PERFORMANCE 

AUDITING

The Experiences of the 

United States Government 

Accountability Office

Statement of J. Christopher Mihm, 

Managing Director, Strategic Issues

Testimony

Before the Committee on Budgetary 

Control, European Parliament

For Release on Delivery 

Expected at 1500 (CEST)

Wednesday, 25 September 2013

GAO-13-868T

United States Government Accountability Office
United States Government Accountability Office

Highlights of GAO-13-868T, a testimony

before the Committee on Budgetary Control, 

European Parliament

25 September 2013

PERFORMANCE AUDITING

The Experiences of the United States Government 

Accountability Office

Why GAO Did This Study

GAO’s mission is to support the U.S.

Congress in meeting its 

constitutional responsibilities and to 

help improve the performance and 

ensure the accountability of the 

federal government for the benefit of 

the American people. Each year,

GAO presents its findings, 

conclusions, and recommendations 

in reports and testimony before 

Congress. In fiscal year 2012, GAO

issued more than 650 reports and 

testified 159 times before various 

congressional committees. Last 

fiscal year, financial benefits from 

GAO’s work totaled $55.8 billion U.S. 

dollars, a $105 return on every dollar 

invested in GAO. In addition to 

financial benefits, GAO also 

documented 1,440 other benefits 

that shaped legislation, improved 

services to the public and 

strengthened government 

operations. 

GAO and its counterparts, such as 

the European Court of Auditors, have 

unprecedented opportunities to help 

our respective governments plan 

ahead and address increasingly 

complex issues in meeting the 

challenges posed by global 

interconnections and worldwide fiscal 

difficulties. The experiences of GAO

with respect to performance auditing

illustrate how audit organizations can 

help decision makers address these 

challenges.

What GAO Found

Performance audits as well as traditional financial and compliance audits are 

essential tools that national audit offices have to help their respective 

governments identify and address challenging national and global problems. 

Performance auditing provides objective analysis so that management and those 

charged with governance and oversight can use the information to improve 

program performance and operations, reduce costs, facilitate decision making by 

parties with responsibility to oversee or initiate corrective action, and contribute to 

public accountability.

Increasingly complex issues, risks and problems that governments around the 

world confront are expanding the perspective of performance auditing. These

issues, risks and problems such as modernizing outdated financial regulatory 

systems and protecting public safety, cut across geographic boundaries, 

government programs, levels of government and sectors. As government 

agencies increasingly rely on collaboration with private and nongovernmental 

entities and delegate responsibilities for implementing public policy initiatives to 

these entities, the line between the governmental and the nongovernmental 

sectors continues to blur.

From GAO’s experience, performance auditing has a vital role in providing 

decision makers and citizens with the information, analysis, and 

recommendations they need to respond to this increasingly complex and 

interconnected environment. 

To most effectively contribute to fundamental improvements in the performance 

of 21st century government, GAO has found that auditors need to be more and 

more focused on governance, including assessing and recommending how to 

improve connections across organizations, levels of government, sectors, and 

policy tools. While many of GAO’s individual engagements examine the 

challenges a specific agency or program faces, three GAO-wide initiatives—the 

High Risk program; the annual reports on overlap, duplication, and 

fragmentation; and the reviews of the implementation of the Government 

Performance and Results Act Modernization Act of 2010—offer government-wide 

perspectives on the progress needed to respond effectively to 21st century 

governance challenges.

View GAO-13-868T. For more information, 

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

or at mihmj@gao.gov.
Page 1 GAO-13-868T 

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee:

Thank you for the opportunity to contribute to this important hearing and 

to share the experiences of the United States Government Accountability 

Office (GAO) with respect to performance auditing. GAO’s mission is to 

support the U.S. Congress in meeting its constitutional responsibilities 

and to help improve the performance and ensure the accountability of the 

federal government for the benefit of the American people.1 GAO and its 

counterparts, such as the European Court of Auditors, have 

unprecedented opportunities to help our respective governments plan 

ahead and address the increasingly complex challenges posed by global 

interconnections and worldwide fiscal difficulties.

