MANAGING FOR

RESULTS

Continuing Challenges to

Effective GPRA

Implementation

Statement of

J. Christopher Mihm, Associate Director

Federal Management and Workforce Issues

General Government Division

United States General Accounting Office

GAO Testimony

Before the Subcommittee on Government Management,

Information and Technology, Committee on Government

Reform, House of Representatives

For Release on Delivery

Expected at

10:00 a.m. EST

on Thursday

July 20, 2000

GAO/T-GGD-00-178

Statement

Managing for Results: Continuing Challenges

to Effective GPRA Implementation

Page 1 GAO/T-GGD-00-178

Mr. Chairman, Mr. Turner, and Members of the Subcommittee:

I appreciate the opportunity to be here this morning to discuss the

Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 (GPRA). As agreed with

the Subcommittee, today I will (1) highlight how the present phase of

GPRA implementation holds promise for assisting congressional oversight

and decisionmaking and (2) discuss the steps needed to maximize the

usefulness of GPRA for Congress and the executive branch. My statement

is based on our large body of work in recent years assessing GPRA

implementation. As I will discuss in more detail, our work has shown that

overall, agencies are continuing to make steady progress in implementing

GPRA, but a set of persistent challenges requires additional effort if GPRA

is to be fully effective.

GPRA holds great promise in helping Congress and the executive branch

ensure that the federal government provides the results that the American

people expect and deserve. We are now at a new phase in the

implementation of GPRA. The issuance of the first performance reports—

showing the degree to which goals were met and the actions, plans, and

schedules to meet unmet goals—represents a potentially more substantive

phase in the implementation of GPRA. These reports, in addition to federal

agencies’ strategic and annual performance plans and the governmentwide

performance plans, represent the completion of the first full planning and

reporting cycle of GPRA implementation. This suggests that we are at an

appropriate point in the process to examine the status of GPRA

implementation and how it can be more fully integrated into congressional

and executive branch decisionmaking.

This examination is important to ensure that the issuance of GPRA

planning and reporting documents does not become merely an annual

paperwork exercise unrelated to the real work of agencies and Congress.

On the contrary, GPRA should be a foundation for congressional oversight

and decisionmaking and thereby help Congress maximize the performance

and ensure the accountability of the federal government for the benefit of

the American people. GPRA also should provide a performance-based

management framework for agencies to set goals; measure progress

toward those goals; deploy strategies and resources to achieve them; and,

ultimately, use performance information to make the programmatic

decisions necessary to improve performance.

In that regard, we have often noted that concerted and continuing

congressional oversight is key to addressing the federal government’s

persistent performance, management, and accountability problems. In

Using GPRA to Assist

Congressional

Oversight and

Decisionmaking
Managing for Results: Continuing Challenges to Effective GPRA Implementation

Page 2 GAO/T-GGD-00-178

recent testimonies, the Comptroller General has suggested that the

significant performance problems in federal programs and agencies can be

organized around four broad themes.1

• Comprehensively reassess what the federal government does and

how it does it: reconsider whether to terminate or revise outdated

programs or services provided.

• Reexamine and redefine the beneficiaries of federal programs:

reconsider who is eligible for, pays for, and/or benefits from a particular

program to maximize federal investments.

• Improve economy, efficiency, and effectiveness of federal

operations: capture opportunities to reduce costs through restructuring

and streamlining federal activities.

• Attack activities at risk of fraud, waste, abuse, and

mismanagement: focus on minimizing risks and costs associated with the

delivery of major federal programs and activities.

GPRA’s concepts, practices, and products provide tools that Congress can

use to help its decisionmaking and strengthen its oversight, thereby

helping to resolve these issues. More specifically, this Subcommittee can

have a central role in building GPRA into the congressional oversight

process. House Rule X requires standing committees of the House to

provide oversight plans to the Committee on Government Reform.2 These

oversight plans are then published by the Committee along with its

recommendations for ensuring the most effective coordination of such

plans.

