GPRAMA specifies that APGs are to have ambitious targets that can be achieved within a 2-year period; a clearly identified agency official, known as a goal leader, who is responsible for achieving the goal; clearly defined quarterly milestones; and interim quarterly targets for performance measures, if more frequent updates of actual performance provide data of significant value. Other GPRAMA requirements provide additional information and context for the priority goals. For example, agencies are to describe how their APGs contribute to the agency’s long-term strategic goals, as well as any of the CAP goals developed by OMB, as applicable. This information can help illustrate how an agency’s efforts to achieve its priority goals fit within a broader, crosscutting context—both within the agency and across the federal government. In addition, agencies are to describe how they incorporated any input on their priority goals received during consultations with relevant congressional committees. GPRAMA also lays out a schedule for gradual implementation of its provisions, with a 3-year period of interim implementation following enactment in January 2011. It required agencies to identify their APGs and related information in their strategic plans and performance plans, published concurrently with the President’s Budget in February 2012. Agencies also were to provide information about their APGs for OMB to publish on Performance.gov by October 1, 2012, and agencies are to OMB provided update this information on at least a quarterly basis. guidance to agencies on implementing the act’s provisions, including those related to APGs, in several memorandums and its annual Circular No. A-11 in both 2011 and 2012. In addition to OMB’s guidance, the Performance Improvement Council (PIC) shared practices related to developing and implementing APGs with agencies in 2011 and 2012. The PIC established the Goal Setting Working Group in May 2011 to assist agencies in setting their 2012 to 2013 APGs. The group produced a draft guide to goal setting, which included criteria for selecting priority goals as well as elements and examples of effective goal statements. In September 2012, the PIC also produced a draft best practices guide for developing milestones; the guide described the characteristics of milestones and provided several examples. For each APG, agencies were required, by GPRAMA or OMB guidance, to make available to OMB for publication on Performance.gov and in their strategic plans or performance plans (1) a performance goal with a target level of performance to be achieved in a 2-year time frame; (2) an explanation of how the goal contributes to agency strategic goals; and (3) the identification of an agency official as the goal leader responsible for achieving the goal. Agencies provided information about each of these requirements for all of the 102 APGs on Performance.gov included in our assessment—which represents an important accomplishment in the development of priority goals. Figure 1 illustrates how information on Performance.gov for one of OPM’s priority goals meets the three requirements. The full goal statement for the APG provides a targeted level of performance to achieve (“participation of at least 2 multi-state health plans in State Affordable Insurance Exchanges”) within a 2-year timeframe (“by October 1, 2013”). The layout of information on Performance.gov shows that this APG supports OPM’s strategic goal to “Improve Access to Health Insurance,” as part of its strategic objective to “contract with multi-state health plans to be offered on affordable insurance exchanges.” Finally, information on the site identifies OPM’s Director of Healthcare and Insurance as the goal leader for this APG. As an additional example, the Social Security Administration (SSA) included information about each of its APGs in an appendix of its fiscal year 2013 performance plan. As shown in figure 2, for SSA’s priority goal to ensure faster hearing decisions, the plan provides the targeted level of performance (“reduce the average time…to 270 days”) and the timeframe (“by the end of fiscal year 2013”) in the “Priority Goals” column. In the same column, SSA indicated that the goal is linked to performance measure 1.1c, which supports the agency’s strategic goal “Deliver Quality Disability Decisions and Services.” In the “Goal Leaders(s)” column, SSA identifies the Executive Coordinator for Backlog Initiatives in the Office of Disability Adjudication and Review. SSA’s strategic plan for fiscal years 2013 to 2016 also identifies its APGs and how each supports an agency strategic goal. Figure 3 provides a table from the strategic plan that presents a list of goals that support each of its strategic goals and denotes those that are APGs with an asterisk. Our past work has shown that although the federal government faces a series of challenges that in many instances are not possible for any single agency to address alone, agencies often face a range of challenges and barriers when they attempt to work collaboratively. Our annual reports on duplication, overlap, and fragmentation highlight a number of areas where a more crosscutting approach is needed—both across agencies and within a specific agency. We found that duplication and overlap occur because programs have been added incrementally over time to respond to new needs and challenges, without a