the 1950s, the federal government has attempted 

several governmentwide initiatives designed to better align spending 

decisions with expected performance—what is commonly referred to as 

“performance budgeting.” The consensus is that prior efforts—including 

the Hoover Commission, the Planning-Programming-Budgeting-System, 

Management by Objectives, and Zero-Based Budgeting—did not succeed 

in significantly shifting the focus of the federal budget process from its 

long-standing concentration on the items of government spending to the 

results of its programs. However, the persistent attempts reflect a longstanding interest in linking resources to results. 

In the 1990s, Congress and the executive branch laid out a statutory and 

management framework that provides the foundation for strengthening 

government performance and accountability, with the Government 

Performance and Results Act of 19931

 (GPRA) as its centerpiece. GPRA is 

designed to inform congressional and executive decision making by 

providing objective information on the relative effectiveness and 

efficiency of federal programs and spending. A key purpose of the act is to 

create closer and clearer links between the process of allocating scarce 

resources and the expected results to be achieved with those resources. 

We have learned that this type of integration is critical from prior 

initiatives that failed in part because they did not prove to be relevant to 

budget decision makers in the executive branch or Congress.2

 GPRA 

requires both a connection to the structures used in congressional budget 

presentations and consultation between the executive and legislative 

branches on agency strategic plans; this gives Congress an oversight stake 

in GPRA’s success.3

This administration has made the integration of performance and budget 

information one of five governmentwide management priorities under the 

 1

 Pub. L. No. 103-62 (1993). 

2

 U.S. General Accounting Office, Performance Budgeting: Past Initiatives Offer Insights 

for GPRA Implementation, GAO/AIMD-97-46 (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 27, 1997). 

3

 See Pub. L. No. 103-62 § 2 (1993), 5 U.S.C. § 306 (2003), and 31 U.S.C. §§ 1115-1116 (2003). 
Page 2 GAO-04-550T 

President’s Management Agenda (PMA).4 Central to this initiative is PART. 

OMB developed PART as a diagnostic tool meant to provide a consistent 

approach to evaluating federal programs and applied it in formulating the 

President’s fiscal years 2004 and 2005 budget requests. PART covers four 

broad topics for all “programs”5

 selected for review: (1) program purpose 

and design, (2) strategic planning, (3) program management, and 

(4) program results (i.e., whether a program is meeting its long-term and 

annual goals) as well as additional questions that are specific to one of 

seven mechanisms or approaches used to deliver the program.6

GPRA expanded the supply of performance information generated by 

federal agencies, although as the PART assessments demonstrate, more 

must be done to develop credible performance information. However, 

improving the supply of performance information is in and of itself 

insufficient to sustain performance management and achieve real 

improvements in management and program results. Rather, it needs to be 

accompanied by a demand for that information by decision makers and 

managers alike. PART may mark a new chapter in performance-based 

budgeting by more successfully stimulating demand for this information—

that is, using the performance information generated through GPRA’s 

planning and reporting processes to more directly feed into executive 

branch budgetary decisions. 

My statement today focuses on seven points: 

• PART helped structure OMB’s use of performance information for its 

internal program and budget analysis, made the use of this information 

more transparent, and stimulated agency interest in budget and 

performance integration. Moreover, it illustrated the potential to build on 

GPRA’s foundation to more actively promote the use of performance 

 4

 In addition to budget and performance integration, the other four priorities under the 

PMA are strategic management of human capital, expanded electronic government, 

improved financial performance, and competitive sourcing. 

5

 There is no standard definition for the term “program.” For purposes of PART, OMB 

described the unit of analysis (program) as (1) an activity or set of activities clearly 

recognized as a program by the public, OMB, or Congress; (2) having a discrete level of 

funding clearly associated with it; and (3) corresponding to the level at which budget 

decisions are made. 

6

 The seven major categories are competitive grants, block/formula grants, capital assets 

and service acquisition programs, credit programs, regulatory-based programs, direct 

federal programs, and research and development programs. 
Page 3 GAO-04-550T 

information in budget decisions. 

• The goal of PART is to evaluate programs systematically, consistently, and 

transparently. OMB went to great lengths to encourage consistent 

application of PART in the evaluation of government programs, including 

pilot testing the instrument, issuing detailed guidance, and conducting 

consistency reviews. Although there is undoubtedly room for continued 

improvement, any tool is inherently limited in providing a single 

performance answer or judgment on complex federal programs with 

multiple goals. 