The new information now available from agencies’ first annual

performance reports, along with information being developed under other

management reforms such as the Chief Financial Officers (CFO) Act, can

provide new opportunities for congressional oversight that House

committees can consider as they develop their oversight plans. For

example, performance reports will provide annual information on

programmatic results that can help Congress systematically review

achievements and performance gaps. One opportunity available to this

1

Managing in the New Millennium: Shaping a More Efficient and Effective Government for the 21st

Century (GAO/T-OCG-00-9, Mar. 29, 2000); Managing for Results: Using GPRA to Help Congressional

Decisionmaking and Strengthen Oversight (GAO/T-GGD-00-95, Mar. 22, 2000); and Congressional

Oversight: Opportunities to Address Risks, Reduce Costs, and Improve Performance (GAO/T-AIMD-00-

96, Feb. 17, 2000).

2 Rules of the House of Representatives – H.Res. 5, 106th Congress, Rule X, Clause 2(d).
Managing for Results: Continuing Challenges to Effective GPRA Implementation

Page 3 GAO/T-GGD-00-178

Subcommittee is to work with House committees to ensure that this

information is used in developing oversight plans.

A second opportunity is to look across House committees and lead the

development of integrated oversight agendas that target areas of

congressional emphasis. Specifically, information from annual

performance reports, by focusing on the results to be achieved, should

suggest program areas and agencies that cut across individual committee

jurisdictions, and that would benefit from more coordinated oversight.

Scheduling joint hearings, for example, can provide synergy in addressing

crosscutting issues.

Finally, the House Government Reform Committee could play a central

role in coordinating oversight hearings related to how different governing

tools (for example, intergovernmental partnerships, performance-based

contracts, and financial credits) will be, or can be, used in achieving goals.

Such oversight could assist in the development of a base of

governmentwide information on the strengths and weaknesses of various

tools used to address differing public policy issues.

Over the past several years, we have reported on a consistent set of

challenges for agencies in using GPRA to become high-performing

organizations.3

These challenges include

• articulating a results orientation,

• coordinating crosscutting programs,

• showing performance consequences of budget decisions,

• showing how daily operations contribute to results, and

• building the capacity to gather and use performance information.

The cornerstone of federal efforts to successfully meet current and

emerging public demands is to adopt a results-orientation. That is, to

develop a clear sense of the results an agency wants to achieve as opposed

to the products and services (outputs) an agency produces and the

processes used to produce them. Adopting a results-orientation will

require a cultural transformation for many agencies—it entails new ways

of thinking and doing business.

3

Managing for Results: Opportunities for Continued Improvements in Agencies’ Performance Plans

(GAO/GGD/AIMD-99-215, July 20, 1999); and Managing for Results: An Agenda to Improve the

Usefulness of Agencies’ Annual Performance Plans (GAO/GGD/AIMD-98-228, Sept. 8, 1998).

Key Challenges to

GPRA Implementation

Articulating a Results

Orientation
Managing for Results: Continuing Challenges to Effective GPRA Implementation

Page 4 GAO/T-GGD-00-178

In our assessment of the fiscal year 1999 plans, we identified the lack of

comprehensive sets of goals that focused on results as one of the central

weaknesses that limited the usefulness of the performance plans for

congressional and other decisionmakers. Important progress was made

over the next year, and all of the fiscal year 2000 plans we reviewed

contain at least some goals and measures that address program results.

Still, additional opportunities for improvement continue to exist. For

example, the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) fiscal year 2000

performance plan goals and measures generally focus on outputs, rather

than results. To assess progress in its goal to “increase opportunities for

small business success,” SBA relies on measures such as an increase in the

number of loans made by SBA, the number of clients served, the number of

bonds issued, and the amount of dollars invested in small businesses. This

is important information, but the plan does not show how the measures

are related to increasing opportunities for small businesses to be

successful—the key result SBA hopes to achieve. SBA revised some of its

performance goals in the fiscal year 2001 plan; however, SBA continues to

focus its performance goals and measures on outputs instead of results.

With the issuance of the first performance reports, Congress now has

information on the extent to which agencies met their fiscal year 1999

goals. For example, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) showed

progress in providing quality healthcare at a reasonable cost. Specifically,

VA reported that it met one of its most important goals—that is, to reduce

the average healthcare cost per patient by 13 percent since fiscal year

1997; actual performance reported was a 16 percent reduction. VA slightly

missed one of its other key goals—that is, to improve quality as measured

by the Chronic Disease Index. The goal was to achieve a score on this

index of 91 percent; VA’s actual performance was 89 percent.

