Managing for Results: Opportunities for Continued Improvements in Agencies' Performance Plans
Released: 1999-08-18T00:00:00

Letter

Background

A critical component of high-performing organizations, as envisioned by the Results Act, is the dynamic and complementary process of setting a strategic direction, defining annual goals and measures, and reporting on performance. As required by the Results Act, agencies are to prepare annual performance plans that establish the connections between the long- term goals outlined in their strategic plans and the day-to-day activities of managers and staff. To be useful, annual performance plans should answer three core questions:

To what extent does the agency have a clear picture of intended performance?

Does the agency have the right mix of strategies and resources needed to achieve its goals?

Will the agency’s performance information be credible?

At the request of Congress and to assist agencies in their efforts to produce useful performance plans, we issued guides on assessing annual plans. We subsequently reviewed the fiscal year 1999 performance plans for the CFO Act agencies. We also issued reports on fiscal year 1999 plans that identified practices that can improve the usefulness of plans and approaches used to connect budget requests with anticipated results.

Fiscal Year 2000 Plans Provide General Pictures of Agencies’ Intended Performance

A majority of agencies’ fiscal year 2000 plans give general pictures of intended performance across the agencies, with the plans of the Department of Labor, Department of Transportation (DOT), the General Services Administration (GSA), and the Social Security Administration (SSA) providing the clearest overall pictures.

To assess the degree to which an agency’s plan provides a clear picture of intended performance across the agency, we examined whether it includes (1) sets of performance goals and measures that address program results; (2) baseline and trend data for past performance; (3) performance goals or strategies to resolve mission-critical management problems; and (4) identification of crosscutting programs (i.e., those programs that contribute to the same or similar results), complementary performance goals and common or complementary performance measures to show how differing program strategies are mutually reinforcing, and planned coordination strategies. Figure 3 shows the results of our assessment of the 24 agencies. We categorized each agency’s plan based on the degree to which it collectively addressed the four practices presented above.

Progress Is Being Made in Defining Program Results

All of the fiscal year 2000 plans we reviewed contain at least some goals and measures that address program results. 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 plans for congressional and other decisionmakers.

While this improvement is still not evident across all agencies, some plans incorporate sets of performance goals and measures that depict the complexity of the results federal agencies seek to achieve. For example, to help achieve improved public health and safety on the highway, DOT has performance goals and measures to reduce the rates of alcohol-related and large truck-related fatalities and injuries and to increase seat belt use, in addition to its goals related to highway fatality and injury rates. The DOT plan also provides helpful information that explains the importance of each goal, the relationship of annual goals to DOT strategic goals, and the relationship of the performance measures to annual goals.

Similarly, the Department of Education’s plan contains a set of goals and measures related to a vital issue of growing national concern—that schools should be strong, safe, disciplined, and drug-free. Specifically, Education has performance goals and measures to reduce the prevalence of alcohol and drugs in schools, decrease criminal and violent incidents committed by students, and increase the percentage of teachers who are trained to deal with discipline problems in the classrooms. The plan includes explanatory information for each goal and measure. For instance, Education explains that it changed its target level for the percentage of students using marijuana at school because of better than expected reductions in 1998.

However, we still found cases where program results were not clearly defined. For example, the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) performance plan’s goals and measures continue to 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 these measures are related to increasing opportunities for small businesses to be successful—the key result SBA hopes to achieve.

Sets of performance goals and measures also should provide balanced perspectives on performance that cover the variety of results agencies are expected to achieve. Federal programs are designed and implemented in dynamic environments where mission requirements may be in conflict, such as ensuring enforcement while promoting related services, or priorities may be different, such as those to improve service quality while limiting program cost. Consequently, mission requirements and priorities must be weighed against each other to avoid distorting program performance.

The Department of Veterans Affairs’ (VA) Veterans Health Administration (VHA) provides an illustration of an agency that is using a range of goals to reflect the variety of results it seeks to achieve. VHA recognizes that, as it seeks to improve the health status of veterans, it must provide care efficiently. VHA’s primary healthcare strategy has three performance goals to be achieved by fiscal year 2002, referred to as the 30-20-10 strategy. With fiscal year 1997 as the baseline, VHA has separate goals that focus on (1) reducing the cost per patient by 30 percent, (2) increasing the number of patients served by 20 percent, and (3) increasing to 10 percent the portion of the medical care budget derived from alternative revenue sources. VHA’s ability to fund the costs associated with serving 20 percent more patients than in the past will depend in large part on VHA’s success in meeting its goals to decrease the cost per patient and increase revenues from alternative sources.

Multiyear and Intermediate Goals Can Provide Useful Perspective on Results to Be Achieved

In reviewing the fiscal year 1999 plans, we said that setting multiyear and intermediate goals is particularly useful when it may take years before results are achieved and in isolating an agency’s discrete contribution to a specific result. In examining the fiscal year 2000 plans, we found that some agencies have started to incorporate these practices into their performance plans.

For example, the Office of Personnel Management’s (OPM) plan includes multiyear goals that provide valuable perspective on its plans over several years. In particular, the plan has an objective for fiscal year 2002 to simplify and automate the current General Schedule position classification system by reducing the number of position classification standards from more than 400 to fewer than 100. The plan shows that OPM projects that it will reduce the number of classification standards to 320 by the end of fiscal year 1999 and further reduce the number to 216 by the end of fiscal year 2000. Reducing the number of classification standards is seen by OPM as important because it will provide federal agencies with added flexibility to better acquire and deploy their human capital.

The Department of Commerce’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) also includes projected target levels of performance for multiyear goals in its plan. As part of its strategic goal to sustain healthy coasts, NOAA set a target for fiscal year 2002 to increase to 75 the percentage of the U.S. coastline where threats to the habitat have been assessed and ranked. NOAA set a target level of 20 percent in fiscal year 2000 from a baseline of 0 percent in fiscal year 1998.

In contrast, the Department of the Treasury’s Internal Revenue Service (IRS) provides an example of where multiyear goals could be included in the plan but are not. The plan states that the IRS Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998 requires that 80 percent of all tax and information returns that IRS processes be electronically filed by year 2007. IRS’ plan would be more useful if it discussed this mandate along with target levels to show how it plans to achieve this goal over the next 7 years. Congress will likely expect to receive information relating to IRS’ progress in the area, particularly since IRS has requested funding for this goal. Treasury officials said that they recognize the shortcomings in IRS’ performance measures. As part of its restructuring, IRS is undertaking improvements by developing new performance measures.

A few agencies have recognized that using intermediate goals and measures, such as outputs or intermediate outcomes, can show interim progress toward intended results. For example, the Department of Justice’s Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has a goal to disrupt and dismantle drug syndicates, but its plan acknowledges that counting the number of cases, arrests, or seizures does not adequately measure the true impact of enforcement efforts. Therefore, addition to those measures, DEA is developing other gauges, such as the ratio of the number of targeted organizations disrupted as a result of DEA involvement in foreign investigations to the total number of targeted organizations. Its plan states that DEA will collect data for this goal in fiscal year 1999.

Similarly, SSA recognizes in its plan that one change needed for its disability program is that disabled beneficiaries must become self- sufficient to the greatest extent possible. As a first step toward its strategic objective to “shape the disability program in a manner that increases self- sufficiency,” SSA includes an intermediate goal to increase by 10 percent in fiscal year 2000 the number of Disability Insurance beneficiaries transitioning into trial work periods over time. SSA states that it will develop other goals and measures after an analysis of historical data is completed.

Identifying Past Performance Through Baseline and Trend Data Provides a Valuable Perspective on Current Goals

All of the fiscal year 2000 plans we reviewed include baseline and trend data for at least some of their goals and measures. With baseline and trend data, the performance plans provide a context for drawing conclusions about whether performance goals are reasonable and appropriate. Decisionmakers can use such information to gauge how a program’s anticipated performance level compares with improvements or declines in past performance.

For example, the DOT plan includes graphs for nearly all goals and measures that show baseline and trend data as well as the targets for fiscal year 1999 and 2000. The graphs clearly indicate trends and provide a basis for comparing actual program results with the established performance goals. The performance goal for hazardous material incidents is typical in that it has a graph that shows the number of serious hazardous materials incidents that occurred in transportation during the period 1988 through 1997. DOT also includes explanatory information that provides a context for past performance and future goals.

In cases where baseline and trend data are not yet available, the more informative performance plans include information on what actions agencies are taking to collect appropriate data and when they expect to have them. For example, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) provides baseline and trend data for many of its goals and measures, if such data are available. If data are not available, the plan discusses when HUD expects to develop the baselines. For example, the performance goal and measure to increase the share of recipients of welfare-to-work vouchers who hold jobs at the time of annual recertification indicates that the baseline for households receiving vouchers in fiscal year 2000 will be determined in fiscal year 2001.

Agencies’ Plans Lack Consistent Attention to Mission-Critical Management Challenges and Program Risks

The fiscal year 2000 annual performance plans show inconsistent attention to the need to resolve the mission-critical management challenges and program risks that continue to undermine the federal government’s economy, efficiency, and effectiveness. These challenges and risks must be addressed as part of any serious effort to fundamentally improve the performance of federal agencies. In our assessment of the fiscal year 1999 performance plans, we observed that the value of the plans could be augmented if they more fully included goals that addressed mission-critical management issues. We noted that precise and measurable goals for resolving mission-critical management problems are important to ensuring that the agencies have the institutional capacity to achieve their more results-oriented programmatic goals.

In assessing the fiscal year 2000 plans, we looked at whether the plans address over 300 specific management challenges and program risks identified by us and the agencies’ Inspectors General. Many of these challenges and risks are long-standing, well known, and have been the subject of close congressional scrutiny. They include, most prominently, federal operations that we have identified as being at among the highest risk for waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement.

We found that agencies do not consistently address management challenges and program risks in their fiscal year 2000 performance plans. In those cases where challenges and risks are addressed, agencies use a variety of approaches, including setting goals and measures directly linked to the management challenges and program risks, establishing goals and measures that are indirectly related to the challenges and risks, or laying out strategies to address them. Figure 4 illustrates the distribution of these various approaches among the management challenges and program risks we identified.