GAO was established just over 90 years ago. After World War I, the U.S. 

Congress wanted better information on, and control over, government 

spending. In1921, the Budget and Accounting Act required the President 

to issue an annual federal budget. This law also established GAO—then 

known as the General Accounting Office—as an independent agency to 

investigate how federal dollars are spent. In its early years, GAO did 

mainly voucher auditing. After World War II, however, GAO began to do 

more comprehensive financial audits that examined the economy and the 

efficiency of government operations.

In the 1960s, the expectations of the types of information GAO could 

provide evolved further. As a result, GAO began performance auditing 

and program evaluations to determine whether government programs 

were meeting their objectives. In the Legislative Reorganization Act of 

19702 and the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 

1974,3 Congress highlighted the role that GAO audits of government 

program results can play in support of its oversight and legislative 

functions. The 1974 language specifically requires the Comptroller 

General to review and evaluate the results of government programs and 

activities. As noted in a 1976 statement by then Assistant Comptroller 

 1 Appendix I shows GAO’s mission, trends, strategic goals and objectives, and core 

values as presented in our strategic plan. See GAO, Serving the Congress and the 

Nation 2010-2015, GAO-10-559SP (Washington, D.C.: July 1, 2010).

2 Pub. L. No. 91-510, 84 Stat. 1140 (October, 1970).

3 Pub. L. No. 93-344, 88 Stat. 297 (July, 1974).

GAO’s Work and 

Performance Auditing
Page 2 GAO-13-868T 

General Ellsworth Morse, “managers and policy makers, particularly in 

government, want—and need—more from auditors than stereotyped 

opinions on financial statements. They want independently and 

objectively obtained and evaluated information on operations and 

performance and expert advice on such things as how improvements can 

be made, how money can be saved or used to better advantage and how 

goals or objectives can be achieved in better fashion and at less cost.”

4 In 

short, they want auditing focused on performance.

The U.S. Government Auditing Standards which govern our work 

describe performance audits as providing objective analysis so that 

management and those charged with governance and oversight can use 

the information to improve program performance and operations, reduce 

costs, facilitate decision making by parties with responsibility to oversee 

or initiate corrective action, and contribute to public accountability.5

Performance audits evaluate evidence against stated criteria, such as 

specific requirements, measures, or defined business practices. This 

definition of performance auditing is consistent with international auditing 

standards.6

Our efforts today fall into three main areas: oversight, insight, and 

foresight. Our oversight activities determine whether government entities 

are carrying out their assigned tasks, spending funds for intended 

purposes, and complying with laws and regulations. Our insight activities 

determine which programs and policies work well and which ones do not. 

These efforts include sharing best practices and benchmarking 

information horizontally across government and vertically through 

different levels of government. Our foresight activities try to identify key 

trends and emerging challenges before they reach crisis proportions.

 4 GAO, Performance Auditing, GAO-094640 (Washington, D.C.: Apr. 21, 1976), p. 26.

5 GAO, Government Auditing Standards: 2011 Revision, GAO-12-331G (Washington, 

D.C.: Dec. 1, 2011), p.17.

6 The GAO work upon which this statement is based was conducted in accordance with 

generally accepted government auditing standards. Those standards require that we plan 

and perform our audits 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.
Page 3 GAO-13-868T 

Our work is based on a combination of legislative mandates, 

congressional requests, and work done under the Comptroller General’s 

authority. We meet regularly with Members of Congress and their staff. 

These outreach efforts ensure that GAO stays at the forefront of highpriority issues facing Congress and the nation. We have protocols for how 

we respond to congressional requests for our studies. These protocols 

ensure that we deal consistently and transparently with all congressional 

committees and members. This is especially important since we do our 

work for all standing committees of the Congress and about 70 percent of 

its subcommittees. Our protocols help us to prioritize incoming requests 

and hold us accountable for the commitments we have made to 

Congress. In fiscal year 2012,7 we received 924 congressional requests 

and new mandates. Performance audits make up the vast majority of our 

audits.