• Performance measurement challenges in evaluating complex federal 

programs make it difficult to meaningfully interpret a bottom-line rating. 

The individual section ratings for each PART review provided a better 

understanding of areas needing improvement than the overall rating alone. 

• As is to be expected with any new reform, PART is a work in progress and 

we have noted in our work where OMB might make improvements. Any 

tool that is sophisticated enough to take into account the complexity of 

the U.S. government will require some exercise of judgment. Therefore it 

is not surprising that we found some inconsistencies in OMB staff 

interpreting and applying PART. 

• PART provides an opportunity to more efficiently use scarce analytic 

resources, to focus decision makers’ attention on the most pressing policy 

issues, and to consider comparisons and trade-offs among related 

programs by more strategically targeting PART assessments based on such 

factors as the relative priorities, costs, and risks associated with related 

clusters of programs and activities. The first year PART assessments 

underscored the long-standing gaps in performance and evaluation 

information throughout the federal government. By reaching agreement on 

areas in which evaluations are most essential, decision makers can help 

ensure that limited resources are applied wisely. 

• The relationship between PART and its process and the broader GPRA 

strategic planning process is still evolving. Although PART can stimulate 

discussion on program-specific performance measurement issues, it is not 

a substitute for GPRA’s strategic, longer-term focus on thematic goals and 

department- and governmentwide crosscutting comparisons. PART and 

GPRA serve different but complementary needs, so a strategy for 

integrating the two could help strengthen both. 

• Federal programs are designed and implemented in dynamic environments 

where competing program priorities and stakeholders’ needs must be 
Page 4 GAO-04-550T 

balanced continually and new needs must be addressed. While PART 

clearly serves the needs of OMB in budget formulation, questions remain 

about whether it serves the various needs of other key stakeholders. If the 

President or OMB wants PART and its results to be considered in the 

congressional debate, it will be important for OMB to (1) involve 

congressional stakeholders early in providing input on the focus of the 

assessments; (2) clarify any significant limitations in the assessments as 

well as the underlying performance information; and (3) initiate 

discussions with key congressional committees about how they can best 

take advantage of and leverage PART information in congressional 

authorization, appropriations, and oversight processes. Moreover, 

Congress needs to consider ways it can articulate its oversight priorities 

and performance agenda. 

My statement is based on our recently published report on OMB’s PART7

in which we reviewed the first year of the PART process—fiscal year 

2004—and changes in the PART process initiated for fiscal year 2005. We 

have not reviewed or analyzed the PART results for the fiscal year 2005 

budget request. For this testimony, this subcommittee asked us to discuss 

our overall findings and recommendations concerning PART to help frame 

today’s hearing. We conducted our work in accordance with generally 

accepted government auditing standards. 

Through its development and use of PART, OMB has more explicitly 

infused performance information into the budget formulation process; 

increased the attention paid to performance information and program 

evaluations; and ultimately, we hope, increased the value of this 

information to decision makers and other stakeholders. By linking 

performance information to the budget process, OMB has provided 

agencies with a powerful incentive for improving both the quality and 

availability of performance information. The level of effort and 

involvement by senior OMB officials and staff clearly signals the 

importance of this strategy in meeting the priorities outlined in the PMA. 

OMB should be credited with opening up for scrutiny—and potential 

criticism—its review of key areas of federal program performance and 

then making its assessments available to a potentially wider audience 

through its Web site. 

 7

 U.S. General Accounting Office, Performance Budgeting: Observations on the Use of 

OMB’s Program Assessment Rating Tool for the Fiscal Year 2004 Budget, GAO-04-174

(Washington, D.C.: Jan. 30, 2004). 

