Interior’s performance plan is not user friendly. It consists of nine components—a Departmental Overview and eight individual plans for each of Interior’s major agencies. These nine plans are not stand-alone documents but have to be reviewed in conjunction with their respective subagencies’ budget justifications. The nine component performance plans and their respective subagency budget justifications account for about 3,500 pages of material. Accordingly, tracking the information from the performance plans to the budget justification is an extremely time-consuming process. Furthermore, the plan did not contain any easy cross-reference as to where to locate some essential information in the budget justification that is associated with each performance goal. Overall, the amount of information presented was overwhelming. Also, the format of many component plans is not consistent and does not provide the users with sufficient information to readily assess whether the plans contain all of the information required by either the Results Act, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), or other guidance. For example, while a few performance plans provide a discussion of the strategies, resources, verification and validation procedures, and other important aspects of each performance goal, many of the plans do not contain such discussions. We believe that Interior needs to use a consistent format in preparing all of the Department’s component performance plans. This would ensure that all elements are addressed and would facilitate linkages and comparisons among the plans. On a more substantive level, we reviewed Interior’s performance plan to determine whether it met the requirements of the Results Act and its related guidance. To do this, we collapsed the requirements for annual performance plans in the Results Act and related guidance into three core questions: (1) To what extent does the agency’s performance plan provide a clear picture of intended performance across the agency? (2) How well does the performance plan discuss the strategies and resources the agency will use to achieve its performance goals? (3) To what extent does the agency’s performance plan provide confidence that its performance information will be credible? We found that Interior’s plan does not adequately address the requirements associated with these questions. Most of Interior’s nine component performance plans do not provide a clear picture of intended performance across their respective subagencies. To address this issue, performance plans should, among other things, provide a succinct and concrete statement of expected performance for subsequent comparison with actual performance; and contain goals that are linked to the agency’s mission, strategic goals, and program activities in the budget. Interior’s plan had limitations in these areas. For example, we found that most of the component performance plans did not provide a succinct and concrete statement of expected performance for subsequent comparison with actual performance. One of the elements important to addressing this issue is that the goals and measures are to be objective, measurable, and quantifiable. In our view, five of the nine component plans did not adequately provide goals and measures that were objective, measurable, and quantifiable. For goals and measures to be considered objective, they should be reasonably free of any significant bias or manipulation that would distort the accurate assessment of performance, and to the greatest extent possible, they should not require subjective considerations or judgments to dominate the measurement. For example, one of NPS’ goals is to ensure that 50 percent of the cultural landscapes on its Cultural Landscapes Inventory are in good condition. However, the criteria for determining what constitutes “good condition” is not defined in the performance plan, nor does NPS make reference to where such a definition can be found. Without a clear definition, it would be difficult to assess if the performance is being measured consistently from year to year or to understand how a change in definition could affect the end result desired from the expected performance. Furthermore, five of the component plans have goals that are not clearly linked to the subagencies’ missions, strategic goals, and program activities in the budget request. For example, we found that BIA’s plan did not always show that its annual goals reflect the strategic goals and mission. BIA’s performance plan contained strategies for achieving its strategic goals that in some cases were very different from those identified in its strategic plan. BIA’s strategic plan discusses four major initiatives or strategies toward the achievement of its self-determination goal of allowing the tribes to provide their own services rather than having these services provided by BIA and other federal agencies. However, these four initiatives are not discussed in BIA’s performance plan, nor are they reflected in the performance goals. Generally, Interior’s component performance plans do not adequately discuss how the strategies and resources will help achieve their goals. To address this issue, the plan should present clear and reasonable strategies for achieving its intended performance goals and discuss the resources it will use to achieve the performance. However, we found that the majority of Interior’s component plans do not adequately describe the agency’s strategies to accomplish its performance goals. For example, both USGS’ and NPS’ plans discuss the strategies only in general terms, and they are not linked to specific performance goals. There is also no discussion