In the 2008 International Peer Review of the Performance Audit Practice 

of the United States Government Accountability Office,8 the International 

Peer Review Team pointed out several features that distinguish our 

working environment from that of many of our international peers. The 

Peer Review noted that we carry out a larger volume of performance 

audit engagements each year and that the majority of the engagements 

we carry out are requested by Congress and not self-initiated.

The Peer Review also noted that in responding to congressional 

requests, we determine the scope and methodology for the work, the 

timing and staffing, product content, and the management structure. In 

addition, we have adopted a number of practices to balance our objective 

of being responsive to Congress while remaining nonpartisan and 

independent in serving the long-term interests of the American people. 

The Peer Review identified the following two practices as being 

particularly notable:

 7 The U.S. fiscal year runs from October 1 to September 30. 

8 International Peer Review Team, International Peer Review of the Performance Audit 

Practice of the United States Government Accountability Office (May 30, 2008). The main 

purpose of the external peer review is to ensure that audit organizations comply with 

Generally Accepted Government Auditing Standards. Peer reviews also identify good 

practices that may interest other audit institutions and bring to light areas that may need 

attention from management.
Page 4 GAO-13-868T 

• Our strategic planning process involves Congress and other 

stakeholders in establishing key themes and high-risk areas that the 

government needs to manage well. Our high-risk series of reports, 

which I shall discuss shortly, focuses attention on government 

programs that pose significant risks of fraud, waste, abuse, and 

mismanagement.

• Our engagement acceptance process focuses management’s 

attention on the risks associated with each request, including risks to 

independence, and how the risks will be managed.

Our work leads to real results. Each year, we present our findings, 

conclusions, and recommendations in reports and testimony before 

Congress. For example, in fiscal year 2012, we issued more than 650 

reports and testified 159 times before various congressional committees. 

In addition, nearly every one of our reports and testimonies is available on 

our website the day it is made public. We make it a point to regularly 

measure and report on our performance. Last fiscal year, financial 

benefits from our work totaled $55.8 billion U.S. dollars. That is a $105 

return on every dollar invested in GAO. We also documented 1,440 other 

benefits that shaped legislation, improved services to the public, and 

strengthened government operations.9 A driving force behind these 

accomplishments is our focus on following up on the status of our 

recommendations. At the end of fiscal year 2012, we found that 80 

percent of the recommendations we had made in fiscal year 2008 had 

been implemented.10 We measure over a 4-year period to allow time for 

proper implementation. This follow-up provides an additional opportunity 

for Congress to consider our work during oversight activities, for agencies 

to respond to our recommendations, and for the work needed to 

successfully address the issues to be completed.

Clearly, national audit offices can play a key role in providing public 

officials with vital information and analyses needed to address countryspecific challenges. But it is also true that many of the problems we face 

today are global in nature and will require international cooperation with 

international solutions.

 9 GAO, Mission and Operations: Summary of GAO's Performance and Accountability 

Report Fiscal Year 2012, GAO-13-3SP (Washington, D.C.: Feb. 15, 2013).

10 GAO-13-3SP.
Page 5 GAO-13-868T 

The International Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions (INTOSAI) 

has played an important role in this area. INTOSAI is an umbrella 

organization for the external government audit community that provides 

an institutionalized framework for the 191-member supreme audit 

institutions (SAI) to promote development and transfer of knowledge, 

improve government auditing worldwide, and enhance the professional 

capacities, standing, and influence of member SAIs in their respective 

countries. INTOSAI’s work includes developing international auditing 

standards and helping SAIs around the world implement those standards. 

The INTOSAI Congress in 2010 adopted a comprehensive set of 

international standards for SAIs. Those standards cover the core audit 

disciplines of financial, compliance, and performance audits. They provide 

an institutionalized framework for transferring knowledge, improving 

government auditing worldwide, and enhancing the professional 

capabilities and influence of SAIs in their respective countries. Making the 

transition to include performance audits as well as traditional financial and 

compliance audits expands the range of tools that national audit offices 

have to help their respective governments identify and address 

challenging domestic and global problems.

