The federal judiciary consists of the Supreme Court, 12 geographic circuit courts of appeals, 94 district courts, 91 bankruptcy courts, the Court of International Trade, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, and the Court of Federal Claims. The federal judiciary’s fiscal year 1996 budget is about $3.3 billion, and on September 30, 1995, it employed about 28,000 persons. For fiscal year 1997, the federal judiciary has requested congressional approval of a budget of about $3.6 billion, including a staff of about 31,000. Governance of the federal judiciary is substantially decentralized. The Judicial Conference of the United States, a body of 27 judges over which the Chief Justice of the United States presides, is the federal judiciary’s principal policymaking body. The Conference’s statutory responsibilities include considering administrative problems of the courts and making recommendations to the various courts to promote uniformity of management procedures and the expeditious conduct of court business. The Conference conducts its work principally through about 25 committees. In September 1993, the Judicial Conference established within its Budget Committee an Economy Subcommittee and charged it with reviewing judiciary operations to achieve greater fiscal responsibility, accountability, and efficiency. Created by Congress in 1939, AOUSC provides a wide range of administrative, legal, and program support services to the federal courts, including budgeting, space and facilities, automation, statistical analysis and reports, financial audit, and program and management evaluation. The AOUSC Director serves as the administrative officer for the courts under the supervision and direction of the Judicial Conference. AOUSC’s staff supports the work of the Conference and its committees, including the Economy Subcommittee. AOUSC provides analyses and recommendations on resource allocations to the Executive Committee of the Judicial Conference, which has final authority for resource allocations. Authorized by the same statute that created AOUSC, each of the 12 geographic judicial circuits has a judicial council with the authority to issue all necessary and appropriate orders for the effective and expeditious administration of justice within their circuits. Within each circuit, the Circuit Executive, whose duties vary by circuit, may have responsibility for conducting studies of the business and administration of the courts within the circuit. Neither Congress nor the Judicial Conference has formally charged chief judges with overall responsibility for the administration of their courts. Nevertheless, according to AOUSC, the chief judges of the appellate, district, and bankruptcy courts are generally expected to exercise whatever administrative authority is necessary for the effective and efficient operation of their individual courts. AOUSC program reviews, including on-site reviews of local court operations, are only one means by which the federal judiciary may assess its highly decentralized operations. The Judicial Conference of the United States, the circuit judicial councils, the chief judge of each court, and court unit executives, such as Chief Probation Officers or clerks of court, may all request AOUSC studies and support or initiate their own reviews and assessments. Such studies may be undertaken by AOUSC staff alone, in conjunction with staff from local courts, or by outside experts and consultants, such as the National Academy of Public Administration. Our work focused on AOUSC’s reviews and assessments, principally on-site reviews of local court operations. The organization of this oversight function within AOUSC has varied since responsibility for court audits and disbursement of judicial funds was transferred from the Department of Justice to AOUSC in 1975. After this transfer, AOUSC created an audit unit to perform routine, cyclical financial audits and management reviews of the courts. Before 1985, this unit reviewed the finances and programs of the courts. Several AOUSC auditors, management analysts, and attorneys conducted the reviews, visiting a district for about 2 to 3 weeks interviewing court personnel and reviewing records. Following an exit conference, the review team prepared a report that usually included recommendations. In 1985, AOUSC placed the financial and program review functions on different review cycles. Soon after the current AOUSC Director’s appointment in July 1985, Chief Justice Warren E. Burger established a committee of four judges to study AOUSC and provide advice on improving the agency. According to the AOUSC Director, judges and court officials whom the committee surveyed said AOUSC was too bureaucratic and controlling in its relationship with the courts. At about the same time, judges were telling the AOUSC Director that AOUSC’s management review process should be more sensitive to matters that are “exclusively the concern of the courts.” In 1988, the AOUSC Director discontinued the Office of Audit and Review, created an Office of Audit to conduct court financial reviews; delegated program review responsibilities to the program units; and established an evaluation unit, now known as the Office of Program Assessment (OPA), to oversee and coordinate program review efforts and to carry out special reviews and investigations. AOUSC’s Office of Audit is to conduct routine, cyclical financial reviews and oversee the work of contract financial auditors. Virtually all AOUSC offices have conducted