Agencies’ fiscal year 2000 plans contain goals and measures that directly address about 40 percent of the identified management challenges and program risks. For example, the Department of Energy’s (DOE) plan contains goals and measures that are designed to address its major management challenges and program risks. DOE’s contract management is one of the areas on our high-risk list, and this is especially important because DOE relies on contractors to perform about 90 percent of its work. Under DOE’s corporate management goal, one objective is to improve the delivery of products and services through contract reform and the use of businesslike practices. The strategies DOE identifies include using prudent contracting and business management approaches that emphasize results, accountability, and competition. DOE’s plan also contains three specific measures addressing contract reform. One of these measures is to convert one support services contract at each major site to become a performance-based service contract using government standards.

On the other hand, agencies’ plans do not contain goals, measures, or strategies to resolve one-fourth of the management challenges and program risks we identified. In Treasury’s plan, for example, IRS has no goals, measures, or strategies to address several of the high-risk areas we have identified, even though important management reform initiatives are under way across the agency. Specifically, Treasury’s plan does not address internal control weaknesses over unpaid tax assessments (We found that the lack of a subsidiary ledger impairs IRS’ ability to effectively manage its unpaid assessments. This weakness has resulted in IRS’ inappropriately directing collection efforts against taxpayers after amounts owed have been paid.); the need to assess the impact of various efforts IRS has under way to the need to improve security controls over information systems and address weaknesses that place sensitive taxpayer data at risk to both internal and external threats (Our high-risk update reported that IRS’ controls do not adequately reduce vulnerability to inappropriate disclosure.); and weaknesses in internal controls over taxpayer receipts. (Specifically, there is no discussion of IRS’ plans to strengthen efforts to ensure that taxpayer receipts are securely transported, such as prohibiting the use of bicycle or other unarmed vehicle couriers. Our high-risk update pointed out that IRS’ controls over tax receipts do not adequately reduce their vulnerability to theft.)

Treasury’s plan would be more informative if it captured IRS’ reform efforts and delineated goals and performance measures and, if necessary, developed interim measures to show IRS’ intended near-term progress toward addressing its high-risk operations.

For about 18 percent of the over 300 management challenges and program risks we identified, agencies have established annual performance goals that appear to indirectly address these issues. For example, while SSA paid over $73 billion in 1998 in cash benefits to nearly 11 million blind and disabled beneficiaries, we found that SSA’s complex process for determining whether an individual qualifies for disability benefits has been plagued by a number of long-standing weaknesses. SSA’s disability benefit claims process is time-consuming and expensive, and SSA’s disability caseloads have grown significantly in the past decade. On the basis of our ongoing review of SSA’s disability claims process redesign effort, we found that SSA has not been able to keep its redesign activities on schedule or demonstrate that its proposed changes will significantly improve its claims process. Further, we found that few people have left the disability rolls to return to work. Although SSA’s plan does not include any direct goals or measures for its disability redesign efforts, it does include an intermediate goal for fiscal year 2000 to increase the number of Disability Insurance recipients and Supplemental Security Income recipients transitioning into the workforce by 10 percent over fiscal year 1997 levels.

Finally, agencies identify strategies to help them meet the challenges and risks they confront, rather than setting goals and measures in their performance plans. The plans we reviewed contain strategies to address about 18 percent of the identified challenges and risks. For some agencies, these strategies are clearly and directly related to the agency’s efforts to address a specific challenge or risk. For example, DOT’s lack of controls over its financial activities impairs the agency’s ability to manage programs and exposes the department to potential waste, fraud, mismanagement, and abuse. DOT’s fiscal year 2000 performance plan identifies financial accounting as a management challenge and addresses key weaknesses that need to be resolved before DOT can obtain an unqualified audit opinion on its fiscal year 2000 financial audit. DOT’s corporate management strategies include efforts to (1) receive an unqualified audit opinion on the department’s fiscal year 2000 consolidated financial statement and stand- alone financial statements, (2) enhance the efficiency of the accounting operation consistent with increased accountability and reliable reporting, and (3) implement a pilot of the improved financial systems environment in at least one operating administration.

In other cases, however, it is unclear to what extent the strategies that agencies identify in their fiscal year 2000 annual performance plans will address the management challenges and program risks. Labor’s Inspector General has found, for example, that the department faces serious vulnerabilities within three major worker benefit programs. These program risks include the continued proliferation of unemployment insurance fraud schemes and the escalating indebtedness of the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund. Labor did not develop any performance goals to specifically address these vulnerabilities, and although its plan broadly discusses these concerns, the plan shows that Labor will rely, for example, on the Inspector General’s investigations to help identify and investigate multistate fraud schemes. Labor did not address efforts to reduce the indebtedness of the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund. Similarly, another challenge the Inspector General identified is Labor’s need to ensure that weaknesses, vulnerabilities, and criminal activity are identified and addressed. Here again, Labor’s plan indicates that it will rely on the Inspector General investigations to address this challenge. Because the Inspector General has already identified these management challenges and program risks, it is unclear whether relying on further Inspector General investigations will be a sufficient strategy to systematically address the vulnerabilities that have been identified across several Labor programs.

Coordinating Crosscutting Program Efforts Needs Additional Effort

The fiscal year 2000 performance plans indicate that the federal government continues to make progress in showing that crosscutting efforts are being coordinated to ensure effective and efficient program delivery. Among the improvements in the fiscal year 2000 plans over what we observed in the fiscal year 1999 plans are further identification of crosscutting efforts and more inclusive listings of other agencies with which responsibility for those efforts are shared. However, similar to the situation with the 1999 plans, few agencies have attempted the more challenging task of establishing complementary performance goals, mutually reinforcing strategies, and common performance measures, as appropriate.

The effective and efficient coordination of crosscutting programs is important because our work has suggested that mission fragmentation and program overlap are widespread. We have identified opportunities for improving federal program coordination in vital national mission areas covering counterterrorism agriculture, community and regional development, health, income security, law enforcement, international affairs, and other areas. Our work has found that uncoordinated federal efforts confuse and frustrate program recipients, waste scarce resources, and undermine the overall effectiveness of the federal effort.

SSA and VA improved their fiscal year 2000 plans over their fiscal year 1999 plans by linking their performance goals and objectives to crosscutting program efforts. SSA, under its goal “to make SSA program management the best-in-business, with zero tolerance for fraud and abuse,” lists 14 crosscutting areas of coordination, including information sharing with the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Health Care Financing Administration to help SSA determine Medicaid eligibility. Similarly, VA’s fiscal year 2000 plan briefly describes an extensive array of crosscutting activities and explicitly associates applicable crosscutting activities with each key performance goal, whereas the fiscal year 1999 plan was limited to listings of other entities with crosscutting interests.

Although most agencies have shown at least some improvement in their identification of crosscutting program efforts, the Department of Defense (DOD) and DOE continue to provide little information about the substantive work of interagency coordination that is taking place. For example, we found that the federal government’s effort to combat terrorism—an effort that cost about $6.7 billion in fiscal year 1997—was among the significant crosscutting programs for which DOD failed to discuss the details of coordination with other involved agencies in both its fiscal years 1999 and 2000 plans. This failure is important because, as we recently testified, opportunities continue to exist to better focus and target the nation’s investments in combating terrorism and better ensure that the United States is prioritizing its funding of the right programs in the right amounts.

Similarly, DOE’s fiscal year 2000 plan does not show other agencies’ programs that contribute to results that DOE is also trying to achieve. This plan’s “means and strategies” section, under the business line of Science and Technology, provides one example. In this discussion, DOE does not identify any federal agency, such as the National Science Foundation (NSF), that may contribute to similar science and technology results. In contrast, under its goal of “discoveries at and across the frontier of science and engineering,” NSF’s plan identifies research facilities supported by both NSF and DOE, including the Large Haldron Collider in Switzerland.

Plans Devote Limited Attention to Developing Complementary Goals

Few agencies have moved beyond identification of crosscutting efforts and strategies to include in their plans complementary performance goals to show how different program strategies are mutually reinforcing. We noted in our assessment of the fiscal year 1999 plans that an agency could increase the usefulness of its performance plan to congressional and other decisionmakers by identifying the results-oriented performance goals that involve other agencies and by showing how the agency contributes to the common result.

Although incomplete, the efforts of DOT and HHS show how such an approach can provide valuable perspective to decisionmakers. For example, DOT’s fiscal year 2000 performance plan indicates goals and performance measures to be used mutually to support crosscutting programs. The plan states that the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) have complementary performance goals to decrease by 80 percent the rate of aviation fatalities by the year 2007. However, the plan could be improved by describing how the strategies of the two agencies are mutually reinforcing.

HHS also provides valuable perspective to decisionmakers by linking complementary performance goals of agencies within the department. Those linkages suggest how differing program strategies can be mutually reinforcing. For example, one of HHS’ strategic objectives is to reduce tobacco use, especially among the young. To contribute to this objective, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has a performance goal to reduce the percentage of teenagers who smoke by conducting education campaigns, providing funding and technical assistance to state programs, and working with nongovernmental entities. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has a complementary goal to reduce the easy access to tobacco products and eliminate the strong appeal of these products for children by conducting 400,000 compliance checks and selecting certain sites to target for intensified enforcement efforts to determine the effectiveness of different levels of effort. HHS can build upon intradepartmental efforts by aligning its performance goals with those of other federal agencies, such as the Departments of Justice and Education.

Some Plans Include Helpful Discussions of Coordination Approaches

While still uncommon, useful performance plans not only identify crosscutting efforts, they also describe how agencies expect to coordinate efforts with other agencies that have similar responsibilities. Plans that more directly explain strategies and tools for interagency coordination will be most helpful to Congress as it assesses the degree to which those strategies and tools are appropriate and effective and seeks best practices for use in other program areas. By way of illustration, FDA has a goal to develop and make available an improved method for the detection of several foodborne pathogens. FDA’s discussion of this goal refers to an interagency research plan that seeks to more effectively coordinate the food safety research activities of FDA and the Department of Agriculture (USDA).