The issues, risks, and problems that governments around the world 

confront are growing increasingly complex and boundary-spanning. That 

is, those issues, risks, and problems cut across geographic boundaries, 

government programs, levels of government, and sectors. As government 

agencies increasingly rely on collaboration with private and 

nongovernmental entities and delegate responsibilities for implementing 

public policy initiatives to these entities, the line between the 

governmental and the nongovernmental sectors continues to blur. For the 

United States, policy makers must consider global and local risks, 

connections, and supply chains if national policy initiatives, such as 

protecting the security of citizens; reforming national tax laws; 

modernizing outdated financial regulatory systems; and protecting public 

safety in the areas of medical products, food and consumer goods, are to 

be effective.

These issues are, of course, not unique to the United States. The January 

2012 report The European Parliament in 2025: Preparing for Complexity, 

an initiative of the Secretary-General of the European Parliament, 

identified four concepts which give an idea of the increased complexity 

likely to be present in 2025:

• the political multi-polarity of the globalised world,

Increasingly Complex 

Issues Are Expanding 

the Perspective of 

Performance Auditing
Page 6 GAO-13-868T 

• the preponderance of multilevel governance,

• the increase in the number of factors contributing to the drafting and 

implementation of public policies, and

• technology as a factor in the speed of change.11

The report concluded that “the new multi-polarity of the globalised world, 

the multilevel nature of governance, the multiple players interacting in 

law-making, are likely to create a new context for the European 

Parliament directly or indirectly. This heightened complexity may entail 

risks of fragmentation of (economic) governance, regulation and law. 

Fragmentation may lead to a loss of coherence, systematic overlaps and 

lasting conflicts between jurisdictions, as well as to an institutional 

paralysis, and, then, to democratic frustration, as it becomes more and 

more difficult to understand who is producing change in regulation and 

should be made accountable for success and failures. In order to 

contribute actively to prevent the risk of political and regulatory 

fragmentation, the European Parliament has to prepare itself for this 

upcoming complexity.”

12

Performance auditing has a vital role in providing decision makers and 

citizens with the information, analysis, and recommendations they need to 

respond to this increasingly complex and interconnected environment. To 

most effectively contribute to fundamental improvements in the 

performance of 21st century government, we are finding that auditors 

need to be more and more focused on governance—that is, assessing 

and improving connections across organizations, levels of government, 

sectors, and policy tools. In practice, this has several important 

implications for the focus of our work overall, and for our performance 

audits in particular. The following are among those implications:

• Reviewing government’s results-orientation, such as the extent to 

which agencies have an appropriate crosscutting (also often called 

whole of government or enterprise) perspective to their intended 

results as well as using innovative approaches to better achieve 

results.

 11 European Parliament, The European Parliament 2025: Preparing for Complexity, 

PE479.851/BUR (Brussels: Jan. 26, 2012).

12 The European Parliament 2025: Preparing for Complexity.
Page 7 GAO-13-868T 

• Evaluating collaborative mechanisms, such as efforts to ensure that 

agencies are effectively coordinating their efforts across levels of 

government and with other sectors.

• Examining the interplay of the range of public policy tools, such as 

grants, contracts, tax expenditures and regulations, that are being 

used to achieve results to ensure that they are effective and mutually 

reinforcing.

• Exploring opportunities to use web and social media technologies to 

improve government transparency and public reporting to foster 

greater public participation and civic engagement.

• Assessing government’s capacity to respond to governance 

challenges such as agencies’ risk management programs to ensure 

that they systematically integrate the identification and management 

of risk into strategic and program planning.

While many of our individual engagements examine the challenges a 

specific agency or program faces, three GAO-wide initiatives—our High 

Risk program; our annual reports on overlap, duplication, and 

fragmentation; and our reviews of the implementation of the Government 

Performance and Results Act Modernization Act of 2010—offer 

government-wide perspectives on the progress needed to respond 

effectively to 21st century governance challenges.

