A number of areas on the President’s Management Agenda are consistent with issues highlighted by our work on the High Risk Program, our annual reports on fragmentation, overlap, and duplication, and other work related to long-standing management challenges. Over the years, we have made hundreds of recommendations to address these issues. The current and prior administrations have taken actions to address many of these recommendations, and have made progress in many areas. Much more, however, remains to be done. Lasting solutions to remaining issues offer the potential to save billions of dollars, dramatically improve service to the American public, and strengthen public confidence and trust in the performance and accountability of our national government. Examples of where the President’s Management Agenda and our work are consistent include: Using information technology (IT) to better manage for results. The government invests about $80 billion annually in IT. Improving the transparency of about 700 major IT investments with the IT Dashboard can help focus attention on troubled projects. In addition, holding executive reviews, known as TechStat sessions, of selected investments that are not producing results has resulted in positive outcomes such as accelerated delivery, reduced scope, and termination. We have made recommendations to improve the accuracy and use of the IT Dashboard and for the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and agencies to hold more TechStat sessions. OMB has generally concurred with our Dashboard recommendations and has taken actions such as improving the accuracy of the reported investment cost and schedule data. OMB also agreed with our recommendation to hold more TechStat sessions and stated that OMB and the agencies were taking appropriate steps to meet that recommendation. Other IT initiatives such as PortfolioStat and Data Center Consolidation can eliminate duplicative investments and close hundreds of centers, resulting in billions in savings. For example, we recently reported that the PortfolioStat initiative has the potential to save between $5.8 and $7.9 billion. We have made multiple recommendations to OMB and agencies to more fully implement and report on eliminating duplicative and inefficient IT investments. OMB agreed with some of these recommendations and subsequently clarified its guidance on how agencies should identify potentially duplicative investments. Further, agencies have also generally agreed with our recommendations and taken steps such as conducting portfolio reviews to identify duplicative investments and report those results via the IT Dashboard. Addressing improper payments. The federal government serves as the steward of taxpayer dollars and should safeguard them against improper payments. The President’s Management Agenda is consistent with our prior reporting that predictive analytic technologies can help agencies better identify and prevent improper payments. Further, OMB reported that it plans to develop more detailed categories of improper payments, which can help agencies tailor corrective action plans to better address the root causes of improper payments. In fiscal year 2013, estimated governmentwide improper payments totaled approximately $106 billion; however, this may not cover the full extent of improper payments throughout the federal government. In order to determine the full extent of improper payments governmentwide and to more effectively reduce and recover them, continued attention is needed to (1) adopt sound risk assessment and improper payment estimation methodologies and (2) develop effective corrective action plans and preventive and detective controls to address the root causes of improper payments. Expanding strategic sourcing. One area that could yield significant cost savings is the expanded use of strategic sourcing, a process that moves away from numerous individual procurements to a broader aggregate approach. Our work has found that federal agencies could better leverage their buying power and achieve additional savings by directing more procurement spending to existing strategic sourcing contracts and further expanding strategic sourcing practices to their highest spending procurement categories. For example, most agencies’ efforts do not address their highest spending areas such as services. We estimated that savings of one percent from selected large agencies’ procurement spending alone would equate to over $4 billion. In that regard, the President’s Management Agenda calls on federal agencies to expand the use of strategic sourcing to better leverage the government’s buying power and reduce contract duplication. It did not, however, lay out specific governmentwide metrics or savings goals. We had previously recommended that OMB establish additional metrics to measure progress toward goals. OMB has efforts underway to address this recommendation. Strengthening strategic human capital management. Consistent with the President’s Management Agenda goal to attract and retain a talented workforce, foster a culture of excellence, and invest in the Senior Executive Service (SES), we have reported that addressing complex challenges such as homeland security, economic stability, and other national priorities requires a high-quality workforce able to work seamlessly with other agencies, levels of government, and across sectors. Strategic human capital management has been on our High Risk List since 2001. Since then, as a result of actions taken by Congress, the Office of Personnel Management, and individual agencies, important progress has been