FDA’s discussion of joint planning, one approach to interagency coordination, demonstrates how annual performance plans can be used to develop a base of governmentwide information on the strengths and weaknesses of various coordination approaches and tools—as we suggested in our review of the fiscal year 1999 plans. Other plans, such as those of VA, SSA, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), also discuss coordination tools, such as cooperative training, partnerships, memorandums of understanding, bilateral agreements, and interagency task forces.

Performance Plans Provide a General Discussion of Strategies and Resources

Most fiscal year 2000 plans provide a general discussion—with DOT’s being the clearest—of the strategies and resources that the agency will use to achieve results. Thus, similar to other aspects of performance plans, substantial opportunities exist to make continued improvements in presentations of strategies and resources.

To assess the degree to which an agency’s plan provides a specific discussion of strategies and resources the agency will use to achieve performance goals, we examined whether it includes (1) budgetary resources related to the achievement of performance goals; (2) strategies and programs linked to specific performance goals and descriptions of how the strategies and programs will contribute to the achievement of those goals; (3) a brief description or reference to a separate document of how the agency plans to build, maintain, and marshal the human capital needed to achieve results; and (4) strategies to leverage or mitigate the effects of external factors on the accomplishment of performance goals. Figure 5 shows the results of our assessment of the 24 agencies. We categorized each agency’s plan based on the degree to which it collectively addressed the four practices presented above.

Agencies Do Not Consistently Show How Budgetary Resources Would Be Used to Achieve Performance Goals

Like the fiscal year 1999 plans, most of the fiscal year 2000 plans do not consistently show how program activity funding would be allocated to agencies’ performance goals. However, individual agencies show progress in making useful linkages between their budget requests and performance goals, as we will detail in a companion letter to this report. Such progress is important because a key objective of the Results Act is to help Congress develop a clearer understanding of what is being achieved in relation to what is being spent. The Act requires that annual performance plans link performance goals to the program activities in agencies’ budget requests.

The most informative plans would translate these linkages into budgetary terms—that is, they would show how funding is being allocated from program activities to discrete sets of performance goals. For example, SSA’s fiscal year 1999 performance plan noted that the agency’s Limitation on Administrative Expenses (LAE) account supported most of the measures in the plan. However, beyond that acknowledgement, SSA provided few details as to how budget resources would actually be allocated to support its performance goals. As a means of communicating its efforts to link budget resources to stated goals, the fiscal year 2000 plan now includes a matrix of SSA’s fiscal year 2000 administrative budget accounts by related strategic goal. For example, the matrix shows that SSA has determined that it will require $38 million to meet its strategic goal of “promoting responsive programs” and that this amount will come out of SSA’s LAE and Extramural Research accounts.

As we noted in reviewing fiscal year 1999 performance plans, agencies used a variety of techniques to show relationships between budgetary resources and performance goals. Plans contain crosswalks to help identify how much funding would be needed to support discrete sets of performance goals and where that funding was included in the agency’s budget request. For example, the U.S. Geological Survey portion of the Department of the Interior’s fiscal year 2000 plan provides crosswalks showing (1) the relationship between funding for its budget program activities and funding for its “GPRA program activities” and (2) how “GPRA program activity” funding would be allocated to performance goals. In contrast, some agencies could have used such crosswalks to make their presentations more relevant for budget decisionmaking. For example, Commerce’s plan identifies requirements of $133.2 million to achieve the International Trade Administration’s (ITA) strategic goal of increasing the number of small business exporters. However, it is not clear how this funding level was derived from the budget activities or accounts in ITA’s budget request.

In addition to providing crosswalks, some agencies also made performance information useful for resource allocation decisions by including this information in the budget justification of estimates traditionally sent to Congress in support of their requests. For example, NRC integrates its budget justification and performance plan for the first time in fiscal year 2000 as part of a broader initiative to integrate its planning, budgeting, and performance management process. Information traditionally contained in a budget justification, such as descriptions of accounts and their funding, was combined with performance information in such a way that the NRC budget justification and its plan could not be separated.

Although no agency made significant changes to its account or program activity structure in fiscal year 2000 in order to clarify or simplify relationships between program activities and performance goals, some agencies mention the possibility of future change. For example, we have previously noted that VA’s program activities do not clearly align with the agency’s performance goals. In its fiscal year 2000 plan, VA states that it is working with OMB to develop a budget account restructuring proposal.

Agencies Are Relating Strategies and Programs to Results

Most of the fiscal year 2000 plans we reviewed relate strategies and programs to performance goals. However, few plans indicate how the strategies will contribute to accomplishing the expected level of performance. Discussions of how the strategies will contribute to results are important because they are helpful to congressional and other decisionmakers in assessing the degree to which strategies are appropriate and reasonable. Such discussions also are important in pinpointing opportunities to improve performance and reduce costs.

As an example, DOT’s performance plan provides a specific discussion of the strategies and resources that the department will use to achieve its performance goals. For each performance goal, the plan lists an overall strategy that often clearly conveys the relationship between the strategy and the goal for achieving it, as well as specific activities and initiatives to be undertaken in fiscal year 2000. For instance, DOT expects to increase transit ridership through investments in transit infrastructure, financial assistance to metropolitan planning organizations and state departments of transportation for planning activities, research on improving train control systems, and fleet management to provide more customer service.

NSF’s performance plan also presents strategies that clearly show how NSF plans to achieve its fiscal year 2000 performance goals. Specifically, the plan describes the general strategies that NSF intends to use to achieve its performance goals for the results of scientific research and education and for most of its performance goals for the NSF investment process and management. To illustrate, NSF will use a competitive merit-based review process with peer evaluations to identify the most promising ideas from the strongest researchers and educators. According to its plan, NSF will work toward the outcome goal of “promoting connections between discoveries and their use in service to society” by using the merit review process to make awards for research and education activities that will rapidly and readily feed into education, policy development, or work of other federal agencies or the private sector.

On the other hand, some agencies do not adequately discuss how strategies and programs contribute to results. For example, Labor identifies in its plan 112 means and strategies to accomplish its 42 performance goals and links each strategy to a specific performance goal. However, in some instances, the strategies do not identify how they would help achieve the stated goals. For example, one performance goal states that 60 percent of local employment and training offices will be part of one-stop career center systems. In a related strategy, Labor states that it will “continue its support of the adoption and implementation of continuous improvement initiatives throughout the workforce development system,” but does not indicate how these efforts will help achieve the performance goal.

In some cases, strategies are not provided. For example, HHS’ Administration for Children and Families (ACF) has a goal to provide children permanency and stability in their living situations, and related performance measures, such as increasing the percentage of children who are adopted within 2 years of foster care placement. However, ACF does not identify the strategies that it will rely on to achieve this goal.

Progress Needed in Linking Use of Capital Assets and Management Systems to Results

While agencies’ fiscal year 2000 plans show progress in relating programs and strategies to goals, few relate the use of capital assets and management systems to achieving results. Although a majority of the agencies discuss mission-critical management systems in their fiscal year 2000 performance plans—such as financial management, procurement and grants management, and other systems—few describe how the systems will support the achievement of program results or clearly link initiatives to individual goals or groups of goals.

Addressing information technology issues in annual performance plans is important because of technology’s critical role in achieving results, the sizable investment the federal government has made in information technology (about $145 billion between 1992 and 1997), and the long- standing weaknesses in virtually every agency in successfully employing technology to further mission accomplishment. The vital role that information technology can play in helping agencies achieve their goals was not clearly described in agency plans. The failure to recognize the central role of technology in achieving results is a cause of significant concern because, under the Paperwork Reduction and Clinger-Cohen Acts, Congress put in place clear statutory requirements for agencies to better link their technology plans and information technology use to their missions and programmatic goals.

SSA’s fiscal year 2000 plan provides a series of brief descriptions of key technology initiatives such as its Intelligent Workstation and Local Area Network (IWS/LAN), which is at the center of SSA’s redesign of its core business processes. However, the plan does not clearly link the IWS/LAN initiative to any goals necessary to determine its impact on workload productivity, processing times, or the accuracy rates of decisions. Considering that prior plans have stated that SSA’s strategic goals are essentially unachievable unless SSA invests wisely in information technology, such as IWS/LAN, a clearer, more-direct link between technology initiatives and the program results they are meant to support would enhance the usefulness of the plan.

On the other hand, USDA’s performance plan, which is made up of USDA component plans, frequently explains how proposed capital assets and management systems will support the achievement of program results. For example, the plan for the Agricultural Marketing Service, a component of USDA, describes how a proposed funding increase will provide for the modernization and the replacement of its Processed Commodities Inventory Management System. This system supports such activities as planning, procurement, and accounting for more than $1 billion of domestic and $562 million of foreign commodities annually. The plan further notes that studies have indicated that a modernized system will generate significant efficiency improvements and considerable cost savings.

Agencies Provide Insufficient Attention to How Human Capital Will Be Used to Achieve Results

Most of the fiscal year 2000 annual performance plans do not sufficiently address how the agencies will use their human capital to achieve results. Specifically, few of the plans relate—or reference a separate document that relates—how the agency will build, marshal, and maintain the human capital needed to achieve its performance goals. This suggests that one of the central attributes of high performing organizations—the systematic integration of mission and program planning with human capital planning—is not being effectively addressed across the federal government. The general lack of attention to human capital issues is a very serious omission because only when the right employees are on board and provided the training, tools, structure, incentives, and accountability to work effectively is organizational success possible.

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, SBA’s plan discusses its need to “transition” and “reshape” its workforce to become a 21st century leading edge institution and the agency’s intention to spend $3 million to train its staff in the skills needed to meet its mission. However, the plan does not discuss the types of human resources skills needed to achieve SBA’s fiscal year 2000 performance goals or the types of training to be provided to help ensure that SBA’s staff have the needed skills.