reviews, special studies, evaluations, and surveys, which varied considerably by functional area. These reviews, often undertaken at the request of individual courts, have covered such issues as costs, budgets, spending, workload, outputs, and program implementation results. Some reviews have resulted in recommendations for improvements in such areas as processes and practices and the use of resources or technology. In responding to your request, our objective was to review AOUSC’s program assessment and efficiency promotion efforts regarding federal court operations. These operations include such court functions as the clerks of court offices, probation and pretrial services, judicial chambers management support, and statistical reporting. Generally, our review focused on AOUSC oversight activities conducted during fiscal years 1992 through 1994. Our approach was threefold. First, we met with top-level AOUSC officials and were briefed on AOUSC’s oversight and management assistance activities. We also met with managers from AOUSC program divisions that conducted program reviews and provided assistance to local courts to discuss oversight and management assistance functions and activities. Senior AOUSC management officials attended most of our meetings with managers from AOUSC’s program divisions. We reviewed manuals and other documentation on the operations and responsibilities of AOUSC’s management and program offices and divisions and AOUSC’s assessment and efficiency promotion activities. Second, using data maintained by the OPA, we identified 376 on-site reviews (excluding financial audits, judgeship surveys, and other nonprogrammatic reviews) conducted by selected program divisionsduring fiscal years 1992 through 1994 and requested reports on all of them. However, 244 of the reviews listed either did not result in written reports, were erroneous entries, had reports that AOUSC could not locate, were duplicate entries in OPA’s data, were never completed, or had reports that were still in draft form when we requested them. In the end, we reviewed 93 of the 132 written reports available to determine how the process followed in these reviews compared to generally accepted government auditing standards. We used a data collection instrument to systematically collect information from the program review reports, including the office that conducted the review, the person or persons who initiated the review and why, issues addressed, problems noted, efficient and effective practices identified, recommendations made, information available on the implementation of any recommendations, and standards and guidelines used for identifying problems and/or efficient and effective practices. Finally, we interviewed judges and court officials from a selection of appellate, district, and bankruptcy courts plus probation offices in a judgmentally selected cross-section of courts of different sizes in three regions of the country—the Northeast, Midwest, and South. We determined court unit size on the basis of fiscal year 1993 workload. For appellate, district, and bankruptcy courts, we used cases filed (rounded to the nearest hundred) as our measure of workload. For probation offices we used the total number of persons under supervision in each probation office (rounded to the nearest hundred). We also interviewed the chairs of four Judicial Conference committees: the Committee on the AOUSC (current and former chairs), the Committee on Court Administration and Case Management, the Committee on Judicial Resources, and the Budget Committee’s Economy Subcommittee (one of the co-chairs). We did our work primarily in Washington, D.C., between October 1994 and March 1996 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. One or more senior AOUSC officials monitored our discussions with Judicial Conference Committee chairs and most of our meetings with the assistant directors of AOUSC’s program offices; however, we believe we were able to independently obtain needed information from the chairs and assistant directors. We obtained written comments from AOUSC on a draft of this report. Its comments are evaluated in this letter and are reprinted in full in appendix II. The need to keep costs down in an era of budgetary constraints has focused attention on the judiciary’s processes to ensure that it is operating as efficiently and effectively as possible. Program and financial reviews are one means of providing judges and managers information on the efficiency and effectiveness of court operations. To ensure that the information from these reviews is reliable, it is important that those conducting the reviews follow generally accepted government auditing standards. From 1988 until 1995, AOUSC’s program review process was decentralized and unstructured and did not always follow these standards. In November 1995, OPA issued written standards for conducting program assessments that, with two exceptions relating to reviewer independence and preparation of reports, track the generally accepted government auditing standards. Certain laws, regulations, and contracts require auditors who audit federal organizations, programs, activities, and functions to follow the generally accepted government auditing standards promulgated by the Comptroller General. The federal judiciary is not specifically required by statute to follow these auditing standards. AOUSC’s Office of Audit, which conducts financial audits, has chosen to follow the standards and also requires its contract auditors to do so.