Strengths and 

Weaknesses of PART 

in Its First Year of 

Implementation 
Page 5 GAO-04-550T 

As OMB and others recognize, performance is not the only factor in 

funding decisions. Determining priorities—including funding priorities—is 

a function of competing values and interests. Accordingly, we found that 

while PART scores were generally positively related to proposed funding 

changes in discretionary programs, the scores did not automatically 

determine funding changes. That is, for some programs rated “effective” or 

“moderately effective” OMB recommended funding decreases, while for 

several programs judged to be “ineffective” OMB recommended additional 

funding in the President’s budget request with which to implement 

changes. In fact, the more important role of PART was not its use in 

making resource decisions, but in its support for recommendations to 

improve program design, assessment, and management. Our analysis of 

the fiscal year 2004 PART found that 82 percent of the recommendations 

addressed program assessment, design, and management issues; only 18 

percent of the recommendations had a direct link to funding matters.8

OMB’s ability to use PART to identify and address future program 

improvements and measure progress—a major purpose of PART—

depends on its ability to oversee the implementation of PART 

recommendations. As OMB has recognized, following through on these 

recommendations is essential for improving program performance and 

ensuring accountability. Currently, OMB plans to assess an additional 20 

percent of all federal programs annually. As the number of 

recommendations from previous years’ evaluations grows, a system for 

monitoring their implementation will become more critical. However, 

OMB does not have a centralized system to oversee the implementation of 

such recommendations or evaluate their effectiveness. 

The goal of PART is to evaluate programs systematically, consistently, and 

transparently. OMB went to great lengths to encourage consistent 

application of PART in the evaluation of government programs, including 

pilot testing the instrument, issuing detailed guidance, and conducting 

consistency reviews. Although there is undoubtedly room for continued 

improvement, any tool is inherently limited in providing a single 

performance answer or judgment on complex federal programs with 

multiple goals. 

OMB recognized the complexity inherent in evaluating federal programs 

by differentiating its rating tool for seven mechanisms or approaches used 

 8

 The 234 programs assessed for fiscal year 2004 contained a total of 612 recommendations. 
Page 6 GAO-04-550T 

to deliver services, ranging from block grants to research and 

development. However, judgment is involved in classifying programs by 

these categories since many programs fit into more than one of these 

groupings. OMB guidance, for instance, acknowledges that some research 

and development programs can also be evaluated as competitive grants 

and capital assets. 

Performance measurement challenges in evaluating complex federal 

programs make it difficult to meaningfully interpret a bottom-line rating. 

OMB published both a single, bottom-line rating for PART results and 

individual section scores. It is these latter scores that are potentially more 

useful for identifying information gaps and program weaknesses. For 

example, in the fiscal year 2004 PART, one program that was rated 

“adequate” overall got high scores for purpose (80 percent) and planning 

(100 percent), but poor scores in being able to show results (39 percent) 

and in program management (46 percent). In a case like this, the individual 

section ratings provided a better understanding of areas needing 

improvement than the overall rating alone. In addition, bottom-line ratings 

may force raters to choose among several important but disparate goals 

and encourage a determination of program effectiveness even when 

performance data are unavailable, the quality of those data is uneven, or 

they convey a mixed message on performance. 

Any tool that is sophisticated enough to take into account the complexity 

of the U.S. government will always require some interpretation and 

judgment. Therefore it is not surprising that OMB staff were not fully 

consistent in interpreting complex questions about agency goals and 

results. Many PART questions contain subjective terms that are open to 

interpretation. Examples include terminology such as “ambitious” in 

describing sought-after performance measures. Because the 

appropriateness of a performance measure depends on the program’s 

purpose, and because program purposes can vary immensely, an 

ambitious goal for one program might be unrealistic for a similar but more 

narrowly defined program. Without further guidance, it is unclear how 

OMB staff can be expected to be consistent. 

We also found inconsistencies in how the definition of acceptable 

performance measures was applied. Our review of the fiscal year 2004 

PART surfaced several instances in which OMB staff inconsistently 

defined appropriate measures—outcome versus output—for programs. 

Agency officials also told us that OMB staff used different standards to 

define measures as outcome-oriented. Outputs are the products and 

services delivered by the program whereas outcomes refer to the results of 
Page 7 GAO-04-550T 

outputs. For example, in the employment and training area, OMB accepted 

short-term outcomes, such as obtaining high school diplomas or 

employment, as a proxy for long-term goals for the Department of Health 

and Human Services’ Refugee Assistance program, which aims to help 

refugees attain economic self-sufficiency as soon as possible. However, 

OMB did not accept the same employment measure as a proxy for longterm goals for the Department of Education’s Vocational Rehabilitation 

program because it had not set long-term targets beyond a couple of years. 

In other words, although neither program contained long-term outcomes, 

such as participants gaining economic self-sufficiency, OMB accepted 

short-term outcomes in one instance but not the other. 

The yes/no format employed throughout most of the PART questionnaire 

resulted in oversimplified answers to some questions. Although OMB 

believes it helped standardization, the yes/no format was particularly 

troublesome for questions containing multiple criteria for a “yes” answer. 