As another example, NRC’s plan uses a table to show the funds and staff that it requested for the 13 programs that constitute the nuclear reactor safety strategic arena. Although NRC provides some information on the recruitment, training, and use of staff, it does not discuss the knowledge, skills, and abilities needed to achieve results. Such a discussion would be particularly helpful since NRC has been downsizing in response to congressional pressure and our prior work has shown several federal agencies’ downsizing efforts were not well-planned and contributed to staff shortages and skills gaps in critical areas.

Unlike most plans, VA’s fiscal year 2000 performance plan provides an example of how a human capital initiative is tied to, and necessary for, achieving performance goals. VA’s plan identifies performance goals to increase compensation claim processing accuracy and to reduce claim- processing time. VA’s performance plan notes that the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) will need to hire and train additional employees to replace a sizable portion of the compensation and pension claims processing workforce who will become eligible for retirement within 5 years. According to its performance plan, to train these new employees as well as existing employees, VBA is developing training packages using instructional systems development methodology and will measure training effectiveness through performance-based testing, which is intended to lead to certification of employees.

A Few Plans Discuss Accountability for Results

High-performing organizations seek to align employee performance management with organizational missions and goals. Our prior work looking at early Results Act implementation efforts found that linking employee performance management to results is a substantial and continuing challenge for agencies. The plans for DOT and VA provide valuable discussions of the approaches those agencies are using to “contract” with senior managers for results. Such discussions are informative because they clearly show the agency’s commitment to achieving results and provide a basis for lessons learned and best practices for other agencies to consider.

DOT’s plan notes that the department has incorporated all of its fiscal year 1999 performance goals into performance agreements between administrators and the Secretary. At monthly meetings with the Deputy Secretary, the administrators are to report progress toward meeting these goals and program adjustments that may be undertaken throughout the year.

VHA, a component of VA, also uses a performance contracting process whereby the Under Secretary for Health negotiates performance agreements with all of VHA’s senior executives. These performance agreements focus on 15 quantifiable performance targets. In addition, executives are held accountable for achieving goals pertaining to workforce diversity, labor-management partnerships, and staff education and training. Plans are under way to extend the performance contract approach throughout VHA.

Agencies are Recognizing the Effects of External Factors on Achieving Performance Goals

Unlike the fiscal year 1999 plans, the majority of the fiscal year 2000 performance plans identify external factors that could affect achievement of strategic and performance goals. However, far fewer agencies discuss the strategies they will use to leverage or mitigate the effects of identified external factors. Such discussions can help congressional and other decisionmakers determine if the agency has the best mix of program strategies in place to achieve its goals or if additional agency or congressional actions are needed to achieve results.

For example, Commerce’s plan identifies many of the external factors that could affect the Patent and Trademark Office’s (PTO) ability to achieve its four strategic goals, but the plan does not clearly describe or indicate how PTO will mitigate the effect of these factors. Under PTO’s strategic goal to “grant exclusive rights, for limited times, to inventors for their discoveries,” the plan states that the patent business’ workload is dependent on foreign economies because about 50 percent of patent applications are from overseas. The plan recognizes that changes in foreign economies could impact PTO’s workload and affect its revenue, but it does not indicate how PTO would adjust to any changes in incoming patent applications from these countries.

An agency that improved in this area over last year is USDA’s Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration (GIPSA). In its fiscal year 1999 plan, GIPSA did not identify any external factors; however, in its fiscal year 2000 plan, it identifies several important external factors and provides mitigation strategies to address them. For example, GIPSA plans to increase the efficiency of grain marketing by streamlining grain inspection and weighing processes and by providing objective measures of, among other things, grain quality.

Performance Plans Provide Limited Confidence That Performance Data Will Be Credible

The majority of the fiscal year 2000 performance plans we reviewed provide only limited confidence that performance information will be credible, and agencies need to make substantial progress in this area. Only the plans for Education, Justice, DOT, and SSA provide even general confidence that their performance information will be credible To assess the degree to which an agency’s plan provides confidence that the agency’s performance information will be credible, we examined whether it describes (1) efforts to verify and validate performance data, and (2) data limitations, including actions to compensate for unavailable or low-quality data and the implications of data limitations for assessing performance. Figure 6 shows the results of our assessment of the 24 agencies. We categorized each agency’s plan based on the degree to which it collectively addressed the two practices presented above.

Most Plans Lack Information on Data Verification and Validation

Like the fiscal year 1999 performance plans, most of the fiscal year 2000 performance plans lack information on the actual procedures the agencies will use to verify and validate performance information. Congressional and executive branch decisionmakers must have assurance that the program and financial data being used will be sufficiently timely, complete, accurate, useful, and consistent if these data are to inform decisionmaking.

Furthermore, in some cases, data sources are not sufficiently identified. For example, the Department of State’s performance plan includes data sources that are sometimes vaguely expressed as “X report” or “Bureau X records.” Also, SBA identifies sources and means to validate performance data typically with one or two word descriptors, such as “publications” or “SBA records.”

Moreover, few agencies provide explicit discussions of how they intend to verify and validate performance data. For example, some of the verification processes described in HHS’ Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s (SAMHSA) performance plan do not provide confidence in the credibility of its performance information. Regarding the validity of data that will be used to measure progress in offering outreach services to homeless and mentally ill persons, SAMHSA states “ince the sources of the data are the local agencies that provide the services, the quality of the data is very good.” SAMHSA appears to be assuming that these data are valid without indicating whether it plans to verify the quality of the data or that it has conducted prior studies that confirm the basis for SAMSHA’s confidence.

Similarly, the performance plan of the Rural Utilities Service (RUS), a component of USDA, contains a limited discussion of the verification and validation of data relating to goals and measures for its electric program. The RUS plan states that (1) the relevant data are available in records from RUS’ automated systems, RUS’ borrower-reported statistics, and USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS); (2) RUS has had long experience with its internal data and is highly confident of its accuracy; and (3) it considers ERS’ data to be very reliable. RUS, however, does not discuss the basis for its confidence in its or ERS’ data accuracy and reliability.

On the other hand, a few agencies incorporated in their performance plans a discussion of procedures to verify and validate data. These procedures include external reviews, standardization of definitions, statistical sampling, and Inspector General quality audits. For example, VA is taking steps to validate measurement systems; developing processes for staff and independent consultants to examine methodologies; having models reviewed by expert panels; and obtaining independent evaluations from nationally recognized experts to review methods of data collection, statistical analysis, and reporting. The plan states that external reviews are essential in order to help depoliticize issues related to data validity and reliability.

Also, Education describes working with the National Postsecondary Education Cooperative to improve the efficiency and usefulness of data reported on postsecondary education by standardizing definitions of key variables, avoiding duplicate data requests, and increasing the level of communications between the major providers and users of postsecondary data. Also, the plan outlines a 5-year strategy to streamline and benchmark the collection of elementary and secondary program data. The goal of this system is to provide accurate, comparable information about federal program results to all program participants. Education also plans to work with its Inspector General to independently monitor the reliability of its data quality in high priority areas, such as student financial aid.

Agencies Generally Do Not Address Data Limitations

Similar to our findings with the fiscal year 1999 performance plans, we found that, in general, the fiscal year 2000 performance plans do not include discussions of strategies to address known data limitations. When performance data are unavailable or of low quality, a performance plan would be more useful to decisionmakers if it briefly discussed how the agency plans to deal with such limitations. Moreover, discussions of the challenges that an agency faces in obtaining high-quality performance data is helpful to decisionmakers in determining the implications for assessing the subsequent achievement of performance goals.

For example, HHS’ ACF performance plan notes that, in the area of child support enforcement, not all states have certified statewide automated systems and some states still maintain their data manually. Additionally, the agency’s Office of Child Support Enforcement has reported that, where these systems are not in place, problems of duplication and missing information could result. Yet, the plan does not discuss the actions ACF will take to compensate for possibly unreliable data.

The Environmental Protection Agency’s performance plan describes the databases used for tracking compliance with requirements under the Safe Drinking Water Act and the Clean Water Act, and the quality assurance and quality control programs, to ensure the accuracy and reliability of these databases. Nevertheless, a number of states have challenged the compliance information in the database for Safe Drinking Water. Although the agency has acknowledged the problem and undertaken a major effort to address it, this data limitation was not discussed in the plan. Thus, decisionmakers are not provided with context that would be helpful in considering whether the agency will be able to confidently report on the degree to which it has achieved its goals.

On the other hand, DOT’s performance plan provides important context for decisionmakers by including a good discussion of data limitations and, in particular, the implications of those limitations for the quality of the data. For example, the plan defines the performance measure for maritime oil spills—gallons spilled per million gallons shipped—as only counting spills of less than one million gallons from regulated vessels and waterfront facilities and not counting other spills. The plan further explains that a limitation to the data is that it may underreport the amount spilled because it excludes nonregulated sources and major oil spills. However, it explains that large oil spills are excluded because they occur rarely and, when they do occur, would have an inordinate influence on statistical trends. The plan also explains that measuring only spills from regulated sources is more meaningful for program management.

A few performance plans provide information on how agencies are working to improve the availability and quality of their data. For example, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) indicates that it is seeking to find ways to improve data quality for some of its performance indicators. For its goal of reducing by 10 percent the number of deaths due to infectious diseases of major public health importance by 2007, USAID reports that no data are available on a country-specific basis and that it will be working with the World Health Organization to collect such data by 2002. In other instances, USAID indicates that it will seek to ensure collection of relevant data by conducting periodic surveys in USAID- assisted countries.

Poor Financial Management Limits Data Quality

Federal decisionmakers must have reliable and timely performance and financial information to ensure adequate accountability, manage for results, and make timely and well-informed judgments. Unfortunately, historically, such information has not been available, and agencies’ and Inspector General reports, as well as our own work, have identified a series of persistent limitations in the availability of quality financial data for decisionmaking. Without reliable data on costs, decisionmakers cannot effectively control and reduce costs, assess performance, and evaluate programs. Under the CFO Act, agencies are expected to fill this gap by developing and deploying more modern financial management systems and routinely producing sound cost information. Toward that end, the 24 agencies covered by the CFO Act have been required to prepare annual audited financial statements since fiscal year 1996. These audits have shown how far many agencies have to go to generate reliable year-end information. Table 1 shows the status of audit opinions for the 24 CFO Act agencies for fiscal year 1998 as of June 30, 1999.