High Risk: Our work under our High Risk program documents the 

challenges of managing in a complex governance environment. We 

began the High Risk program in 1990 and initially focused on bringing 

attention to government operations that had greater vulnerabilities to 

waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement. Those issues remain a central 

focus of the High Risk program today. However, in recognition that many 

of the high-risk issues we were finding were the product of poor working 

relationships across organizational boundaries, especially with third 

parties such as contractors, we expanded our focus to include critical 

areas needing transformation to address economy, efficiency, and 

effectiveness challenges.

By using the tools of performance auditing as well as financial and 

compliance audits, we are able to provide forward-looking 

recommendations to address the High Risk areas. This is especially 

relevant since more than two-thirds of the 30 areas on our 2013 High Risk 

List13 cut across agencies, levels of government, and sectors of the 

 13 GAO, High-Risk Series: An Update, GAO-13-283 (Washington, D.C.: Feb. 14, 2013).
Page 8 GAO-13-868T 

economy. For example, we designated limiting the federal government’s 

fiscal exposure by better managing climate change risks as high risk in 

2013 because the federal government is not well positioned to address 

the fiscal exposure presented by climate change, and needs a 

government-wide strategic approach with strong leadership to manage 

related risks. Such an approach includes the establishment of strategic 

priorities and the development of roles, responsibilities, and working 

relationships among federal, state, and local entities. Recognizing that 

each department and agency operates under its own authorities and 

responsibilities—and can therefore be expected to address climate 

change in different ways relevant to its own mission—existing federal 

efforts have encouraged a decentralized approach, with federal agencies 

incorporating climate-related information into their planning, operations, 

policies, and programs. The challenge is to develop a cohesive approach 

at the federal level that also informs action at the state and local levels.

Overall, our High Risk program has served to identify and help resolve 

serious weaknesses in program areas that involve substantial resources 

and provide critical services to the public.

Overlap, Duplication, and Fragmentation: Our work on overlap, 

duplication, and fragmentation provides additional illustrations of the 

governance challenges decision makers face. We have issued three 

annual reports on overlap, duplication, and fragmentation across the 

federal government.14 These reports provided a comprehensive look at 

162 issue areas and identified more than 380 actions that the executive 

branch and Congress could take to reduce fragmentation, overlap, and 

duplication, as well as other cost savings and revenue enhancement 

opportunities.

All told, the three reports have covered virtually every major federal 

agency and program including agriculture, defense, economic 

development, education, energy, general government, health, homeland 

security, international affairs, science and the environment, and social 

services. For example, we reported that a fundamental re-examination 

 14 GAO, 2013 Annual Report: Actions Needed to Reduce Fragmentation, Overlap, and 

Duplication and Achieve Other Financial Benefits, GAO-13-279SP (Washington, D.C.: 

Apr. 9, 2013); Follow-up on 2011 Report: Status of Actions Taken to Reduce Duplication, 

Overlap, and Fragmentation, Save Tax Dollars, and Enhance Revenue, GAO-12-453SP

(Washington, D.C.: Feb. 28, 2012); and Government Operations: Opportunities to Reduce 

Potential Duplication in Government Programs, Save Tax Dollars, and Enhance Revenue, 

GAO-11-318SP (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 1, 2011).
Page 9 GAO-13-868T 

and reform of the United States’ surface transportation policies is needed 

and identified a number of principles to help the Congress in re-examining 

and reforming the nation’s surface transportation policies. These 

principles included ensuring the federal role is defined based on identified 

areas of national interest and goals, incorporating accountability for 

results by entities receiving federal funds, employing the best tools and 

approaches to emphasize return on targeted federal investment, and 

ensuring fiscal sustainability. Building on those principles, the Moving 

Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act was signed into law in July 