made. Still, additional efforts are needed in such areas as human capital planning, building results-oriented cultures, and talent management, such as (1) addressing government-wide and agency- specific skill gaps and enhancing workforce diversity, (2) strengthening performance management systems to improve the “line of sight” between individual performance and organizational outcomes, and (3) fully assessing the costs and benefits of SES training. Improving the Department of Defense’s (DOD) weapons systems and services acquisition. The President’s Management Agenda is consistent with our findings and recommendations on improving the Department of Defense’s (DOD) acquisition of weapon systems and services, issues that have been on GAO’s High Risk List since the 1990s. DOD has made some progress in this area. Over the past several years it has decreased the size of its major defense acquisition program portfolio as well as its estimated total cost; however, programs continue to experience cost growth over time. DOD has launched its “Better Buying Power” initiatives to achieve more efficiency and reduce cost growth. We have tracked implementation of some of these initiatives and found that DOD has largely been successful in implementing its “should-cost” effort to lower contract prices during negotiations and has reported near-term cost savings as a result. DOD has had less success in implementing affordability constraints—which limit a program’s total cost throughout its lifecycle—an initiative that has the potential for long-term savings if implemented effectively. Similarly, we have found that DOD has made mixed progress in improving its acquisition of services. DOD leadership has demonstrated a commitment to improving service acquisitions and management, but the department’s efforts are hindered, in part, by limited knowledge and baseline data on the current state of service acquisitions and the absence of goals and metrics to assess its progress. We have ongoing reviews to help improve the efficiency of DOD’s weapon system acquisition process and the effectiveness of its portfolio management practices that we believe will further the administration’s and Congress’ efforts in this area. Lasting success in addressing the difficult and longstanding issues on the President’s Management Agenda will hinge on effective implementation, including sustained top leadership attention. For example, our work has shown that there are five key factors that are essential to resolving high- risk issues: 1. a demonstrated strong commitment to, and top leadership support for, 2. the capacity to address problems; 3. a corrective action plan; 4. a program to monitor corrective measures; and 5. demonstrated progress in implementing corrective measures. Top administration officials have continued to show their commitment to ensuring that significant management challenges, including those on the High Risk List, receive attention and oversight. OMB regularly convenes meetings for agencies to provide progress updates on high-risk issues. GAO and OMB have agreed to hold a series of meetings on the issues on GAO’s High Risk List. The purposes of these meetings are to discuss progress achieved and specifically focus on actions that are needed to fully address high-risk issues and ultimately remove them from the list. These meetings typically include OMB’s Deputy Director for Management, agency leaders, as well as myself and have provided a useful forum for constructive and productive dialogues. The President’s Management Agenda also commits to making continued progress in managing for results. In that regard, our work has shown that progress has been made in implementing the GPRA Modernization Act of 2010 (GPRAMA). For example, the executive branch has taken a number of steps to implement key provisions of GPRAMA. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has developed cross-agency priority goals, and agencies developed agency priority goals. Agency officials reported that their agencies have assigned performance management leadership roles and responsibilities to officials who generally participate in performance management activities, including quarterly performance reviews for agency priority goals. Further, OMB developed Performance.gov, a government-wide website, which provides quarterly updates on cross-agency priority goals and agency priority goals. While the building blocks needed for implementation are being put in place, much more needs to be done before the provisions of the act are fully useful to decision makers as shown in the following examples. Executive branch efforts to address crosscutting issues are hampered by the lack of a comprehensive list of programs—a key requirement of the act. As we have noted, such a list is critical for aligning federal government efforts for identifying potential fragmentation, overlap, or duplication among federal programs or activities. GPRAMA requires OMB to compile and make publicly available a comprehensive list of all federal programs identified by agencies, and to include the purposes of each program, how it contributes to the agency’s mission, and recent funding information. OMB began implementing this provision by directing 24 large federal agencies to develop and publish inventories of their programs in May 2013. Our preliminary review of these initial inventories identified concerns about the usefulness of the information being developed and the extent to which it might be able to assist executive branch and congressional efforts to identify and address fragmentation, overlap, and duplication.