The Homeland Security Act of 2002 outlines DHS’s responsibilities for initiatives supporting both a homeland security and a non-homeland security mission. DHS’s homeland security mission is to prevent, reduce vulnerability to, and recover from terrorist attacks within the United States. DHS’s non-homeland security mission—also referred to as non-terrorism-related responsibilities—includes programs such as the Coast Guard’s marine safety responsibilities and the Emergency Preparedness and Response Directorate’s natural disaster response functions. GAO has previously identified strategic planning as one of the critical success factors for new organizations. As part of its transformation, we noted that DHS should engage in strategic planning through the involvement of stakeholders; assessment of internal and external environments; and an alignment of activities, core processes, and resources to support mission-related outcomes. We have reported that the mission and strategic goals of a transforming organization like DHS must become the focus of the transformation, define its culture, and serve as the vehicle for employees to unite and rally around. The mission and strategic goals must be clear to employees, customers, and stakeholders to ensure they see a direct personal connection to the transformation. Congress enacted GPRA to focus the federal government on achieving results and providing objective, results-oriented information to improve congressional decision making. Under GPRA, strategic plans are the starting point and basic underpinning for results-oriented management. GPRA requires that an agency’s strategic plan contain six key elements, as shown in table 1. In addition, GPRA requires agencies to consult with Congress and solicit the input of others as they develop these plans. The National Strategy for Homeland Security, a foundation of DHS’s strategic plan, set forth overall objectives to prevent terrorist attacks within the United States, reduce America’s vulnerability to terrorism, and minimize the damage and assist in the recovery from attacks that may occur. The strategy sets forth a plan to improve homeland security through the cooperation of federal, state, local, and private sector organizations in an array of functions, with DHS having a prominent role in coordinating these functions. In addition, the strategy states that the United States “must carefully weigh the benefit of each homeland security endeavor and only allocate resources where the benefit of reducing risk is worth the amount of additional cost.” We have advocated a risk management approach to guide the allocation of resources and investments for improving homeland security. Specifically, a risk management approach would provide a decision support tool to help DHS establish and prioritize security program requirements, planning, and resource allocations. DHS’s own strategic planning process began in July 2003, with the creation of the Strategic Plan Development Group. The group consisted of officials from 15 separate DHS components and offices, including general counsel and directors of strategic planning from across DHS. By the fall of 2003, the group had created a draft strategic plan with goals and objectives for each component. However, according to officials involved, the group members were authorized to represent their component agencies but not to negotiate priorities in order to create departmentwide goals. Such a discussion was needed to develop a departmentwide document. Consequently, following the work of the Strategic Plan Development Group, DHS’s Deputy Secretary brought DHS senior leaders together in December 2003 to develop DHS’s vision, mission, and strategic goals and achieve senior leadership ownership of the strategic plan. DHS issued its first departmentwide strategic plan in February 2004. The plan includes DHS’s vision and mission, core values, and guiding principles. In addition, the plan describes DHS’s seven strategic goals and corresponding objectives. A summary paragraph that describes the general approaches DHS will take to achieve each objective is also included. According to several senior DHS officials, the strategic plan was the primary guidance followed for DHS’s management integration. In addition to the strategic plan, DHS officials identified four other documents as the key planning documents for the department. These documents are as follows. Fiscal Year 2005 Performance Budget Overview. This is the overview of DHS’s Congressional Budget Justification for fiscal year 2005 and serves as the overview of DHS’s fiscal year 2005 annual performance plan, in compliance with GPRA. The document describes the performance levels associated with the department’s Fiscal Year 2005 President’s Budget to Congress. For each strategic goal it includes means and strategies, as well as performance goals, measures, and targets. In addition, this document identifies the program and lead organization responsible for each performance goal. DHS’s Fiscal Year 2005-2009 Future Years Homeland Security Program (FYHSP). Developed pursuant to Section 874 of the Homeland Security Act, the fiscal year 2005-2009 FYHSP, dated May 2004, is a 5-year resource plan that outlines departmental priorities and the ramifications of program and budget decisions. The FYHSP includes a general discussion of the nation’s threats and vulnerabilities, including a description of current and future terrorist techniques and tactics; types of weapons and threats terrorists may use; and potential terrorist targets and timing of an attack. In addition, the FYHSP includes a brief discussion of the inflation factors and economic assumptions based