For some agencies, the preparation of financial statements requires considerable reliance on ad hoc programming and analysis of data produced by inadequate financial management systems that are not integrated or reconciled, and that often require significant adjustments. While 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 and management information systems as a means to ensure accountability, increase the economy, improve the efficiency, and enhance the effectiveness of government. These systems must generate timely, accurate, and useful information on an ongoing basis, not just as of the end of the fiscal year. The overarching challenge in generating timely, reliable data throughout the year is overhauling financial and related management information systems.

More fundamentally, the Federal Financial Management Improvement Act of 1996 (FFMIA) requires that agency financial management systems comply with (1) financial systems requirements, (2) federal accounting standards, and (3) the U.S. Government Standard General Ledger at the transaction level. At the time of our report, financial statement audits for fiscal year 1998 had been completed on 20 of the 24 CFO Act agencies. Of those 20, financial management systems for 17 agencies were found by auditors to be in substantial noncompliance with FFMIA’s requirements. The three agencies in compliance were DOE, NASA, and NSF. Examples of reported problems at several agencies are discussed below.

Financial audits at several Commerce bureaus continue to disclose serious data reliability problems. The performance plan does not acknowledge the performance implications of its financial management and consolidated financial statement problems or delays in implementing its new Consolidated Administrative Management System. However, Commerce’s performance plan discusses a request for a $2.1 million increase in funding to (1) target specific problems, ensure the integrity of the department’s financial statements, and achieve an unqualified financial audit opinion across the department and (2) help provide an integrated financial management system to comply with federal accounting requirements.

DOD’s plan acknowledges that data for certain measures and indicators come from financial and accounting systems that have experienced problems. However, as we have reported, long-standing weaknesses in DOD’s financial management operations undermine DOD’s ability to effectively manage it vast operations, limit the reliability of financial information provided to Congress, and continue to result in wasted resources.

In addition, we recently reported that USAID’s internal accounting and information systems do not have the capacity to generate reliable data to support its performance plan and to produce credible performance reports. USAID’s financial management system does not meet the federal financial management systems requirements, and material weaknesses in internal controls impair the integrity of its financial information. The agency has indicated that it is committed to developing a financial management system that will meet federal standards, but the USAID Inspector General recently reported that the agency has made only limited progress in correcting its system deficiencies.

Conclusions

Agencies can continue to build on the progress that has been made over the last year in improving the performance plans by focusing their efforts on five key areas that offer the greatest opportunities for continuing improvements. These areas—which we identified in assessing last year’s plans—include (1) better articulating a results orientation, (2) coordinating crosscutting programs, (3) showing the performance consequences of budget decisions, (4) clearly showing how strategies will be used to achieve results, and (5) building the capacity within agencies to gather and use performance information.

Better articulating a results orientation. The fiscal year 2000 plans provide a general picture of agencies’ intended performance. Each of the plans contains at least some results-oriented goals and related performance measures, and many of the plans contain informative baseline and trend data. Nonetheless, continuing opportunities exist to more consistently articulate a results orientation. Some agencies have used multiyear and intermediate goals to provide clearer pictures of intended performance. Likewise, plans with goals and strategies that address mission-critical management challenges and program risks show that agencies are striving to build the capacity to be high-performing organizations and reduce the risk of waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement.

Coordinating crosscutting programs. Interagency coordination is important for ensuring that crosscutting program efforts are mutually reinforcing and efficiently implemented. While agencies continue to make progress, the substantive work of coordination would be evident if performance plans more often contained complementary performance goals, mutually reinforcing strategies, and common or complementary performance measures. Also not yet widespread are discussions of how crosscutting program efforts are being coordinated. Crosscutting programs, by definition, involve more than one agency, and coordination therefore requires the ability to look across agencies and ensure that the appropriate coordination is taking place. Given OMB’s position in the executive branch, its leadership is particularly important in addressing this issue.

Showing the performance consequences of budget decisions. Some agencies have begun to develop useful linkages between their performance plans and budget requests. However, persistent challenges in performance measurement and deficiencies in cost accounting systems continue to hamper such efforts. The progress that has been made, the challenges that persist, and Congress’ interest in having credible, results-oriented information for making resource allocation decisions underscore the importance of continued improvement in showing the performance consequences of budgetary decisions. In a previous report, we recommended that the Director of OMB assess the approaches agencies are using to link performance goals to the program activities of their budget requests. We further recommended that OMB work with agencies and Congress to develop a constructive and practical agenda to further clarify the relationship between budgetary resources and results.

Clearly showing how strategies will be used to achieve results. While agencies’ fiscal year 2000 plans contain valuable and informative discussions of how strategies and programs relate to goals, additional progress is needed in explaining how strategies and programs will be used to achieve results. Specifying clearly in performance plans how strategies are to be used to achieve results is important to managers and other decisionmakers in order to determine the right mix of strategies, that is, one which maximizes performance while limiting costs. We also found that most fiscal year 2000 performance plans do not sufficiently address how the agency will use its human capital to achieve results. This lack of attention to human capital issues suggests that much more effort is needed to integrate program performance planning and human capital planning.

More generally, linking the use of capital assets and management systems to results still is not consistently being done.

Building the capacity within agencies to gather and use performance information. In order to successfully measure progress toward intended results, agencies need to build the capacity to gather and use performance information. However, most of the agencies’ fiscal year 2000 performance plans provide limited confidence in the credibility of the information that is to be used to assess agencies’ progress toward achieving results. Many plans lack specific detail on the actual procedures the agencies will use to verify and validate performance information, and there are few discussions of known data limitations, such as unavailable or low-quality data, and strategies to address these limitations.

Recommendation to the Director of OMB

We recommend that the Director of OMB ensure that executive agencies make continued progress in improving the usefulness of performance planning for congressional and executive branch decisionmaking. As discussed above, in our assessment of the fiscal year 1999 performance plans, we suggested five key improvement opportunities that provide an ongoing agenda for improving the usefulness of agencies’ performance plans. In assessing the fiscal year 2000 plans, we identified important opportunities for continuing improvements in agencies’ plans in each of those five areas:

Better articulating a results orientation, with particular attention to ensuring that performance plans show how mission-critical management challenges and program risks will be addressed.

Coordinating crosscutting programs, with particular attention to demonstrating that crosscutting programs are taking advantage of opportunities to employ complementary performance goals, mutually reinforcing strategies, and common or complementary performance measures, as appropriate.

Showing the performance consequences of budget and other resource decisions.

Clearly showing how strategies will be used to achieve results, with particular attention to integrating human capital and program performance planning.

Building the capacity within agencies to gather and use performance information, with particular attention to ensuring that agencies provide confidence that performance information will be credible.

Matter for Congressional Consideration

Continued improvements in agencies’ plans should help Congress in building on its recent and ongoing use of performance plans to help inform its own decisionmaking. In that regard, we have long advocated that congressional committees of jurisdiction hold augmented oversight hearings on each of the major agencies at least once each Congress and preferably on an annual basis. Information on missions, goals, strategies, resources, and results could provide a consistent starting point for each of these hearings. Such hearings also will further underscore for agencies the importance that Congress places on creating high-performing executive organizations. Performance planning under the Results Act should allow for more informed discussions about issues such as:

Whether the agency is pursuing the right goals and making progress toward achieving them.

Whether the federal government is effectively coordinating its responses to pressing national needs.

Whether the federal government is achieving an expected level of performance for the budgetary and other resource commitments that have been provided.

The degree to which the agency has the best mix of programs, initiatives, and other strategies to achieve results.

The progress the agency is making in addressing mission-critical management challenges and program risks.

The efforts underway to ensure that the agency’s human capital strategies are linked to strategic and programmatic planning and accountability mechanisms.

The status of the agency’s efforts to use information technology to achieve results.

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation

On July 1, 1999, we provided a draft of this letter to the Director of OMB for comment. We did not ask the Director to comment on the agency appendixes because those appendixes were drawn from our individual reviews of the fiscal year 2000 performance plans, on which the agencies were asked to comment. As indicated in each of the appendixes, the complete text of our observations and agencies’ comments on those observations are included on the Internet. On July 12, 1999, a responsible OMB senior staff member stated that the agency did not have any comments on this report.

As agreed, unless you announce the contents of this report earlier, we plan no further distribution until 30 days from the date of this letter. At that time, we will send copies of this report to Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, Representative Richard A. Gephardt, and Representative Henry A.Waxman in their respective capacities as the Ranking Minority Member of the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, Minority Leader of the House of Representatives, and Ranking Miniority Member of the House Committee on Government Reform. We are also sending copies to the Honorable Jacob J. Lew, Director of OMB, and will make copies available to others on request.

The major contributors to this report are acknowledged in appendix XXVI. If you have any questions about this report or would like to discuss it further, please contact J. Christopher Mihm on (202) 512-8676.

Scope and Methodology

To summarize our observations on agencies’ fiscal year 2000 performance plans and to identify the degree of improvement over the fiscal year 1999 plans, we analyzed the information contained in our observations of the 24 individual CFO Act agencies’ performance plans. Consistent with our approach last year in reviewing the fiscal year 1999 annual plans, our reviews of each of the agencies’ performance plans and our summary analysis of the 24 plans were based on criteria from our evaluator’s guide and our congressional guide, which in turn are based on the Results Act; OMB Circular No. A-11, Part 2; and other related guidance. In the guides, we collapsed the Results Act’s requirements for annual performance plans into three core questions that focus on performance goals and measures, strategies and resources, and verification and validation. The criteria from the guides were supplemented by practices and examples included in our report Agency Performance Plans: Examples of Practices That Can Improve Usefulness to Decisionmakers (GAO/GGD/AIMD-99-69, Feb. 26, 1999), which builds on the improvement opportunities identified in our fiscal year 1999 performance plans’ summary report.

