    Architect of the Capitol: Status Report on Implementation of
    Management Review Recommendations (30-JAN-04, GAO-04-299).

    The Office of the Architect of the Capitol (AOC) plays an
    important role in supporting the effective functioning of
    Congress and its neighboring institutions. In January 2003, GAO
    conducted a comprehensive management review of AOC's operations
    and made 35 recommendations to help AOC establish a strategic
    management and accountability framework, improve its management
    infrastructure and internal control, and address longstanding
    concerns. In February 2003, the Conference Report mandated GAO to
    monitor progress being made on the implementation of the 35
    management review recommendations.
    -------------------------Indexing Terms-------------------------
    REPORTNUM:   GAO-04-299
        ACCNO:   A09202
      TITLE:     Architect of the Capitol: Status Report on Implementation
    of Management Review Recommendations
         DATE:   01/30/2004
      SUBJECT:   Best practices
    	     Financial management
    	     Information technology
    	     Internal controls
    	     Performance measures
    	     Strategic planning
    	     Best practices methodology
    	     Accountability

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    GAO-04-299

    United States General Accounting Office

                         GAO Report to Congressional Committees

    January 2004

    ARCHITECT OF THE CAPITOL

          Status Report on Implementation of Management Review Recommendations

                                           a

    GAO-04-299

    Highlights of GAO-04-299, a report to Congressional Committees

    The Office of the Architect of the Capitol (AOC) plays an important role
    in supporting the effective functioning of Congress and its neighboring
    institutions. In January 2003, GAO conducted a comprehensive management
    review of AOC's operations and made 35 recommendations to help AOC
    establish a strategic management and accountability framework, improve its
    management infrastructure and internal control, and address longstanding
    concerns. In February 2003, the Conference Report mandated GAO to monitor
    progress being made on the implementation of the 35 management review
    recommendations.

    GAO recommends that AOC strengthen agencywide communications with
    employees and congressional stakeholders.

    GAO also recommends that AOC further improve its management infrastructure
    internal controls in the management of IT by planning for and implementing
    mature investment management and enterprise architecture (EA) practices.

    GAO provided a draft of this report to the Architect of the Capitol in
    December 2003 for his review and comment. The Architect generally agreed
    with our findings, although there are some areas of disagreement in IT,
    worker safety, and recycling.

    www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-04-299.

    To view the full product, including the scope and methodology, click on
    the link above. For more information, contact J. Christopher Mihm,
    202-512-6806 or mihmj@gao.gov.

    January 2004

    ARCHITECT OF THE CAPITOL

    Status Report on Implementation of Management Review Recommendations

    As discussed in GAO's January 2003 report, many of AOC's management
    problems were long-standing and its organizational transformation would
    take time to fully accomplish. Not surprisingly, AOC's efforts in
    addressing these initial management review recommendations is very much a
    work in progress. Initial steps are being taken, but a great deal more
    needs to be done. Moreover, greater effort will have to be made if more
    timely improvements are to occur. Sustained commitment and assertive
    involvement of AOC's leadership is key to addressing AOC's long-standing
    weaknesses and instilling lasting change.

    AOC is taking the first steps in the development of its management and
    accountability framework, such as improving planning and organizational
    alignment through its draft strategic plan. AOC is also strengthening
    individual accountability for organizational goals through its senior
    executive performance management systems, but more progress can be made by
    aligning its employee performance management system with mission-critical
    goals. AOC needs to take additional steps to strengthen agencywide
    communications by providing opportunities to gather employee feedback
    sooner than fiscal year 2005 and by conducting a pilot of its
    congressional protocols.

    AOC is making some progress in improving its management infrastructure and
    internal control. AOC is addressing initial concerns about the lack of
    consistent human capital policies and procedures. Also, AOC has developed
    three broad-based action plans to achieve its strategy of
    institutionalizing financial management best practices. However, while
    efforts on individual action items associated with the three action plans
    have begun, many are not scheduled for completion until fiscal years 2006
    and 2007. Much work remains to address unplanned action items and complete
    ongoing efforts in improving financial management. AOC is developing a new
    IT portfolio management process or investment framework, which it plans to
    implement in fiscal year 2004 and is also taking steps to develop and use
    EA. However, while AOC is generally implementing the kind of IT management
    reforms recommended, GAO makes additional recommendations to ensure that
    mature investment management and EA processes are developed and
    implemented.