Setting goals that focus on results and reporting on the performance that

has been accomplished will provide critical information needed for making

judgments about the continuing value of a given program. As goals are

being set, Congress can make decisions on whether the goals are

appropriate and whether the expected level of performance is sufficient to

justify the federal expenditure and effort. Later, as results are being

reported, Congress can determine if progress is being made on the

expected level of performance.

Virtually all of the results that the federal government strives to achieve

require the concerted and coordinated efforts of two or more agencies.

Although the fiscal year 2000 performance plans indicate that the federal

Coordinating Crosscutting

Programs
Managing for Results: Continuing Challenges to Effective GPRA Implementation

Page 5 GAO/T-GGD-00-178

government continues to make progress in showing that crosscutting

efforts are being coordinated to ensure effective and efficient program

delivery, agencies still need to complete the more challenging task of

establishing complementary performance goals, mutually reinforcing

strategies, and common performance measures, as appropriate.

Unfocused and uncoordinated crosscutting programs waste scarce

resources, confuse and frustrate taxpayers and program beneficiaries, and

limit overall program effectiveness.4

Our work in over 40 program areas

across the government has repeatedly shown that mission fragmentation

and program overlap are widespread, and that crosscutting federal

program efforts are not well-coordinated. For example, we have reported

on the 50 programs for the homeless that were administered by 8 federal

agencies. Housing services were provided under 23 programs operated by

4 agencies, and food and nutrition services were under 26 programs

administered by 6 agencies.5

If GPRA is effectively implemented, the governmentwide performance plan

and the agencies’ annual performance plans and subsequent performance

reports should provide Congress with new information on agencies and

programs addressing similar results. Once these programs are identified,

Congress can consider the associated policy, management, and

performance implications of crosscutting programs as part of its oversight

over the executive branch. This will present challenges to the traditional

committee structures and processes.

A continuing issue for Congress to consider is how to best focus on

common results when mission areas and programs cut across committee

jurisdictions. More specifically, at present, Congress has no direct

mechanism to use in responding to and providing a congressional

perspective upon the President’s governmentwide performance plan.

Congress also has no established mechanism to articulate performance

goals for the broad missions of government, to assess alternative strategies

that offer the most promise for achieving these goals, or to define an

oversight agenda targeted on the most pressing crosscutting performance

and management issues.

I mentioned earlier the promise that House Rule X holds in this regard.

Another possible approach would involve modifying or supplementing the

4

Managing for Results: Using the Results Act to Address Mission Fragmentation and Program Overlap

(GAO/AIMD-97-146, Aug. 29, 1997).

5 Managing for Results: Barriers to Interagency Coordination (GAO/GGD-00-106, Mar. 29, 2000).
Managing for Results: Continuing Challenges to Effective GPRA Implementation

Page 6 GAO/T-GGD-00-178

current budget resolution.6Already organized by budget function, similar

to the program performance section of the President’s governmentwide

performance plan, the resolution could be adapted to permit Congress to

respond to, and present a coordinated congressional perspective on, the

President’s governmentwide performance plan.

A key GPRA objective is to help Congress develop a clearer understanding

of what is being achieved in relation to what is being spent. Toward this

end, GPRA requires that annual performance plans link performance goals

to the program activities in agencies’ budget requests.7

We reported that agencies are making progress in developing useful

linkages between their annual budget requests and performance plans, but

much additional work is needed.8 We observed that the fiscal years 1999

and 2000 performance planning cycles produced useful experiments in

“connecting resources to results.” Collectively, the actions by many

agencies constituted important first steps in forging closer links between

plans and budgets and could be seen as a baseline from which to assess

future progress.

Agencies have developed a variety of approaches and techniques to show

relationships between budgetary resources and performance goals. In each

case, agencies were able to make their performance plans more relevant

for budget decisionmaking by showing the performance consequences of

requested levels of funding. For example,

• The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Nuclear Regulatory

Commission revised their budgets’ program activity structures to reflect

their plans’ strategic goals and supporting performance goals.

• The Internal Revenue Service and the Federal Bureau of Investigation fully

integrated their performance plans with their budget requests into a single

submission.