Agency officials have commented that the yes/no format can oversimplify 

reality, in which progress in planning, management, or results is more 

likely to resemble a continuum than an on/off switch. Our review of the 

fiscal year 2004 PART found several instances in which some OMB staff 

gave a “yes” answer for successfully achieving some but not all of the 

multiple criteria, while others gave a “no” answer when presented with a 

similar situation. For example, OMB judged the Department of the 

Interior’s (DOI) Water Reuse and Recycling program “no” on whether a 

program has a limited number of ambitious, long-term performance goals, 

noting that although DOI set a long-term goal of 500,000 acre-feet per year 

of reclaimed water, it failed to establish a time frame for when it would 

reach the target. However, OMB judged the Department of Agriculture’s 

and DOI’s Wildland Fire programs “yes” on this question even though the 

programs’ long-term goals of improved conditions in high-priority forest 

acres are not accompanied by specific time frames. 

The lack of program performance information also creates challenges in 

effectively assessing program performance. According to OMB, about half 

of the programs assessed for fiscal year 2004 lacked “specific, ambitious 

long-term performance goals that focus on outcomes” and nearly 40 

percent lacked sufficient “independent, quality evaluations.” Nearly 50 

percent of programs assessed for fiscal year 2004 received ratings of 

“results not demonstrated” because OMB decided that program 

performance information, performance goals, or both were insufficient or 
Page 8 GAO-04-550T 

inadequate. While the validity of these assessments may be subject to 

interpretation and debate, our previous work9

 has raised concerns about 

the capacity of federal agencies to produce evaluations of program 

effectiveness as well as credible data. 

In our report on PART, we note that several factors have limited the 

availability of performance data and evaluations of federal programs, 

including the lack of statutory mandates and funding to support data 

collection and analysis. Our work has recognized that research programs 

pose particular and long-standing challenges for performance assessments 

and evaluations.10 For instance, in both applied and basic research, 

projects take several years to complete and require more time before their 

meaning for the field can be adequately understood and captured in 

performance reporting systems. These challenges can and have been 

addressed by federal and private research organizations. One evaluation 

approach we have identified in our review of leading practices is the use of 

peer review to evaluate the quality of research outcomes.11 For example, 

the National Science Foundation (NSF) convenes panels of independent 

experts as external advisers—a Committee of Visitors (COV)—to peer 

review the technical and managerial stewardship of a specific program or 

cluster of programs periodically. The COV compares research plans with 

progress made, and evaluates outcomes to determine whether the 

research contributes to NSF mission and goals. 

PART was designed for and is used in the executive branch budget 

preparation and review process. As a result, the goals and measures used 

in PART must meet OMB’s needs. By comparison, GPRA—the current 

statutory framework for strategic planning and reporting—is a broader 

process involving the development of strategic and performance goals and 

objectives to be reported in strategic and annual plans and reports. OMB 

said that GPRA plans were organized at too high a level to be meaningful 

 9

 U.S. General Accounting Office, Program Evaluation: Agencies Challenged by New 

Demand for Information on Program Results, GAO/GGD-98-53 (Washington, D.C.: Apr. 24, 

1998). 

10 U.S. General Accounting Office, Transportation Research: Actions Needed to Improve 

Coordination and Evaluation of Research, GAO-03-500 (Washington, D.C.: May 1, 2003). 

11 U.S. General Accounting Office, Program Evaluation: An Evaluation Culture and 

Collaborative Partnerships Help Build Agency Capacity, GAO-03-454 (Washington, D.C.: 

May 2, 2003). 

The Relationship 

between GPRA and 

PART 
Page 9 GAO-04-550T 

for program-level budget analysis and management review. OMB 

acknowledges that GPRA was the starting point for PART, but as I will 

explain, it appears that OMB’s emphasis is shifting such that over time the 

performance measures developed for PART and used in the budget 

process may also come to drive agencies’ strategic planning processes. 

The fiscal year 2004 PART process came to be a parallel competing 

structure to the GPRA framework as a result of OMB’s desire to collect 

performance data that better align with budget decision units. OMB’s most 

recent Circular A-11 guidance clearly requires both that each agency 

submit a performance budget for fiscal year 2005 and that this should 

replace the annual GPRA performance plan.12 These performance budgets 

are to include information from the PART assessments, where available, 

including all performance goals used in the assessment of program 

performance done under the PART process. Until all programs have been 

assessed using PART, the performance budget will also include 

performance goals for agency programs that have not yet been assessed. 