in these two plans of how the strategies relate to achieving the goals. Furthermore, strategy discussions in the annual plans will be most useful to congressional and other decisionmakers if they address how any external factors could affect the subagencies’ achievement of their goals. However, most of the plans do not sufficiently discuss this point. Most of the performance plans do not discuss the respective subagency’s actions to address external factors that are likely to affect its performance. For example, the plans for BOR and NPS have performance goals whose achievement depends on partnerships with various entities, such as state, local, and other federal agencies, as well as local water districts and Native American tribes. Yet, there is no, or insufficient, discussion of how these partnerships affect the achievement of the goals or what actions are needed to mitigate concerns that may arise from non-performance. In addition, Interior’s performance plan did not always discuss the resources it will use to achieve a specific level of performance. Most of the component plans do not adequately identify the capital, human, financial, or other resources that the subagencies will use to achieve their performance goals. As a result, Interior’s plan is not as useful as it could be in identifying the level of budgetary resources needed to achieve performance goals. Also, most of the component plans do not discuss how the resources will contribute to improving performance. Generally, Interior’s performance plan provides only limited confidence that its performance information will be credible. To address this issue, the plan should (1) discuss how the agency will verify and validate its data to ensure that its performance information is sufficiently complete, accurate, and consistent and (2) identify significant data limitations and their implications for addressing the achievement of performance goals. We found that most of Interior’s component performance plans only partially discussed how the agency will ensure that its performance information will be verified and validated. Specifically, we found that the Departmental Overview plan discusses performance data verification and validation in general terms and assigns responsibilities to program managers. Neither the Departmental Overview plan nor the specific subagency plans provide specific information on the data verification and validation processes and management controls over data that would be used. Thus, users are provided with little assurance that the performance data will be reliable and that the Interior and subagency systems are secure from risks, such as tampering, that could affect the reliability and availability of performance data. Furthermore, most of Interior’s component performance plans do not sufficiently identify significant data limitations or adequately discuss or make reference to any significant new or modified information systems to make more credible data available for performance measures. For example, we have questioned the accuracy and reliability of the data that NPS uses to develop information on its maintenance backlog. Nonetheless, the plan does not discuss the actions NPS plans to take to address these data limitations. In another example, MMS receives data critical to its mission from BLM and oil and gas companies. We have previously reported problems with verifying the data on gas production provided by oil and gas companies. However, MMS’ performance plan does not discuss this concern nor identify what actions MMS has taken or plans to take to mitigate the concern raised. Our past work at Interior has identified a number of major management problems. Among these are Interior’s need to (1) more effectively manage Indian trust funds and assets; (2) better coordinate crosscutting activities to avoid duplication and overlap; (3) adequately assess NPS’ employee housing needs; (4) provide adequate oversight and accountability over its field offices; and (5) have better information available for making decisions about the resources that Interior manages. The Results Act provides Interior with an opportunity to address these concerns through the development and implementation of its performance plan. We found, however, that while Interior has addressed some of these major management problems, it has not addressed all of them. I will briefly recap the performance plans’ coverage of each of these problem areas. The Secretary of Interior is responsible for administering the government’s trust responsibilities to tribes and Indians, including managing about $3 billion in Indian trust funds and administering about 54 million acres of Indian land. Our work has shown that management of the Indian trust funds and assets has long been characterized by inadequate accounting and information management systems; untrained and inexperienced staff; backlogs in appraisals, ownership determination and recordkeeping; lack of a master lease file and an accounts receivable system; inadequate written policies and procedures; and poor internal controls. Because of these overall weaknesses, tribes and Indians do not have assurance that their trust fund account balances are accurate and assets are being prudently managed. To address Interior’s long-standing Indian trust fund accounting and asset management problems, the Office of Special Trustee for American Indians was established in 1996. It required that the Special Trustee develop a comprehensive strategic plan to cover all phases of trust fund management. In April 1997, the Special Trustee submitted a strategic plan to the Congress, but it was not fully supported by the Department.