• Several administrations within the Department of Health and Human

Services and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (1)

6

Budget Issues: Effective Oversight and Budget Discipline Are Essential—Even in a Time of Surplus

(GAO/T-AIMD-00-73, Feb. 1, 2000).

7

Subject to clearance by the Office of Management and Budget and generally resulting from

negotiations between agencies and appropriations subcommittees, program activities are intended to

provide a meaningful representation of the operations financed by a specific budget account.

8

Performance Budgeting: Fiscal Year 2000 Progress in Linking Plans With Budgets (GAO/AIMD-99-

239R, July 30, 1999); and Performance Budgeting: Initial Experiences Under the Results Act in Linking

Plans With Budgets (GAO/AIMD/GGD-99-67, Apr. 12, 1999).

Showing Performance

Consequences of Budget

Decisions
Managing for Results: Continuing Challenges to Effective GPRA Implementation

Page 7 GAO/T-GGD-00-178

developed summary crosswalks that consolidated or aggregated funding

from separate budget accounts and/or program activities and (2) related

this funding information to strategic objectives or discrete sets of

performance goals.

We also noted that agencies continue to face many challenges in this

area—from challenges in goal definition and measurement to deficiencies

in cost accounting systems. Given these challenges, we recommended that

Office of Management and Budget (OMB) take the initiative to develop a

practical and constructive agenda to further clarify the relationship

between budgetary resources and results, beginning with the fiscal year

2001 plans. Recent actions by OMB hold promise for reinforcing and

strengthening agency efforts in this area. OMB issued guidance and policy

expectations for the 2002 process that should spur further development

and improvement. For example, agencies will be expected to develop

integrated plans and budgets that associate budgetary requests “insofar as

possible with each goal.”

Understanding and articulating how agencies’ day-to-day operations

contribute to results is important for congressional and executive branch

decisionmakers to (1) design and implement cost-effective strategies to

achieve results and (2) pinpoint initiatives to improve performance. Such

understandings are by no means easy or straightforward. As I previously

noted, virtually all of the results that agencies hope to achieve must be

accomplished through the coordinated efforts of several players. The

challenge for agencies is to understand how they can best influence the

results to be achieved. Simply stated, agencies that do not have clear

understandings of how what they do now contributes to results are hard

pressed to determine what they need to do to improve performance.

We have found that although agencies’ fiscal year 2000 plans contain

valuable and informative discussions of how strategies and programs

relate to goals, substantial opportunities exist to make continued

improvements in presentations of strategies and resources. Specifying

clearly in performance plans how strategies—including the use of capital

assets—are to be used to achieve results is important to Congress and

managers in order to determine the right mix of strategies and to maximize

performance while limiting costs. As an example, the National Aeronautics

and Space Administration’s fiscal year 2001 performance plan does not

provide a clear rationale for how information technology-related strategies

and programs will contribute to achieving its goals or show any allocation

of information technology-related dollars and personnel to performance

goals.

Showing How Daily

Operations Contribute to

Results
Managing for Results: Continuing Challenges to Effective GPRA Implementation

Page 8 GAO/T-GGD-00-178

The Department of Transportation (DOT), in its performance report for

fiscal year 1999, shows why it is important that agencies know the factors

that affect results. Such knowledge is key to designing improvement

strategies. DOT did not achieve its fiscal year 1999 goal concerning

recreational boating fatalities. DOT notes that most recreational boating

fatalities are the result of accidents involving factors under the operator’s

control, and that boaters tend not to wear life jackets, although doing so

would vastly improve their chance of surviving accidents. To achieve this

goal, DOT’s strategy now includes boater education and research on life

jackets to promote greater use.

Building, Maintaining, and Marshaling the Human Capital Needed to

Achieve Results. Effective implementation of performance-based

management, as envisioned in GPRA, hinges on agencies’ abilities to

strategically manage their most important asset—their people resources or

“human capital”—to achieve results.9 However, most of the fiscal year 2000

performance plans do not sufficiently address how the agencies will use

their human capital to achieve results. Although the plans often discuss

human capital issues in general terms, such as recruitment and training

efforts, they do not consistently discuss other key human capital strategies

used by high-performing organizations. For example, few agencies

discussed how they would build, maintain, and marshal the human capital

needed to achieve their performance goals. This suggests that one of the

critical components of high-performing organizations—the systematic

integration of human capital planning and program planning—is not being

adequately and uniformly addressed across the federal government.