    Finally, AOC is addressing GAO's concern about worker safety by developing
    a hazard assessment and control policy, but this policy is not expected to
    be fully implemented in all jurisdictions until May 2006. Until AOC
    completes this policy implementation and its subsequent analysis in all
    jurisdictions, it will not be able to develop a comprehensive picture of
    AOC hazards. AOC is also taking steps to establish a project priority
    framework for better project management and accountability. Also, AOC has
    made some progress toward adopting a more strategic approach to recycling
    taking steps to clarify the mission of the program and establishing goals
    as part of its environmental program plan.

    Contents

      Letter

    Results in Brief
    Background
    Objective, Scope, and Methodology
    AOC Has Begun Establishing a Strategic Management and

    Accountability Framework, but Communications with Employees

    and Stakeholders Can Be Improved
    Recommendations for Future Action
    Progress Is Being Made in Establishing Management Infrastructure

    and Internal Control, but Considerable Work Remains Before
    Effective Information Technology Management Capability WillBe
    in Place

    Recommendations for Future Action
    AOC is Beginning to Address Long-standing Issues in Worker Safety,

    Project Management, and Recycling
    Concluding Observations
    Agency Comments

    1 2 5 5

    6 10

    10 14

    15 18 19

           Appendixes
               Appendix I:              Strategic Management                   22
              Appendix II:       Strategic Human Capital Management            40
             Appendix III:              Financial Management                   45
              Appendix IV:             Information Technology                  51
               Appendix V:                 Worker Safety                       60
              Appendix VI:               Project Management                    71
             Appendix VII:                   Recycling                         80
            Appendix VIII:   Comments from the Architect of the Capitol        87
                                            GAO Comments                      106

    Tables Table 1: AOC's Strategic Focus Areas and Strategic Goals 23

    Figures Figure 1:	Examples of Workforce Data That Are Collected and
    Analyzed by Other Federal Agencies 36

    Abbreviations

    AOC Architect of the Capitol
    BCA Building Condition Assessments
    CFO Chief Financial Officer
    CIO Chief Information Officer
    COO Chief Operating Officer
    EA Enterprise Architecture
    EAC Employee Advisory Council
    FMA Facility Management Assistant
    GC General Contractor
    GPRA Government Performance and Results Act
    GSA General Services Administration
    HRMD Human Resources Management Division
    IT Information Technology
    JHA Job Hazard Analysis
    JOSH Jurisdiction Occupational Safety and Health
    NAS National Academy of Sciences
    OAP Office of the Attending Physician
    OCFO Office of the Chief Financial Officer
    ODC Office of Design and Construction
    OIRM Office of Information Resource Management
    OSH Occupational Safety and Health
    OSHA Occupational Safety and Health Administration
    PCES Performance Communication Evaluation System
    PIC Project Information Center
    PHS Public Health Service
    PRP Performance Review Process
    SED Safety and Environmental Division
    SHEC Safety, Health and Environmental Council
    WFPM Office of Workforce Planning and Management

    This is a work of the U.S. government and is not subject to copyright
    protection in the United States. It may be reproduced and distributed in
    its entirety without further permission from GAO. However, because this
    work may contain copyrighted images or other material, permission from the
    copyright holder may be necessary if you wish to reproduce this material
    separately.

    A

    United States General Accounting Office Washington, D.C. 20548

    January 30, 2004

    The Honorable Ben Nighthorse Campbell
    Chairman
    The Honorable Richard J. Durbin
    Ranking Minority Member
    Subcommittee on Legislative Branch
    Committee on Appropriations
    United States Senate

    The Honorable Jack Kingston
    Chairman
    The Honorable James P. Moran
    Ranking Minority Member
    Subcommittee on Legislative
    Committee on Appropriations
    House of Representatives

    The Honorable Trent Lott
    Chairman
    The Honorable Christopher J. Dodd
    Ranking Minority Member
    Committee on Rules and Administration
    United States Senate