From that work, we derived practices to identify each plan’s strengths and weaknesses and determined the extent to which the plan includes three key elements of informative performance plans: (1) clear picture of intended performance, (2) specific discussion of strategies and resources, and (3) confidence that performance information will be credible. For each of these three key elements, we classified the plan into one of four summary characterizations based on the degree to which the individual plan contains the associated practices.

Clarity of Intended Performance

To assess the first key element, clarity of the picture of intended performance across the agency, we based our judgments on the degree to which an agency’s performance plan contains the following practices: 1. Sets of performance goals and measures that address program results and the important dimensions of program performance and balance competing program priorities.

If appropriate, the plan contains intermediate goals and measures, such as outputs or intermediate outcomes that are linked to end outcomes and show progress or contribution to intended program results.

If appropriate, the plan contains projected target levels of performance for current and multiyear goals to convey what a program is expected to achieve for that year and in the long term. 2. Baseline and trend data for past performance to show how a program’s anticipated performance level compares with improvements or declines in past performance. 3. Performance goals or strategies to resolve mission-critical management problems. 4. Identification of crosscutting programs (i.e., those programs that contribute to the same or similar results), complementary performance goals and common or complementary performance measures to show how differing program strategies are mutually reinforcing, and planned coordination strategies.

To address the first element concerning the degree to which a plan provides a clear picture of intended performance across the agency, we characterized each plan in one of four ways: (1) provides a clear picture of intended performance across the agency, (2) provides a general picture, (3) provides a limited picture, or (4) provides an unclear picture.

Clarity of Strategies and Resources

To assess the second key element, specificity of the discussion of strategies and resources the agency will use to achieve performance goals, we based our judgments on the degree to which an agency’s performance plan contains the following practices: 5. Budgetary resources related to the achievement of performance goals. 6. Strategies and programs linked to specific performance goals and descriptions of how the strategies and programs will contribute to the achievement of those goals. Specifically, does the plan do the following:

Identify planned changes to program approaches in order to accomplish results-oriented goals. For example, the plan may include a description of performance partnerships with state, local, and third party providers that focus accountability while providing the flexibility needed to achieve results.

Explain, through a brief description or reference to a separate document, how proposed capital assets and mission-critical management systems (e.g., information technology, financial management, budget, procurement, grants management, and other systems) will support the achievement of program results. 7. A brief description or reference to a separate document concerning how the agency plans to build, maintain, and marshal the human capital needed to achieve results. 8. Strategies to leverage or mitigate the effects of external factors on the accomplishment of performance goals.

To address the second element concerning the extent to which a plan includes specific discussions of strategies and resources, we characterized each plan in one of four ways: (1) contains specific discussion of strategies and resources, (2) general discussion, (3) limited discussion, or (4) no discussion.

Confidence in Performance Data

To assess the final key element, level of confidence that the agency’s performance information will be credible, we based our judgments on the degree to which an agency’s performance plan contains the following practices: 9. Describes efforts to verify and validate performance data. 10. Describes data limitations, including actions to compensate for unavailable or low-quality data, and the implications of data limitations for assessing performance.

To address the third element concerning the extent to which a plan provides confidence that performance information will be credible, we characterized each plan in one of four ways as providing: (1) full confidence, (2) general confidence, (3) limited confidence, or (4) no confidence.

Degree of Improvement Over Fiscal Year 1999 Plans

To determine the degree of improvement in the individual plans, we also examined the extent to which an agency’s fiscal year 2000 performance plan addressed the weaknesses that we identified in reviewing its fiscal year 1999 plan. Based on our analysis, we determined the level of improvement in agencies’ plans by using one of four characterizations: (1) much improvement; (2) moderate improvement; (3) little, if any, improvement; or (4) no improvement. As needed, we also reviewed parts of selected agencies’ fiscal year 2000 annual performance plans to supplement our analysis of our individual agency reviews and to elaborate further on particular issues. To further help us identify opportunities for agencies to improve future performance plans, we also drew on other related work.

We reviewed agency performance plans from February through June 1999 and did our work according to generally accepted government auditing standards. On July 1, 1999, we requested comments from the Director of OMB on a draft of this report. On July 12, 1999, a responsible OMB senior staff member stated that the agency did not have any comments on this report.

Observations on the Department of Agriculture’s Performance Plan for Fiscal Year 2000

On April 13, 1999, we briefed congressional staff on our analysis of the Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) performance plan for fiscal year 2000. The following are our overall observations on the plan. The complete text (GAO/RCED-99-187) of our observations and USDA’s comments on those observations are available at http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?rced-99-187 only on the Internet.

Agency Comments

We provided a draft of this summary to the U.S. Department of Agriculture on April 14, 1999, for its review and comment. We met with USDA’s Chief Financial Officer; the Director, Planning and Accountability Division; and other USDA officials from the Office of the Chief Financial Officer and the Office of Budget and Program Analysis to obtain their oral comments. The officials generally concurred with our observations, describing them as “fair and balanced.” They provided clarifying comments and technical corrections, which we have incorporated as appropriate. See http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?rced-99-187 for additional information on USDA’s comments (in GAO/RCED 99-187) on our observations.

Key Contact

Observations on the Department of Commerce’s Performance Plan for Fiscal Year 2000

On April 9, 1999, we briefed congressional staff on our analysis of the Department of Commerce’s performance plan for fiscal year 2000. The following are our overall observations on the plan. The complete text (GAO/GGD-99-117R) of our observations and Commerce’s comments on those observations are available at http://www.gao.gov/corresp/gg99117r.pdf only on the Internet.

Agency Comments

On June 4, 1999, we received Commerce’s written comments from the Acting Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Secretary for Administration on a draft of this analysis of Commerce’s fiscal year 2000 annual performance plan. She agreed that Commerce needs to strengthen its efforts to verify and validate performance data. She said that Commerce believes that the verification and validation of performance data is a critical issue and that it devoted considerable effort over the past year to defining its methodology and expects to focus in the coming year on ensuring that its performance measurements are reliable and useful. However, she said that there are two major areas in which Commerce disagrees with the draft. These areas are our (1) characterization that Commerce has made only “moderate” improvement relative to its fiscal year 1999 plan and (2) observation that the plan does not provide a complete picture of intended performance for the 2000 Decennial Census. See http://www.gao.gov/corresp/gg99117r.pdf for additional information on Commerce’s comments (in GAO/GGD-99-117R) on our observations.

Key Contact

Observations on the Department of Defense’s Performance Plan for Fiscal Year 2000

On April 16, 1999, we briefed congressional staff on our analysis of the Department of Defense’s (DOD) performance plan for fiscal year 2000. The following are our overall observations on the plan. The complete text (GAO/NSIAD-99-178R) of our observations and DOD’s comments on those observations is available at http://www.gao.gov/corresp/ns99178r.pdf only on the Internet.

Agency Comments

In oral comments on a draft of our observations, DOD did not agree with our overall assessment of the performance plan and asked that we include their view on two issues. First, DOD officials stated the principal output and outcome of DOD’s annual budget is a specified military force ready to go to war, and the fiscal year 2000 performance plan defines performance goals relevant to that objective. The performance goals establish a measurable path to achievement of the corporate goals articulated in the Department’s strategic plan. Second, officials stated that our characterization of the plan as being of limited use to decisionmakers does not fully reflect their views. They noted that this year’s plan contains more information and is more useful to internal departmental decisionmakers than last year’s plan. However, they recognized that the plan could be made more useful to external decisionmakers by including additional information such as more outcome-oriented measures for business operations such as logistics, which accounts for over half of the Department’s budget.

We agree that ready forces are a key output of DOD’s efforts. However, we continue to believe that better results information will require a qualitative assessment of the conduct of military missions, as well as an assessment of investments in technology to improve weapons capabilities. See http://www.gao.gov/corresp/ns99178r.pdf for additional information on DOD’s comments (in GAO/NSIAD-99-178R) on our observations.

Key Contact

Observations on the Department of Education’s Performance Plan for Fiscal Year 2000

On April 9, 1999, we briefed congressional staff on our analysis of the Department of Education’s performance plan for fiscal year 2000. The following are our overall observations on the plan. The complete text (GAO/HEHS-99-136R) of our observations and the Department of Education’s comments on those observations are available at http://www.gao.gov/corresp/he99136r.pdf only on the Internet.

Agency Comments

On May 4, 1999, we obtained oral comments from Department of Education officials, including the Director of Planning and Evaluation Service and staff from its Office of Legislation and Congressional Affairs, on a draft of our summary of Education’s fiscal year 2000 annual performance plan. These officials generally agreed with our assessment. They said it provided an accurate and constructive opinion of their fiscal year 2000 performance plan. They also acknowledged that additional work is needed in certain areas of the plan and they plan to continue working with the OMB and others to further improve the plan. See http://www.gao.gov/corresp/he99136r.pdf for additional information on Education’s comments (in GAO/HEHS-99-136R) on our observations.

Key Contact

Observations on the Department of Energy’s Performance Plan for Fiscal Year 2000

On April 8, 1999, we briefed congressional staff on our analysis of the Department of Energy’s (DOE) performance plan for fiscal year 2000. The following are our overall observations on the plan. The complete text (GAO/RCED-99-218R) of our observations and DOE’s comments on those observations are available at http://www.gao.gov/corresp/rc99218r.pdf only on the Internet.

Agency Comments

On April 13, 1999, we obtained oral comments from the Director, Strategic Planning, Budget & Program Evaluation and members of his office, on a draft of our analysis of DOE’s fiscal year 2000 annual performance plan. These officials generally agreed with our observations but pointed out several areas they felt needed correction and clarification. DOE believes its use of goals for three fiscal years in the annual plan provides a context for evaluating the reasonableness of the goals. However, DOE also believes the goals of the strategic plan need to be quantifiable to provide a more clear context. We revised the language in the report to show that the goals of the strategic plan need to be quantifiable. Additionally, DOE believes that we improperly used a weakness in its estimating of environmental liabilities in its performance verification and validation process because it is not a performance issue. We agree and deleted this information from the report. Finally, since DOE intends to complete all of its “Year 2000” activities by September 30, 1999, it did not include goals for this effort in its annual plan. We believe that DOE should include Year 2000 goals in the annual plan because (1) their tight schedule leaves little time to address unanticipated concerns and (2) several agencies will be developing and testing some Year 2000 strategies through the end of 1999. See http://www.gao.gov/corresp/rc99218r.pdf for additional information on DOE’s comments (in GAO/RCED-99-218R) on our observations.