OMB’s movement from GPRA to PART is further evident in the fiscal year 

2005 PART guidance stating that while existing GPRA performance goals 

may be a starting point during the development of PART performance 

goals, the GPRA goals in agency GPRA documents are to be revised, as 

needed, to reflect OMB’s instructions for developing the PART 

performance goals. Lastly, this same guidance states that GPRA plans 

should be revised to include any new performance measures used in PART 

and that unnecessary measures should be deleted from GPRA plans. In its 

comments to another recently issued GAO report, OMB stated that it will 

revise its guidance for both GPRA and PART to clarify the integrated and 

complementary relationship between the two initiatives.13

Although there is potential for complementary approaches to GPRA and 

PART, the following examples clearly illustrate the importance of carefully 

considering the implications of selecting a unit of analysis, including its 

impact on the availability of performance data. They also reveal some of 

the unresolved tensions between the President’s budget and performance 

initiative—a detailed budget perspective—and GPRA—a more strategic 

planning view. Experience with PART highlighted the fact that defining a 

 12 OMB Circular A-11, Preparation, Submission, and Execution of the Budget. 

13 U.S. General Accounting Office, Results-Oriented Government: GPRA Has Established a 

Solid Foundation for Achieving Greater Results, GAO-04-38 (Washington, D.C.: March 10, 

2004).
Page 10 GAO-04-550T 

“unit of analysis” useful for both program-level budget analysis and agency 

planning purposes can be difficult. For example, disaggregating programs 

for PART purposes could ignore the interdependence of programs 

recognized by GPRA by artificially isolating programs from the larger 

contexts in which they operate. Agency officials described one program 

assessed with the fiscal year 2004 PART—Projects for Assistance in 

Transition from Homelessness—that was aimed at a specific aspect of 

homelessness, that is, referring persons with emergency needs to other 

agencies for housing and needed services. OMB staff wanted the agency to 

produce long-term outcome measures for this program to support the 

PART review process. Agency officials argued that chronically homeless 

people require many services and that this federal program often supports 

only some of the services needed at the initial stages of intervention. 

GPRA—with its focus on assessing the relative contributions of related 

programs to broader goals—is better designed to consider crosscutting 

strategies to achieve common goals. Federal programs cannot be assessed 

in isolation. Performance also needs to be examined from an integrated, 

strategic perspective. 

One way of improving the links between PART and GPRA would be to 

develop a more strategic approach to selecting and prioritizing areas for 

assessment under the PART process. Targeting PART assessments based 

on such factors as the relative priorities, costs, and risks associated with 

related clusters of programs and activities addressing common strategic 

and performance goals not only could help ration scarce analytic 

resources but also could focus decision makers’ attention on the most 

pressing policy and program issues. Moreover, such an approach could 

facilitate the use of PART assessments to review the relative contributions 

of similar programs to common or crosscutting goals and outcomes 

established through the GPRA process. 
Page 11 GAO-04-550T 

We have previously reported14 that stakeholder involvement appears 

critical for getting consensus on goals and measures. In fact, GPRA 

requires agencies to consult with Congress and solicit the views of other 

stakeholders as they develop their strategic plans.15 Stakeholder 

involvement can be particularly important for federal agencies because 

they operate in a complex political environment in which legislative 

mandates are often broadly stated and some stakeholders may strongly 

disagree about the agency’s mission and goals. 

The relationship between PART and its process and the broader GPRA 

strategic planning process is still evolving. As part of the executive branch 

budget formulation process, PART must clearly serve the President’s 

interests. Some tension about the amount of stakeholder involvement in 

the internal deliberations surrounding the development of PART measures 

and the broader consultations more common to the GPRA strategic 

planning process is inevitable. Compared to the relatively open-ended 

GPRA process, any budget formulation process is likely to seem closed. 

Yet, we must ask whether the broad range of congressional officials with a 

stake in how programs perform will use PART assessments unless they 

believe the reviews reflect a consensus about performance goals among a 

community of interests, target performance issues that are important to 

them as well as the administration, and are based on an evaluation process 

in which they have confidence. Similarly, the measures used to 

demonstrate progress toward a goal, no matter how worthwhile, cannot 

serve the interests of a single stakeholder or purpose without potentially 

discouraging use of this information by others. 