2012, and reauthorized the nation’s surface transportation programs 

through the end of fiscal year 2014.15 The law addressed fragmentation in 

those programs and made progress in addressing the issues we raised, 

including clarifying federal goals and roles and linking federal programs to 

performance to ensure accountability for results. Specifically, it 

incorporated accountability for results around clearly identified national 

goals, providing the framework for the Department of Transportation and 

the states to implement this approach in the coming years. However, as 

we reported in January 2013, Congress needs to develop a long-term 

plan for funding surface transportation and opportunities exist for a more 

targeted federal role focused around evident national interests.16

In addition to identifying new areas, and consistent with the commitment 

expressed in our prior overlap, duplication, and fragmentation reports, we 

monitor the progress executive branch agencies and Congress have 

made in addressing the areas previously identified. GAO’s Action 

Tracker—available on our website—contains the status of the specific 

suggestions for improvement that we identified in our three annual 

reports.17 Overall, the executive branch and Congress have made some 

progress in addressing the areas that we identified in our 2011 and 2012 

annual reports. Specifically, as of March 6, 2013, the date we completed 

our audit work for our most recent report, about 12 percent of the areas 

identified in our 2011 and 2012 reports were addressed, 66 percent were 

partially addressed, and 21 percent were not addressed. More recently, 

both the administration and Congress have taken additional steps, 

including proposals in the President’s Fiscal Year 2014 Budget.

 15 Pub. L. No. 112-141, 126 Stat 405 (July, 2012).

16 GAO, Transportation: Highway Trust Fund Obligations, Fiscal Years 2009 to 2011, 

GAO-13-193R (Washington, D.C.: Jan. 16, 2013).

17 See http://www.gao.gov/duplication/action_tracker/
Page 10 GAO-13-868T 

The Government Performance and Results Act Modernization Act of 

2010: The Government Performance and Results Act Modernization Act 

of 2010 (the act) seeks, among other things, to instill a more coordinated 

and crosscutting perspective to federal performance through actions such 

as requiring the administration to select a set of cross-agency priority 

goals.18 For example, goals concerning workforce development, export 

promotion, and sustainability are among the interim goals that the 

administration has established. It also requires federal agencies in setting 

their own goals to identify other entities that are involved in achieving 

those goals.

The act requires GAO to assess implementation and results at several 

key points. Through the use of performance audits, we reported in June 

2013 that the executive branch has taken a number of steps to implement 

key provisions of the act.19 Nevertheless, our work has shown that the 

executive branch needs to do more to fully implement and leverage the 

act’s provisions to address governance challenges in several key areas 

including:

• The Office of Management and Budget and agencies have made 

some progress addressing crosscutting issues but are missing 

additional opportunities.

• Ensuring performance information is useful and used by managers to 

improve results remains a weakness, but key performance 

management and program evaluation practices hold promise.

• Agencies have taken steps to align daily operations with agency 

results but continue to face difficulties measuring performance.

• Communication of performance information could better meet users’

needs.

• Agency performance information is not always useful for 

congressional decision making.

 18 Pub. L. No. 111-352, 124 Stat. 3866 (Jan. 4, 2011). The GPRA Modernization Act of 

2010 updated and enhanced the strategic planning and performance measurement 

requirements of the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 (Pub. L. No. 103-

62).

19 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).
Page 11 GAO-13-868T 

Over the past four decades our experience in incorporating performance 

auditing into our overall audit approach has enabled us to help address 

the complexity facing government. Performance audits, in addition to 

financial and compliance audits, have allowed us to meet our mission to 

support the Congress in meeting its constitutional responsibilities and to 

help improve the performance and ensure the accountability of the federal 

government for the benefit of the American people. Performance auditing 

provides GAO with the tools necessary to provide the oversight, insight, 

and foresight needed to address issues of today.

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, this concludes my 

prepared statement. I look forward to responding to any questions that 

you may have.

If you or your staffs have any questions about this testimony, please 

contact J. Christopher Mihm, Managing Director, Strategic Issues, at +1-

202-512-6806 or at mihmj@gao.gov. Individuals who made key 

contributions to this testimony are Bill Reinsberg (Assistant Director) and 

Jon Stehle.

Contacts and Staff 

Acknowledgments
Appendix I

(451068)
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