Key Contact

Observations on the Department of Health and Human Services’ Performance Plan for Fiscal Year 2000

On April 13, 1999, we briefed congressional staff on our analysis of the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) performance plan for fiscal year 2000. The following are our overall observations on the plan. The complete text (GAO/HEHS-99-149R) of our observations and HHS’ comments on those observations are available at http://www.gao.gov/corresp/he99149r.pdf only on the Internet.

Agency Comments

On April 27, 1999, the HHS Assistant Secretary of Management and Budget provided written comments on our draft observations on the HHS plan. The Department generally did not agree with our assessment; it also stated that it will continue to work with the Office of Management and Budget and HHS’ performance partners to ensure that future plans continue to provide data that support budget and program decisions. HHS disagreed with our observations in five specific areas: (1) agency performance goals are not consistently measurable; (2) the plan does not adequately address key management challenges; (3) HHS will not have credible data; (4) HHS does not adequately discuss the strategies and resources the agency will use to achieve its performance goals; and (5) HHS does not provide sufficient information about strategies to mitigate external factors and to marshal the human capital needed to achieve results. We made technical corrections where appropriate, but continue to believe that our assessment was accurate. For example, we noted that some significant programs do not have performance goals. See http://www.gao.gov/corresp/he99149r.pdf for additional information on HHS’ comments (in GAO/HEHS-99-149R) on our observations.

Key Contacts

Observations on the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Performance Plan for Fiscal Year 2000

On April 22, 1999, we briefed congressional staff on our analysis of the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) performance plan for fiscal year 2000. The following are our overall observations on the plan. The complete text (GAO/RCED-99-208R) of our observations and HUD’s comments on those observations are available at http://www.gao.gov/corresp/rc99208r.pdf only on the Internet.

Agency Comments

We provided HUD with a draft of this report for review and comment. On May 11, 1999, Deputy Secretary Saul N. Ramirez responded with written comments. In these comments, HUD generally agreed with our report, stated that it captured the annual performance plan’s major improvements, and stated that the Department is committed to taking specific actions to improve in the areas we identified. However, HUD raised specific concerns about our observations on the credibility of its performance measurement data and its interagency coordination strategies. We did not revise our observations as a result of the comments; however, we modified the report, where appropriate, to clarify our observations on how the plan could be improved. See http://www.gao.gov/corresp/rc99208r.pdf for additional information on HUD’s comments (in GAO/RCED-99-208R) on our observations.

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Observations on the Department of the Interior’s Performance Plan for Fiscal Year 2000

On May 17, 1999, we briefed congressional staff on our analysis of the Department of the Interior’s performance plan for fiscal year 2000. The following are our overall observations on the plan. The complete text (GAO/RCED-99-207R) of our observations and Interior’s comments on those observations are available at http://www.gao.gov/corresp/rc99207r.pdf only on the Internet.

Agency Comments

On April 7, 1999, we met with Interior officials, including the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Budget and Finance, the Director of the Office of Planning and Performance Management, and the Director of the Office of Financial Management to obtain agency comments. We were subsequently provided written comments on April 9, 1999. Interior officials believe that its fiscal year 2000 performance plan meets the requirements of the Results Act and the guidelines provided by the Office of Management and Budget in Circular A-11. However, the Department acknowledges that improvements can be made to its plan. Interior also noted that the development of its performance plan is an iterative process and that progress will continue as the agency gains additional knowledge and experience with performance-based, results-oriented management. The Department did not agree with our observation that it had not made significant progress in the area of validating and verifying performance information. While they believe that some improvements can be made, they said that the fiscal year 2000 plan includes validation processes for each measure and that we did not give them enough credit for the progress they made in describing the information on the validation and verification measures in their plans. We agreed that the department improved its discussion of validation and verification measures over its fiscal year 1999 plans and that additional improvements can be made. See http://www.gao.gov/corresp/rc99207r.pdf for additional information on Interior’s comments (in GAO/RCED-99-207R) on our observations.

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Observations on the Department of Justice’s Performance Plan for Fiscal Year 2000

On March 30, 1999, we briefed congressional staff on our analysis of the Department of Justice’s performance plan for fiscal year 2000. The following are our overall observations of the plan. The complete text (GAO/GGD-99-111R) of our observations and Justice’s comments on those observations is available at http://www.gao.gov/corresp/gg99111r.pdf only on the Internet.

Agency Comments

generally agreed with the draft of our analysis. See http://www.gao.gov/corresp/gg99111r.pdf for additional information on Justice’s comments (in GAO/GGD-99-111R) on our observations.

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Observations on the Department of Labor’s Performance Plan for Fiscal Year 2000

On April 9, 1999, we briefed congressional staff on our analysis of the Department of Labor’s performance plan for fiscal year 2000. The following are our overall observations on the plan. The complete text (GAO/HEHS-99-152R) of our observations and Labor’s comments on those observations are available at http://www.gao.gov/corresp/he99152r.pdf only on the Internet.

Agency Comments

On April 21, 1999, we obtained written comments from the Department of Labor’s Assistant Secretary for Administration and Management on a draft of our analysis of the Department of Labor’s fiscal year 2000 annual performance plan. Labor generally concurred with our observations of the plan’s strengths and weaknesses and acknowledged the needed plan improvements in the areas of improved data quality, better descriptions of collaboration efforts, and clearer linkages between strategies and goals. Labor also stated that it will use our analysis of its fiscal year 2000 plan as a basis for improvements to the next version of its performance plan. See http://www.gao.gov/corresp/he99152r.pdf for additional information on Labor’s comments (in GAO/HEHS-99-152R) on our observations.

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Observations on the Department of State’s Performance Plan for Fiscal Year 2000

On April 8, 1999, we briefed congressional staff on our analysis of the Department of State’s performance plan for fiscal year 2000. The following are our overall observations on the plan. The complete text (GAO/NSIAD- 99-183R) of our observations and the Department of State’s comments on those observations are available at http://www.gao.gov/corresp/ns99183r.pdf only on the Internet.

Agency Comments

On April 13, 1999, we obtained comments from officials of State's Office of Management Policy and Planning and the Bureau of Finance and Management Policy on a draft of our analysis of the agency's fiscal year 2000 annual performance plan. These officials generally agreed with our analysis. However, they questioned the need for identifying the roles, responsibilities, and complementary performance goals and measures of other agencies with crosscutting programs. They believe that adding more detailed references to other agencies goes beyond what time and resources will allow. They also requested a more explicit discussion of the requirement that the plan show how State's personnel, capital assets, and mission-critical management systems contribute to achieving performance goals. We have included additional guidance on this issue in our analysis. See http://www.gao.gov/corresp/ns99183r.pdf for additional information on State’s comments (in GAO/NSIAD-99-183R) on our observations.

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Observations on the Department of Transportation’s Performance Plan for Fiscal Year 2000

On April 7, 1999, we briefed congressional staff on our analysis of the Department of Transportation’s (DOT) performance plan for fiscal year 2000. The following are our overall observations on the plan. The complete text (GAO/RCED-99-153) of our observations and DOT’s comments on those observations are available at http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?rced-99-153 only on the Internet.

Agency Comments

We provided copies of a draft of these observations to DOT for review and comment. The Department stated that it appreciated GAO’s favorable review of its fiscal year 2000 performance plan and indicated that it had put much work into making improvements over the fiscal year 1999 plan by addressing our comments on that plan. DOT made several suggestions to clarify the discussion of its financial accounting system, which we incorporated. The Department acknowledged that work remains to be done to improve its financial accounting system and stated that it has established plans to do this. DOT also acknowledged the more general need for good data systems to implement the Results Act and indicated that it is working to enhance those systems. See http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?rced-99-153 for additional information on DOT’s comments (in GAO/RCED-99-153) on our observations.

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Observations on the Department of the Treasury’s Performance Plan for Fiscal Year 2000

On April 16, 1999, we briefed congressional staff on our analysis of the Department of the Treasury’s performance plan for fiscal year 2000. The following are our overall observations on the plan. The complete text (GAO/GGD-99-114R) of our observations and Treasury’s comments on those observations are available at http://www.gao/corresp/gg99114r.pdf only on the Internet.

Agency Comments

On June 14, 1999, we met with the Director of Treasury’s Office of Strategic Planning and Evaluation and members of his staff to obtain oral comments on a draft of this report. The officials generally agreed with our analysis and provided some technical comments, which we incorporated as appropriate. They also said that Treasury is continually trying to improve its strategic and performance plans. Among other things, Treasury plans to ensure that updates to its bureaus’ and offices’ strategic plans include goals for high-risk programs and major management challenges. In addition, Treasury’s Office of Inspector General plans to work with the bureaus and offices to help improve their capacity to provide confidence that the performance data used to measure progress are verified and validated. See http://www.gao/corresp/gg99114r.pdf for additional information on Treasury’s comments (in GAO/GGD-99-114R) on our observations.

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Observations on the Department of Veterans Affairs’ Performance Plan for Fiscal Year 2000

On April 6, 1999, we briefed congressional staff on our analysis of the Department of Veterans Affairs’ (VA) performance plan for fiscal year 2000. The following are our overall observations on the plan. The complete text (GAO/HEHS-99-138R) of our observations and VA’s comments on those observations are available at http://www.gao.gov/corresp/he99138r.pdf only on the Internet.

Agency Comments

measures for its major programs, OMB Circular A-11 recommends that plans include performance goals for management problems, particularly those that are mission critical, that could potentially impede achievement of program goals. See http://www.gao.gov/corresp/he99138r.pdf for additional information on VA’s comments (in GAO/HEHS-99-138R) on our observations.