Congress has a number of opportunities to provide its perspective on 

performance issues and performance goals, such as when it establishes or 

reauthorizes a new program, during the annual appropriations process, 

and in its oversight of federal operations. In fact, these processes already 

reflect GPRA’s influence. Reviews of language in public laws and 

committee reports show an increasing number of references to GPRArelated provisions. What is missing is a mechanism to systematically 

 14 U.S. General Accounting Office, Agencies’ Strategic Plans Under GPRA: Key Questions 

to Facilitate Congressional Review (Version 1), GAO/GGD-10.1.16 (Washington, D.C.: May 

1997). 

15 5 U.S.C. § 306(d) (2003). 

The Importance of 

Congressional and 

Other Stakeholder 

Involvement 
Page 12 GAO-04-550T 

coordinate a congressional perspective and promote a dialogue between 

Congress and the President in the PART review process. 

In our report, we have suggested steps for both OMB and the Congress to 

take to strengthen the dialogue between executive officials and 

congressional stakeholders. We have recommended that OMB reach out to 

key congressional committees early in the PART selection process to gain 

insight about which program areas and performance issues congressional 

officials believe warrant PART review. Engaging Congress early in the 

process may help target reviews with an eye toward those areas most 

likely to be on the agenda of Congress, thereby better ensuring the use of 

performance assessments in resource allocation processes throughout 

government. We have also suggested that Congress consider the need to 

develop a more systematic vehicle for communicating its top performance 

concerns and priorities; develop a more structured oversight agenda to 

prompt a more coordinated congressional perspective on crosscutting 

performance issues; and use this agenda to inform its authorization, 

appropriations, and oversight processes. 

The PART process is the latest initiative in a long-standing series of 

reforms undertaken to improve the link between performance information 

and budget decisions. Although each of the initiatives of the past appears 

to have met with an early demise, in fact, subsequent reforms were 

strengthened by building on the legacy left by their predecessors. Prior 

reforms often failed because they were not relevant to resource allocation 

and other decision-making processes, thereby eroding the incentives for 

federal agencies to improve their planning, data, and evaluations. 

Unlike many of those past initiatives, GPRA has been sustained since its 

passage 10 years ago, and evidence exists that it has become more 

relevant than its predecessors. PART offers the potential to build on the 

infrastructure of performance plans and information ushered in by GPRA 

and the law’s intent to promote the use of these plans in resource 

allocation decision making. GPRA improved the supply of plans and 

information, while PART can prompt greater demand for this information 

by decision makers. Enhancing interest and use may bring about greater 

incentives for agencies to devote scarce resources to improving their 

information and evaluations of federal programs as well. 

Increasing the use and usefulness of performance data is not only 

important to sustain performance management reforms, but to improve 

the processes of decision making and governance. Many in the United 

Concluding 

Observations 
Page 13 GAO-04-550T 

States believe there is a need to establish a comprehensive portfolio of key 

national performance indicators. This will raise complex issues ranging 

from agreement on performance areas and indicators to getting and 

sharing reliable information for public planning, decision making, and 

accountability. In this regard, the entire agenda of management reform at 

the federal level has been focused on shifting the attention of decision 

makers and agency management from process to results. Although PART 

is based on changing the orientation of budgeting, other initiatives 

championed by Congress and embodied in the PMA are also devoted to 

improving the accountability for performance goals in agency human 

capital management, financial management, competitive sourcing, and 

other key management areas. 

In particular, we have reported that human capital—or people—is at the 

center of any serious change management initiative. Thus, strategic human 

capital management is at the heart of government transformation. Highperforming organizations strengthen the alignment of their GPRA strategic 

and performance goals with their daily operations. In that regard, 

performance management systems can be a vital tool for aligning an 

organization’s operations with individual day-to-day activities, but they are 

currently largely unused. As we move forward to strengthen government 

performance and accountability, effective performance management 

systems can be a strategic tool to drive internal change and achieve 

desired results. 

The question now is how to enhance the credibility and use of the PART 

process as a tool to focus decisions on performance. In our report, we 

make seven recommendations to OMB and a suggestion to Congress to 

better support the kind of collaborative approach to performance 

budgeting that very well may be essential in a separation of powers system 

like ours. Our suggestions cover several key issues that need to be 

addressed to strengthen and help sustain the PART process. We 

recommend that the OMB Director take the following actions: 

• Centrally monitor agency implementation and progress on PART 

recommendations and report such progress in OMB’s budget submission 

to Congress. Governmentwide councils may be effective vehicles for 

assisting OMB in these efforts. 