strategy to minimize duplication, overlap, and fragmentation among them. Also, there are not always interagency mechanisms or strategies in place to coordinate programs that address crosscutting issues, which can lead to potentially duplicative, overlapping, and fragmented efforts. GPRAMA establishes a new framework for taking a crosscutting and integrated approach to improving government performance, and effective implementation of that framework could play an important role in clarifying desired outcomes, addressing performance that spans multiple organizations, and facilitating actions to reduce unnecessary overlap, duplication, and fragmentation. Two provisions in GPRAMA, in particular, direct agencies to link their APGs with crosscutting federal efforts. First, the act requires agencies to identify federal organizations, program activities, regulations, policies, and other activities—both internal and external to the agency—that contribute to each of their APGs and include this information in their performance plans and provide it to OMB for publication on Performance.gov. In addition, OMB’s 2012 guidance directs agencies to include tax expenditures in their identification of organizations and programs that contribute to their APGs, as part of their updates to Performance.gov. Since 1994, we have recommended greater scrutiny of tax expenditures, as periodic reviews could help determine how well specific tax expenditures work to achieve their goals and how their benefits and costs compare to those of programs with similar goals. Second, APGs are to be informed by the CAP goals. The act also requires agencies to demonstrate in their performance plans any alignment between their performance goals—including their APGs—and the CAP goals. Both of these provisions are important because they show how agencies are coordinating efforts toward a common crosscutting issue. As we have previously reported, uncoordinated program efforts can waste scarce funds, confuse and frustrate program customers, and limit the overall effectiveness of the federal effort. Agencies identified at least one internal contributor for each of their APGs, though agencies differed in the amount of detail they provided. For example, the National Science Foundation (NSF), as shown in figure 4, identified its Directorate of Engineering as a lead organization and its Innovation Corps activities and programs as contributing programs to its APG to increase the number of entrepreneurs emerging from university laboratories. DOT, in its fiscal year 2013 performance plan, organized the descriptions of its planned performance—including its APGs—into broad themes under its strategic goals. As shown in figure 5, DOT identified the operating administrations, activities, enabling legislation, regulations, and other resources that contribute to each theme. Similarly, DOT identified on Performance.gov a range of contributing programs to its APG to reduce the risk of aviation accidents (see figure 6). Agencies identified external contributors for 73 of the 102 APGs. When they did identify external contributors, agencies differed in the amount of detail they provided. The Department of State (State), for instance, identified in its fiscal year 2013 congressional budget justification external contributors for six of the eight APGs it jointly developed with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). These external contributors are generally at the department/agency, component, or program level, such as the Department of Defense (DOD), the Department of Justice’s Office of Overseas Prosecutorial Development Assistance and Training, and the Department of Justice’s International Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Program, respectively (see figure 7). Similarly, State and USAID identified on Performance.gov external contributors to their APG to advance low emissions, climate-resilient development, such as the Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Forest Service (a USDA component), the Environmental Protection Agency, and international governmental and nongovernmental organizations (see figure 8). We did not verify that agencies included all relevant internal and external federal contributors to their APGs. However, it was not always clear why external contributors were not identified for 29 of the 102 APGs. In some instances this could be explained by the goal being internally focused. For example, the Department of the Interior listed no external contributors to its internally-focused APG to “build the next generation of conservation and community leaders by supporting youth employment” at the department. However, our analysis indicates that 8 of the 29 APGs that lack external contributors are related to crosscutting areas that we have identified as at risk of potential fragmentation, overlap, or duplication. For example, NSF did not list any external contributors to its APG to develop a diverse and highly qualified science and technology workforce by having 80 percent of institutions funded through NSF’s undergraduate programs document the extent of use of proven instructional practices by September 30, 2013. Our past work has identified 209 programs across 13 federal agencies that are focused on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education, some which may have efforts related to those NSF is undertaking for this goal.