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Observations on the Environmental Protection Agency’s Performance Plan for Fiscal Year 2000

On April 16, 1999, we briefed congressional staff on our analysis of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) performance plan for fiscal year 2000. The following are our overall observations on the plan. The complete text (GAO/RCED-99-237R) of our observations and EPA’s comments on those observations are available at http://www.gao.gov/corresp/rc99237r.pdf only on the Internet.

Agency Comments

On April 13, 1999, we obtained comments from EPA on a draft of our analysis of the agency’s fiscal year 2000 annual performance plan. EPA generally agreed with our analysis and appreciated our constructive review, saying that it would continue to strive for improvements in its plan. The agency also commented on several of our observations and discussed its actions to improve the quality of its databases and information systems. See http://www.gao.gov/corresp/rc99237r.pdf for additional information on EPA’s comments (in GAO/RCED-99-237R) on our observations.

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Observations on the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Performance Plan for Fiscal Year 2000

On April 7, 1999, we briefed congressional staff on our analysis of the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) performance plan for fiscal year 2000. The following are our overall observations on the plan. The complete text (GAO/RCED-99-226R) of our observations and FEMA’s comments on those observations are available at http://www.gao.gov/corresp/rc99226r.pdf only on the Internet.

Agency Comments

questioned several of our observations, including noting that FEMA included information on external factors that could affect its ability to achieve its performance goals in both its September 30, 1997, strategic plan and within certain performance goals in the performance plan. We believe FEMA should include additional references to how specific external factors could have an impact on individual performance goals and the actions FEMA can take to mitigate these factors. In addition, FEMA’s Director clarified and updated certain information, which we incorporated in our observations where appropriate. See http://www.gao.gov/corresp/rc99226r.pdf for additional information on FEMA’s comments (in GAO/RCED-99-226R) on our observations.

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Observations on the General Services Administration’s Performance Plan for Fiscal Year 2000

On April 7, 1999, we briefed congressional staff on our analysis of the General Services Administration’s (GSA) performance plan for fiscal year 2000. The following are our overall observations on the plan. The complete text (GAO/GGD-99-113R) of our observations and GSA’s comments on those observations are available at http://www.gao.gov/corresp/gg99113r.pdf only on the Internet.

Agency Comments

On March 30, 1999, GSA’s Chief Financial Officer, Director of Budget, and Managing Director for Planning provided oral agency comments on a draft of our analysis of GSA’s fiscal year 2000 performance plan. They generally agreed with our analysis and said it would help them correct the weaknesses we identified as they develop next year’s plan. See http://www.gao.gov/corresp/gg99113r.pdf for additional information on GSA’s comments (in GAO/GGD-99-113R) on our observations.

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Observations on the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Performance Plan for Fiscal Year 2000

On April 22, 1999, we briefed congressional staff on our analysis of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) performance plan for fiscal year 2000. The following are our overall observations on the plan. The complete text (GAO/NSIAD-99-186R) of our observations and NASA’s comments on those observations are available at http://www.gao.gov/corresp/ns99186r.pdf only on the Internet.

Agency Comments

On April 27, 1999, we obtained written comments from NASA’s Associate Administrator on a draft of our analysis of NASA’s fiscal year 2000 annual performance plan. In commenting on a draft of our analysis, the Associate Deputy Administrator stated that the agency generally believes that our report is balanced and will endeavor to use our observations in improving the management of the agency. NASA raised concern about three issues that we identified in our analysis. One involved the inclusion of major management challenges identified by the NASA OIG in the plan. NASA stated that the report containing the OIG’s management challenges was issued subsequent to the agency’s formulation, selection, and submittal of its performance targets to the Office of Management and Budget. NASA contends that the OIG’s management challenges were identified too late to enable inclusion in the performance plan. See http://www.gao.gov/corresp/ns99186r.pdf for additional information on NASA’s comments (in GAO/NSIAD-99-186R) on our observations.

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Observations on the National Science Foundation’s Performance Plan for Fiscal Year 2000

On April 7, 1999, we briefed congressional staff on our analysis of the National Science Foundation (NSF) performance plan for fiscal year 2000. The following are our overall observations on the plan. The complete text (GAO/RCED-99-206R) of our observations and NSF’s comments on those observations are available at http://www.gao.gov/corresp/rc99206r.pdf only on the Internet.

Agency Comments

On April 21, 1999, we obtained comments from NSF officials, including the Deputy Director, on a draft of our analysis of the agency’s fiscal year 2000 annual performance plan. These officials generally agreed with the observations made in the draft. They provided clarification on several points about the linkages between performance and resources and about issues concerning measurement and data verification and validation. We incorporated this information in the report as appropriate. NSF officials pointed out that the Foundation is one of the only agencies using the qualitative method to assess performance in research and education by using the alternative format. To test this approach, officials are using its Committees of Visitors process to assess performance for NSF’s first performance report for March 2000. This point was incorporated in the body of the report. See http://www.gao.gov/corresp/rc99206r.pdf for additional information on NSF’s comments (in GAO/RCED-99-206R) on our observations.

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Observations on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Performance Plan for Fiscal Year 2000

On April 19, 1999, we briefed congressional staff on our analysis of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC) performance plan for fiscal year 2000. The following are our overall observations on the plan. The complete text (GAO/RCED-99-213R) of our observations and NRC’s comments on those observations are available at http://www.gao.gov/corresp/rc99213r.pdf only on the Internet.

Agency Comments

On April 12, 1999, we obtained oral comments from NRC staff, including the Deputy Chief Financial Officer, Office of the Chief Financial Officer, on a draft of our analysis of the fiscal year 2000 annual performance plan. With the exception of the information on NRC’s performance information, the agency generally agreed with our observations. In addition, NRC staff said that the agency is committed to moving to an outcome-oriented, performance-based organization and recognizes that a multiyear effort will be required to do so. They also said that it would be very difficult to show the impact that the agency’s programs have on nuclear industry performance or the safe operation of plants. See http://www.gao.gov/corresp/rc99213r.pdf for additional information on NRC’s comments (in GAO/RCED-99-213R) on our observations.

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Observations on the Office of Personnel Management’s Performance Plan for Fiscal Year 2000

On April 6, 1999, we briefed congressional staff on our analysis of the Office of Personnel Management’s (OPM) performance plan for fiscal year 2000. The following are our overall observations on the plan. The complete text (GAO/GGD-99-125) of our observations and OPM’s comments on those observations are available at http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?ggd-99-125 only on the Internet.

Agency Comments

information on OPM’s comments (in GAO/GGD-99-125) on our observations.

Key Contact

Observations on the Small Business Administration’s Performance Plan for Fiscal Year 2000

On April 8, 1999, we briefed congressional staff on our analysis of the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) performance plan for fiscal year 2000. The following are our overall observations on the plan. The complete text (GAO/RCED-99-211R) of our observations and SBA’s comments on those observations are available at http://www.gao.gov/corresp/rc99211r.pdf only on the Internet.

Agency Comments

recognizes that SBA improved its fiscal year 2000 performance plan and gives SBA credit for such improvements. At the same time, it is our position that SBA’s fiscal year 2000 plan has improved little, if any, over the agency’s fiscal year 1999 plan because a number of key weaknesses that we observed in the fiscal year 1999 plan remain in the fiscal year 2000 plan. See http://www.gao.gov/corresp/rc99211r.pdf for additional information on SBA’s comments (in GAO/RCED-99-211R) on our observations.

Key Contact

Observations on the Social Security Administration’s Performance Plan for Fiscal Year 2000

On April 8, 1999, we briefed congressional staff on our analysis of the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) performance plan for fiscal year 2000. The following are our overall observations on the plan. The complete text (GAO/HEHS-99-162R) of our observations and SSA’s comments on those observations are available at http://www.gao.gov/corresp/he99162r.pdf only on the Internet.

Agency Comments

access and manipulation. The agency also noted that its systems have undergone tests to ensure that intrusions should not occur. We agree that progress has been made in the area of internal controls. However, vulnerabilities remain and further actions are needed to ensure the integrity of SSA’s performance data. See http://www.gao.gov/corresp/he99162r.pdf for additional information on SSA’s comments (in GAO/HEHS-99-162R) on our observations.

Key Contact

Observations on the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Annual Performance Plan for Fiscal Year 2000

On April 16, 1999, we briefed congressional staff on our analysis of the U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID) performance plan for fiscal year 2000. The following are our overall observations on the plan. The complete text (GAO/NSIAD-99-188R) of our observations and USAID’s comments on those observations are available at http://www.gao.gov/corresp/ns99188r.pdf only on the Internet.

Agency Comments

On May 4, 1999, we obtained comments from USAID officials, including the Deputy Assistant Administrator, Bureau for Policy and Program Coordination, on a draft of our analysis of USAID’s fiscal year 2000 annual performance plan. These officials generally agreed with our analysis. In addition, with respect to our comments regarding the need to link agency goals with individual country goals, they noted that USAID is currently developing methods of improving the linkage among the Annual Performance Plan, the Annual Performance Report, and the country coverage provided in USAID’s Congressional Presentation. They also noted that they are exploring ways to improve the quality of data used to assess performance. See http://www.gao.gov/corresp/ns99188r.pdf for additional information on USAID’s comments (in GAO/NSIAD-99-188R) on our observations.

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GAO Contacts and Staff Acknowledgments

GAO Contacts

Acknowledgments

In addition to the individual named above, Dottie Self, Joe Wholey, Lauren Alpert, Jan Bogus, Donna Byers, Laura Castro, Anita Pilch, Susan Ragland, Kim Raheb, Lisa Shames, and Marlene Zacharias made key contributions to this report.

The examples used in this report are drawn from the assessments of the individual agency annual performance plans that were done by staff across GAO. Thus, in addition to the individuals named above, the staff who worked on the individual agency plan assessments also made important contributions to this report. The individuals are identified in the separate products on agency plans available on the Internet.

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