    In January 2003, we issued a management review of the Office of the
    Architect of the Capitol (AOC) that contained 35 recommendations to
    assist AOC in establishing a strategic management and accountability
    framework to transform its organization.1 One of the most important issues
    raised in our January 2003 report was the need for Congress to create a
    Chief Operating Officer (COO) position to serve as the central leadership
    point to improve AOC's executive decision-making capacity and
    accountability. Congress accepted this suggestion. The Architect of the
    Capitol appointed the first COO on July 28, 2003.2 As the first of our
    reports
    on AOC's implementation of the recommendations contained in our

    1U.S. General Accounting Office, Architect of the Capitol: Management and
    Accountability Framework Needed for Organizational Transformation,
    GAO-03-231 (Washington, D.C.: Jan. 17, 2003).

    2Section 1203 of Division H, Title I, Pub. L. No. 108-7, Feb. 20, 2003
    (Consolidated Appropriations Resolution, 2003).

    January 2003 report, this status report will provide the Architect and the
    agency's new COO with information that can assist them in elevating,
    integrating, and institutionalizing attention and accountability for
    certain key management functions and leading transformational change
    within AOC.

    The Conference Report accompanying the fiscal year 2003 Legislative Branch
    Appropriations Act mandated GAO to monitor the implementation of the
    recommendations of our January 2003 report.3 This report discusses the
    progress AOC has made in establishing its strategic management and
    accountability framework, instituting management infrastructure and
    controls, and addressing long-standing program issues. As such, this
    report does not directly address issues associated with major AOC
    projects, such as the Capitol Visitor Center and the Capitol Power Plant.
    Rather, the January 2003 report and this status report concern the
    establishment of AOC's strategic management and accountability framework
    and the management infrastructure and internal control AOC needs to have
    in place to be successful in all its efforts, including its major
    projects. Our January 2003 report concluded that AOC needs to improve its
    internal control, which is synonymous with management control, and is
    integral to any organization. Internal control is comprised of the plans,
    methods, and procedures used to meet missions, goals, and objectives, and
    that help safeguard assets and prevent and detect errors and fraud. (For a
    detailed assessment of AOC's progress addressing each of our 35 management
    review recommendations, as well as an expanded explanation of the basis
    for our additional recommendations, see appendixes I through VII.)

    Results in Brief	As we discussed in our January 2003 report, many of AOC's
    management problems have been longstanding, and its organizational
    transformation would take years to fully accomplish. Not surprisingly,
    therefore, AOC's progress in addressing our initial recommendations
    remains very much a work in progress. Initial steps are being taken but a
    great deal more needs to be done. Moreover, greater effort will have to be
    made if more timely improvements are to occur. Sustained commitment and
    assertive involvement of AOC's leadership are key to addressing
    long-standing weaknesses and instilling lasting change.

    3H.R. Conf. Rep. No. 108-10, at 1225 (2003).

    AOC is taking the first steps in the development of its strategic
    management and accountability framework and addressing the concerns we
    identified in our January 2003 report, such as improving planning and
    organizational alignment through the development of its strategic plan.
    This framework and the accompanying draft plans provide a basis for AOC's
    ongoing effort to reassess its organizational structure to ensure that it
    is aligned to meet its goals, as well as provide high quality-and
    accountable-products and services to its clients and customers.

    AOC is also strengthening individual accountability for organizational
    goals through its senior executive performance management systems, but
    more progress can be made with aligning employee performance management
    systems with agency strategic goals. On the other hand, a key component of
    a successful transformation is ongoing communication with customers,
    stakeholders, and employees; without effective communications,
    transforming AOC will be difficult. In that regard, we are making
    additional recommendations that AOC can take to strengthen agencywide
    communications by providing opportunities to gather employee feedback
    sooner than is currently planned and conduct a pilot of its agency
    congressional protocols. (For details on the progress of the development
    of AOC's strategic management framework, see appendix I.)