In June, President Clinton issued a memorandum to the heads of executive

departments and agencies detailing actions to further improve the

management of human capital. Among other things, the memorandum

directs agencies to clearly state specific human capital management goals

and objectives in their strategic and annual performance plans. This is an

important and helpful reminder to agencies that GPRA requires agencies to

describe in these documents how they will use their human capital to

support the accomplishment of agency goals and objectives.

Resolve Management Challenges and Program Risks. Any serious effort to

fundamentally improve the performance of federal agencies must address

management challenges and program risks. Unfortunately, we found that

the fiscal year 2000 annual performance plans showed inconsistent

attention to the need to resolve the mission-critical management

9 Human Capital: Managing Human Capital in the 21st Century (GAO/T-GGD-00-77, Mar. 9, 2000).
Managing for Results: Continuing Challenges to Effective GPRA Implementation

Page 9 GAO/T-GGD-00-178

challenges and program risks that continue to undermine the federal

government’s economy, efficiency, and effectiveness.

For example, the Department of Agriculture’s performance report shows

varied progress in resolving the major management challenges identified

by GAO and its Inspector General in fiscal year 1999. In particular,

progress has been made in improving the agency’s farm loan portfolio—

the delinquency rates for direct loans and the loss rates for direct and

guaranteed loans were all within the target levels for fiscal year 1999.

Conversely, the report does not demonstrate progress in addressing or

resolving other previously identified management challenges. For example,

the report shows little, if any, progress in reducing inefficiency and waste

throughout the Forest Service’s operations.

Agencies need reliable information during their planning efforts to set

realistic goals and later, as programs are being implemented, to gauge their

progress toward achievement of those goals. Our work over the past

several years has identified limitations and selected approaches to improve

agencies’ abilities to produce credible program performance and cost

data.10 These limitations are substantial and long-standing, and they will

not be quickly or easily resolved. We found in our assessment of the fiscal

year 2000 performance plans that agencies provide limited confidence in

the credibility of their performance information. This limited confidence in

the credibility of performance information is one of the single, greatest

continuing weaknesses with GPRA implementation.

One challenge confronting agencies in obtaining timely and reliable

results-oriented performance information is their dependence on state and

local agencies to provide data. For example, the Administration for

Children and Families could not report on its progress in meeting fiscal

year 1999 goals for the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families or child

support programs. According to the Department of Health and Human

Services’ performance report, time lags in obtaining these data from the

states make it difficult to provide a comprehensive summary of agency

performance.

We have noted that agencies can use their GPRA planning and reporting

documents to discuss their actions to compensate for unavailable or low10 Managing for Results: Challenges Agencies Face in Producing Credible Performance Information

(GAO/GGD-00-52, Feb. 4, 2000); and Performance Plans: Selected Approaches for Verification and

Validation of Agency Performance Information (GAO/GGD-99-139, July 30, 1999).

Building the Capacity to

Gather and Use

Performance Information
Managing for Results: Continuing Challenges to Effective GPRA Implementation

Page 10 GAO/T-GGD-00-178

quality data. For example, EPA highlights discrepancies between its data

and state water quality data. EPA discusses its strategies for improving

water quality data, including state-specific training for data entry into the

Safe Drinking Water Information System.

Discussing data credibility and related issues in performance reports can

provide important contextual information to Congress. For example,

Congress can use this discussion to raise questions about problems the

agencies have had in collecting needed results-oriented performance

information and the cost and data quality trade-offs associated with

various collection strategies.

Program Evaluation. A federal environment that focuses on results—

where federal efforts are often but one factor among many that determine

whether goals are achieved—depends on program evaluation to provide

vital information about the effect of the federal effort. Program evaluation

studies are important for assessing the contributions that programs are

making to results, determining factors affecting performance, and

identifying improvement opportunities. However, we continue to be

concerned that many agencies lack the capacity to undertake program

evaluations. In our 1997 review of agencies’ strategic plans, we found that

many agencies had not given sufficient attention to how program

evaluations will be used in implementing GPRA and improving

performance.11 In another report, we noted that agencies’ program

evaluation capabilities would be challenged to meet the new demands for

information on program results.12 It will be important that the updated

strategic plans, to be issued this fall, contain fuller discussions of how

agencies are using program evaluations.