on underlying guidance provided by OMB. The FYHSP lays out projected resource requirements through fiscal year 2009 for each strategic goal and includes a table aligning programs to the strategic goals. Finally, the FYHSP includes a description of performance priorities for each strategic goal. DHS’s 2006-2010 FYHSP was issued to Congress on March 4, 2005. It is designated “For Official Use Only,” and is thus not publicly available. DHS expects to update the FYHSP annually. DHS’s Milestones Report. The Milestones Report is an internal DHS planning document containing performance goals linked to the long-term strategic goals described in the strategic plan. For each performance goal, the Milestones Report provides annual milestones for fiscal years 2005 through 2009. In addition, the Milestones Report aligns specific programs with the strategic goals and identifies what percentage of program funding is allocated to addressing these strategic goals. DHS’s themes and owners papers. The themes and owners papers are internal planning documents that address DHS’s top seven priorities during its second year of existence, March 2004 through March 2005, as identified by the former Secretary of Homeland Security. DHS directorates were identified as the “owner,” or lead group, for addressing a “theme,” or priority, and directorate officials submitted a proposal detailing how they would address the theme in the coming year. The themes addressed are (1) stronger information sharing and infrastructure protection, (2) standards for interoperable equipment, (3) integrated border and port security systems, (4) new technologies and tools, (5) more prepared communities, (6) improved customer service for immigrants, and (7) 21st century department. DHS has made considerable progress in its planning efforts, but future efforts can be improved. While DHS’s planning documents discuss the need for stakeholder coordination during program implementation, stakeholder involvement was limited during the strategic planning process. While the strategic plan included five of the six GPRA-required elements, it did not describe the relationship of annual goals to long-term goals. However, DHS’s planning process continues to develop and mature as the department’s transformation continues. The process of developing DHS’s strategic plan and other strategic planning documents involved minimal consultation with key stakeholders, including Congress, other federal agencies, state and local governments, and the private sector. GPRA requires that agency officials solicit the input of stakeholders as they develop their strategic plans. Further, stakeholder involvement during the planning process is important to ensure DHS’s efforts and resources are aligned with other federal and nonfederal partners with shared responsibility for homeland security and that they are targeted at the highest priorities. Such involvement is also important to ensure stakeholders help identify and agree on how their daily operations and activities contribute to DHS’s mission. Additionally, DHS’s planning documents describe areas where DHS needs to coordinate with stakeholders to implement its programs, achieve its goals and objectives, and meet its homeland security and non-homeland security responsibilities. The importance of consultation to DHS was recently underscored in GAO’s High-Risk Series: An Update, in which we designated as high risk the establishment of appropriate and effective information-sharing mechanisms to improve homeland security. While this area has received increased attention, the federal government still faces formidable challenges sharing information among stakeholders in an appropriate and timely manner to minimize risk. Though DHS officials briefed congressional stakeholders on the strategic planning progress, they did not consult directly with Congress while developing the department’s mission statement or strategic goals. DHS officials said that when briefed, congressional stakeholders requested that the strategic plan include more detail, including specific performance goals and measures. However, according to DHS officials, these goals and measures were not included in order to meet OMB’s time frame for issuing the plan. To meet this time frame, DHS decided to keep the plan’s content at a high level and focus on achieving broad consensus among agency components on DHS’s mission and long-term strategic goals and objectives. Nevertheless, DHS officials acknowledged that Congress should be more involved in future planning efforts. As we previously reported, Congress needs to be considered a partner in shaping agency goals at the outset, since it is a key user of performance information and to ensure that congressional priorities are addressed in the planning documents. We have suggested that agencies consult with congressional stakeholders at least once every new Congress in order to clarify performance expectations. Further, DHS officials said they did not consult with other federal agencies responsible for shared homeland security initiatives in developing the strategic plan. We have reported that a focus on results implies that federal programs contributing to the same or similar results should be closely coordinated to ensure that goals are consistent. Stakeholder consultation in strategic planning efforts can help create a basic understanding of the competing demands that confront most agencies, the limited resources available to them, and how those demands and resources require careful and continuous balancing. The National Strategy for Homeland Security identifies six federal agencies responsible for 43 homeland security initiatives.