NTSB was established in 1966 as an independent government agency located within the newly formed DOT. In 1974, Congress made NTSB completely separate from DOT. NTSB’s principal responsibility is to promote transportation safety by investigating transportation accidents, determining the probable cause, and issuing recommendations to address safety issues identified during accident investigations. Unlike other transportation agencies, such as the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), NTSB does not have the authority to promulgate regulations to promote safety, but makes recommendations in its accident reports and safety studies to other agencies that have such regulatory authority. The federal agencies that receive NTSB recommendations include the DOT’s FAA, Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), Federal Transit Administration (FTA), National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), and the U.S. Coast Guard. NTSB also makes recommendations to others, such as state transportation authorities and industries. As figure 1 indicates, NTSB has varying degrees of flexibility in its statutory mandate, as it pertains to initiating an investigation. By statute, NTSB has limited discretion in deciding which aviation accidents to investigate and the greatest amount of discretion to investigate highway accidents. NTSB is comprised of a five member board—a chairman, vice chairman, and three members—appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate. The chairman is NTSB’s chief executive and administrative officer. As of March 2006, the board was supported by a staff of 396, which includes 210 investigators assigned to four modal offices—aviation; highway; marine; and rail, pipeline, hazardous materials. (See fig. 2.) The agency is headquartered in Washington, D.C., and maintains 10 field offices nationwide and a training academy in Ashburn, Virginia, in suburban Washington, D.C. In recent years, the agency has shrunk in size due to budget constraints, which it has largely dealt with by using attrition to downsize the staff. In 2003, NTSB had 438 full time employees compared with the current level of 396. During the same period, the number of full-time investigators decreased from 234 to 210. NTSB’s modal offices vary in size, with the aviation office having 125 employees; the rail, pipeline, and hazardous materials office having 38; the highway office having 30; and the marine office having 16 employees as of May 2006. An additional 42 employees work in the Office of Research and Engineering, which provides technical, laboratory, analytical, and engineering support for the modal investigation offices. For example, it is responsible for interpreting data recorders, creating accident computer simulations, and publishing general safety studies. NTSB’s budget increased from $62.9 million in fiscal year 2001 to $76.7 million in fiscal year 2006, or about 22 percent. After adjusting for inflation, this represents an increase of about 9 percent. The President has requested $79.6 million for NTSB in fiscal year 2007. Since 1966, NTSB has investigated over 124,000 aviation accidents and over 10,000 surface transportation accidents. Figure 3 shows the total number of aviation investigations that NTSB has undertaken over the past 6 years and the degree to which NTSB was involved in the investigations. NTSB lacks the resources to conduct on-scene investigations of all aviation accidents. As a result, for general aviation accidents, NTSB delegates the gathering of on-scene information to FAA investigators, as allowed by statute. In these limited investigations, FAA sends the accident information to NTSB, and NTSB then determines a probable cause for the accident. In addition, NTSB participates in the investigations of foreign aviation accidents in conformance with Annex 13 of the International Civil Aeronautics Organization Treaty. These investigations involve a U.S. carrier or U.S.-built aircraft, or occur at the request of a foreign government. NTSB aviation investigators told us that there is often significant value in participating in such investigations; the findings often have safety implications for U.S. carriers, since most foreign airlines use U.S.-made aircraft, engines, and other parts and multiple foreign air carriers operate within the United States. Through our work government wide we have identified a number of key functional areas and leading practices in areas that are important for managing an agency. This testimony focuses on NTSB’s performance in five key functional areas—strategic planning, performance management, human capital, financial management, and communications—and how NTSB’s practices compare to leading practices in those areas. As illustrated in figure 4, NTSB generally is following leading practices in financial management, only minimally following leading practices in strategic planning, and has mixed results for the other functions. Much of NTSB’s progress toward following leading practices is due to recent management initiatives. The report we will be issuing later this year will provide additional information on NTSB’s performance relative to these five management functions, as well as information technology, acquisition management (including the agency’s use of contracting), knowledge management, and capital decisionmaking. The Congress and the President have encouraged better management of federal agencies by means such as results-oriented strategic planning, but NTSB’s strategic plan generally does not follow performance-based practices. Without effective short- and long-term planning, federal agencies risk delivering programs and services that may or may not meet the nation’s most critical needs. The Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 (GPRA) and guidance contained in the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) Circular A-11, provide performance-based strategic planning guidelines. GPRA was intended to achieve several broad purposes, including improving federal program effectiveness, accountability, and service delivery, and enhancing congressional decision making by providing more objective information on program performance. GPRA requires federal agencies to develop strategic plans in which they define their missions, establish results-oriented goals, and identify the strategies that will be needed to achieve those goals. For instance, GPRA requires strategic plan updates at least every 3 years, and requires that agencies set objectives and goals that are specific outcomes that the organization wishes to accomplish (called outcome-related objectives). To its credit, in December 2005, NTSB issued a strategic plan for the years 2006 through 2010, which was the first time the agency had a strategic plan in 6 years. In developing that plan, senior agency officials told us that they modeled their plan on examples from other federal agencies with similar structure and mission, such as the Federal Communications Commission. We compared NTSB’s strategic plan to selected elements required by GPRA. (See fig. 5.) While NTSB’s 5-year strategic plan has a mission statement, four general goals and related objectives, and mentions key factors, such as declining resources, that could affect the agency’s ability to achieve those goals, the plan lacks a number of key elements—including information about the operational processes; skills and technology; and the human, capital, and information resources—required to meet the goals and objectives. In addition, the goals and objectives lack sufficient specificity to know whether they have been achieved. One goal states “NTSB will maintain its response capacity for investigation of accidents and increase its analysis of incidents.” An objective of that goal is to “continuously assess the most robust and efficient approaches to accident investigation.” Although such a goal is important for the safety of the transportation industry, this and the other three goals and related objectives are not measurable. As a result, it will be difficult for NTSB and others to determine if the goals have been achieved. In addition, the plan lacks specific strategies for achieving those goals. According to GPRA, the strategies should include a description of the operational processes, skills and technology, and the resources required to meet the goals and objectives. Since NTSB’s strategic plan lacks such a description, it does not align staffing, training, or other human resource management to strategic goals. That is, the plan does not explicitly explain how NTSB will use its resources to meet its mission and goals. While the plan explains that each program office has its own objectives linked to the agency’s goals and objectives, the plan contains no information to understand how each office contributes to those goals and objectives. In addition, NTSB’s strategic plan does not describe how the performance goals contained in the annual performance plan are related to the general goals and objectives in the strategic plan, as required by GPRA. GPRA also requires federal agencies to provide a description in their strategic plans of the program evaluations used in establishing or revising general goals and objectives and a schedule for future program evaluation. NTSB’s strategic plan lacks this information. As a result of having no program evaluations, it is unclear how or whether NTSB reviews its efforts to identify strengths it can maximize and weaknesses it should address. In developing a strategic plan, GRPA requires agencies to consult with Congress and other stakeholders. We have previously reported that other stakeholders of federal agencies include state and local governments, other federal agencies, interest groups, and agency employees. NTSB’s strategic plan does not mention consultation with any stakeholders in its development. Furthermore, board members and agency staff told us that they had no involvement in the development of the strategic plan. Some current and past board members additionally stated that they believed that their involvement would be beneficial in providing a strategic vision for the agency. NTSB’s senior management told us they expect to revise the strategic plan in the near future and contacted us regarding assistance to develop a more comprehensive, results-oriented plan as part of this study. NTSB has begun to develop a performance management system that should eventually link each individual’s performance throughout the agency to the agency’s strategic goals and objectives.