    At the same time, AOC is taking the first steps towards improving its
    management infrastructure and internal control. AOC is addressing our
    concerns about the lack of consistent human capital policies and
    procedures by drafting its absence and leave policy, providing guidelines
    for premium pay eligibility, and completing its policy and procedures for
    administering pay flexibilities. (See appendix II for details on the
    progress of AOC's implementation of the recommendations we made in
    strategic human capital management.) In addition, AOC has developed three
    broadbased action plans that are intended to accomplish its goal of
    institutionalizing financial management best practices that support the
    effective delivery of programs and services. These action plans, if
    properly carried out, represent a reasonable basis for achieving AOC's
    goal of institutionalizing financial management best practices that
    support the effective delivery of programs and services. However, while
    efforts have begun to implement individual action items associated with
    the three action plans, none of the individual action items has been
    completed, and many are not scheduled for completion until fiscal years
    2006 and 2007. Also, planning for certain action items has not yet begun,
    and for some is not scheduled to begin until mid-fiscal year 2004. While
    AOC has made progress since our January 2003 report, much work remains to
    address

    unplanned action items and complete ongoing planning and implementation
    efforts. (See appendix III for details on the progress of the
    implementation of the recommendation we made in financial management.)

    As part of its efforts to adopt a strategic, agencywide approach to
    leveraging information technology (IT) to advance strategic agency goals,
    AOC is developing an IT investment management process, which it plans to
    implement in fiscal year 2004, and is also taking steps to develop and use
    an enterprise architecture (EA), or modernization blueprint, to guide and
    constrain its IT investments. These and other IT management improvements
    demonstrate AOC's commitment to implementing the kind of IT management
    reforms that are embodied in our recommendations. However, AOC has much to
    do before it fully implements our recommendations, and we are making
    additional recommendations to better ensure that its investment management
    and EA efforts are successful. (See appendix IV for details on the
    progress of the implementation of the recommendations we made concerning
    information technology management.)

    Finally, AOC is also making some progress in its efforts to
    institutionalize accountability concerning such long-standing issues as
    worker safety, project management, and recycling. AOC is addressing our
    concern about a lack of clearly defined and documented policies and
    procedures for reporting hazards by developing a hazard assessment and
    control policy, but the policy is not expected to be fully implemented
    until May 2006. Until AOC completes the implementation of this policy and
    its subsequent analysis across all jurisdictions, it will not be able to
    develop a comprehensive picture of AOC hazards. (See appendix V for
    details on the progress of the implementation of the recommendations we
    made on worker safety.) AOC is also taking steps to establish a framework
    for better project management and accountability by establishing a process
    to assign project priorities based on clearly defined, well-documented,
    consistently applied, and transparent criteria. (See appendix VI for
    details on the progress of the implementation of the recommendations we
    made in project management.) In addition, AOC has made some progress
    toward adopting a more strategic approach to its recycling program by
    taking steps to clarify the mission of the recycling program and establish
    program goals as part of its environmental program plan, as we recommended
    in our January 2003 report. (See appendix VII for details on the progress
    of the implementation of the recommendations we made on recycling.)

    The Architect generally agreed with the findings of our report, although
    there are some areas of disagreement in information technology, worker
    safety, and recycling. His written response is reprinted in app. VIII.

    On December 17, 2003, we provided the Architect with our draft report for
    his review and comment. The Architect generally agreed with the findings
    of our report, although there are some disagreements in the areas of
    information technology, worker safety, and recycling issues. His written
    comments and our response, which includes our comments on the concerns
    raised by the Architect, are reprinted in app. VIII.

    Background	AOC is responsible for the maintenance, renovation, and new
    construction of all buildings within the Capitol Hill complex.
    Organizationally, AOC is made up of a centralized staff that performs
    administrative functions and "jurisdictions" that handle their own day-to
    day operations, such as the Capitol building, the House and Senate office
    buildings, the Library of Congress, and the Supreme Court, and support the
    operation of Congress and its neighboring institutions. The historic
    nature and high-profile use of many of these buildings creates a complex
    environment in which to carry out this mission. AOC must perform its
    duties in an environment that requires balancing the divergent needs of
    congressional leadership, committees, individual members of Congress,
    congressional staffs, and the visiting public. The challenges of operating
    in this environment were compounded by the events of September 11, 2001,
    and the resulting need for increased security and safety.