• Continue to improve the PART guidance by (1) expanding the discussion 

of how the unit of analysis is to be determined to include trade-offs made 

when defining a unit of analysis, implications of how the unit of analysis is 
Page 14 GAO-04-550T 

defined, or both; (2) clarifying when output versus outcome measures are 

acceptable; and (3) better defining an “independent, quality evaluation.” 

• Clarify OMB’s expectations to agencies regarding the allocation of scarce 

evaluation resources among programs, the timing of such evaluations, as 

well as the evaluation strategies it wants for PART, and consider using 

internal agency evaluations as evidence on a case-by-case basis—whether 

conducted by agencies, contractors, or other parties. 

• Reconsider plans for 100 percent coverage of federal programs and, 

instead, target for review a significant percentage of major and meaningful 

government programs based on such factors as the relative priorities, 

costs, and risks associated with related clusters of programs and activities. 

• Maximize the opportunity to review similar programs or activities in the 

same year to facilitate comparisons and trade-offs. 

• Attempt to generate, early in the PART process, an ongoing, meaningful 

dialogue with congressional appropriations, authorization, and oversight 

committees about what they consider to be the most important 

performance issues and program areas that warrant review. 

• Seek to achieve the greatest benefit from both GPRA and PART by 

articulating and implementing an integrated, complementary relationship 

between the two. 

In its comments on our report, OMB outlined actions it is taking to address 

several of these recommendations, including refining the process for 

monitoring agencies’ progress in implementing the PART 

recommendations, seeking opportunities for dialogue with Congress on 

agencies’ performance, and continuing to improve executive branch 

implementation of GPRA plans and reports. 

Our recommendations to OMB are partly directed at fortifying and 

enhancing the credibility of PART itself and the underlying data used to 

make the judgments. Decision makers across government are more likely 

to rely on PART data and assessments if the underlying information and 

the rating process are perceived as being credible, systematic, and 

consistent. Enhanced OMB guidance and improved strategies for obtaining 

and evaluating program performance data are vital elements. 

The PART process can be made more sustainable if the use of analytic 

resources at OMB and the agencies is rationalized by reconsidering the 

goal of 100 percent coverage of all federal programs. Instead, we suggest a 
Page 15 GAO-04-550T 

more strategic approach to target assessments on related clusters of 

programs and activities. A more targeted approach stands a better chance 

of capturing the interest of decision makers throughout the process by 

focusing their attention on the most pressing policy and program issues 

and on how related programs and tools affect broader crosscutting 

outcomes and goals. Unfortunately, the governmentwide performance 

plan required by GPRA has never been engaged to drive budgeting in this 

way. 

Improving the integration of inherently separate but interrelated strategic 

planning and performance budgeting processes can help support a more 

strategic focus for PART assessments. GPRA’s strategic planning goals 

could be used to anchor the selection and review of programs by providing 

a foundation to assess the relative contribution of related programs and 

tools to broader performance goals and outcomes. 

Finally, refining the PART questionnaire and review process and 

improving the quality of data are important, but the question of whose 

interests drive the process is perhaps paramount in our system. Ultimately, 

the impact of PART on decision making will be a function not only of the 

President’s decisions, but of congressional decisions as well. 

Much is at stake in the development of a collaborative performance 

budgeting process. Not only might the PART reviews ultimately come to 

be disregarded absent congressional involvement, but more important, 

Congress will lose an opportunity to use the PART process to improve its 

own decision-making and oversight processes. 

This is an opportune time for the executive branch and Congress to 

carefully consider how agencies and committees can best take advantage 

of and leverage the new information and perspectives coming from the 

reform agenda under way in the executive branch. Ultimately, the specific 

approach or process is not important. We face a long-term fiscal 

imbalance, which will require us to reexamine our existing policies and 

programs. It is all too easy to accept “the base” as given and to subject 

only new proposals to scrutiny and analysis. The norm should be to 

reconsider the relevance or “fit” of any federal program, policy, or activity 

in today’s world and for the future. 

Mr. Chairman, this concludes my prepared statement. I would be pleased 

to answer any questions you or the other Members of the Subcommittee 

may have at this time. 
Page 16 GAO-04-550T 

For future contacts regarding this testimony, please contact Paul L. 

Posner, Managing Director, Federal Budget Issues, at (202) 512-9573. 

Individuals making key contributions to this testimony included Denise M. 

Fantone, Kristeen McLain and Tiffany Tanner. 

(450302) 
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