Financial Management Capabilities. The long-standing inability of many

agencies to accurately record and report financial management data on

both a year-end and an ongoing basis for decisionmaking and oversight

purposes continues to be a serious weakness. Without reliable data on

costs, decisionmakers cannot effectively evaluate programs’ financial

performance or control and reduce costs. As this Subcommittee is well

aware, the CFO Act laid the legislative foundation for the federal

government to provide taxpayers, the nation’s leaders, and agency

program managers with reliable financial information through audited

11 Managing for Results: Agencies’ Annual Performance Plans Can Help Address Strategic Planning

Challenges (GAO/GGD-98-44, Jan. 30, 1998).

12 Program Evaluation: Agencies Challenged by New Demand for Information on Program Results

(GAO/GGD-98-53, Apr. 24, 1998).
Managing for Results: Continuing Challenges to Effective GPRA Implementation

Page 11 GAO/T-GGD-00-178

financial statements. In addition to requiring annual audited financial

statements, the CFO Act sets expectations for agencies to build effective

financial management organizations and systems and to routinely produce

sound cost and operating performance information throughout the year.

Although obtaining unqualified “clean” audit opinions on federal financial

statements is an important objective, it is not an end in and of itself. The

key is to take steps to continuously improve internal controls and

underlying financial management information systems. The Federal

Financial Management Improvement Act (FFMIA) focuses, among other

things, on ensuring greater attention to making much needed

improvements in financial management systems. The primary purpose of

FFMIA is to ensure that agency financial management systems routinely

provide reliable, useful, and timely financial information. With such

information, government leaders will be better positioned to invest scarce

resources, reduce costs, oversee programs, and hold agency managers

accountable for the way they run government programs.

For fiscal year 1999, auditors for 21 of the 24 CFO Act agencies reported

that those agencies’ financial systems did not substantially comply with

FFMIA’s requirements. The three agencies in compliance were the

Department of Energy, National Aeronautics and Space Administration,

and the National Science Foundation.

In summary, Mr. Chairman, GPRA has the potential to help Congress and

the executive branch ensure that the federal government provides the

results that the American people expect and deserve. Agencies have

completed their first full set of GPRA planning and reporting documents.

The performance and cost information that are required in these

documents have the potential to help Congress set its oversight agenda

and agencies address challenges to becoming high-performing

organizations. These documents also provide a performance-based

management framework for agencies to improve performance and

reinforce accountability throughout their organizations.

We are very pleased that Congress continues to rely on us to assess the

implementation of GPRA and assist Congress in its use. Most recently,

• At the request of Chairman Dan Burton of the House Government Reform

Committee, we are reviewing the use of performance agreements as an

approach for instilling accountability for results within organizations.

Summary
Managing for Results: Continuing Challenges to Effective GPRA Implementation

Page 12 GAO/T-GGD-00-178

• At the request of Chairman Fred Thompson and Ranking Minority Member

Joseph Lieberman of the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, we

reviewed the 24 CFO Act agencies’ fiscal year 1999 performance reports

and fiscal year 2001 performance plans to assess the extent to which the

agencies addressed key outcome areas and management challenges.

Chairman Thompson also requested that we update our reviews of

agencies’ efforts to better align their performance plans with their budgets.

• At the request of Chairman George Voinovich of the Subcommittee on

Oversight of Government Management, Restructuring and the District of

Columbia, Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, we are conducting

a follow-up to our 1996 survey to obtain information on federal managers’

experiences with and attitudes about results-oriented performance and

management issues.

• At the request of Ranking Minority Member Joseph Lieberman of the

Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, we will begin work on the

relevant foreign experiences in public-sector management reforms and the

possible application of those experiences to the United States.

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

to respond to any questions that you or other Members of the

Subcommittee may have.

Contacts and Acknowledgments

For further information regarding this testimony, please contact J.

Christopher Mihm at (202) 512-8676. Individuals making key contributions

to this testimony include Lisa Shames, Mike Curro, Allen Lomax, Dottie

Self, and Janice Lichty.
Page 13 GAO/T-GGD-00-178
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