      Objective, Scope, and Methodology

    The Conference Report on the Legislative Branch Appropriations Act, 2003,
    directed us to monitor and evaluate AOC's progress in implementing its
    management plan that addressed the recommendations contained in our
    January 2003 report. Accordingly, our objective for this report was to
    assess the progress AOC is making in addressing our findings and
    implementing our recommendations since the issuance of our January 2003
    report. In this regard, this report addresses the recommendations we made
    in our January 2003 report, which concerned the areas of strategic
    planning and management, human capital, financial management, information
    technology, worker safety, project management, and recycling.

    To address our objective, we collected from AOC documentation of the
    organization's implementation of our recommendations, which we used to

    assess the progress made in addressing the issues underlying these
    recommendations. For example, we reviewed documents such as AOC's draft
    strategic and performance plans, draft communications plan, IT investment
    framework, centralized IT management policy, initial versions of EA
    products, occupational safety and health program plan, master safety plan,
    project management evaluation and screening matrix, and pollution
    prevention planning initiative, among others. We also reviewed
    documentation to see that policies had been changed and meetings had taken
    place. We also interviewed AOC officials to determine the status of the
    organization's progress on our recommendations. In addition, we also
    continue to meet regularly with the COO to discuss the status of
    improvement efforts underway at AOC and other issues of mutual interest
    and concern. We performed our work in Washington, D.C., from July 2003
    through November 2003 in accordance with generally accepted government
    auditing standards.

      AOC Has Begun Establishing a Strategic Management and Accountability
      Framework, but Communications with Employees and Stakeholders Can Be Improved

    In our January 2003 report, we stated that to better serve Congress, AOC
    needed to build its capability to define goals, set priorities, ensure
    followthrough, monitor progress, and establish accountability for results
    to achieve its agenda for organizational transformation. We made 11
    recommendations that would help AOC establish a management and
    accountability framework to lead and execute its organizational
    transformation. To adopt the elements of the management and accountability
    framework-strategic planning, organizational alignment, communications,
    performance measurement, and strategic human capital management-and build
    on efforts under way at AOC, we recommended that the Architect of the
    Capitol

    o 	improve strategic planning and organizational alignment by involving
    key congressional and other external stakeholders in AOC's strategic
    planning efforts and in any organizational changes that may result from
    these efforts;

    o 	strengthen accountability for results by developing annual goals,
    measuring performance, and strategically managing human capital to support
    achieving those goals and measures, such as creating a line of sight by
    linking AOC's senior executive and employee performance management system;
    and

    o 	develop a comprehensive strategy to improve internal and external
    communications by completing the development of congressional

    protocols with stakeholder involvement and continuing to regularly measure
    customer satisfaction AOC-wide, among other strategies, such as providing
    opportunities for employee feedback.

    AOC is taking the first steps towards establishing our recommended
    strategic management and accountability framework. For example, AOC is
    making important progress in improving strategic planning and
    organizational alignment by issuing draft strategic and performance plans,
    though both are still subject to revision and approval by AOC's new COO.4
    Specifically, in March 2003, AOC issued its draft strategic plan for
    fiscal years 2003-2007, which outlines four strategic focus areas and
    corresponding strategic goals, and a draft performance plan for fiscal
    years 2003-2007 with a particular focus on fiscal years 2003-2004, which
    provides the specific action plans and milestones for achieving the goals
    and objectives in the draft strategic plan. This framework and the
    accompanying draft plans provide a basis for AOC's ongoing effort to
    reassess its organizational structure to ensure that it is aligned to meet
    its goals, as well as create and administer high quality-and accountable-
    products and services.

    Many of the action plans and milestone dates that AOC has outlined in its
    draft performance plan are scheduled to occur over the next several years.
    Because AOC's organizational transformation agenda is a long-term process,
    it is especially important that AOC leadership closely monitor the interim
    activities, action plans, and milestones outlined in its draft performance
    plan to ensure that it meets intended deadlines and completes its
    transformation. As we noted in our January 2003 report, sustained top
    leadership attention is essential to overcome an organization's natural
    resistance to change, marshal the resources needed to implement the
    change, and build and maintain the organizationwide commitment to new ways
    of doing business.

    In addition, AOC is also involving key congressional stakeholders, as we
    recommended, in the development of its agency draft strategic plan and is
    requesting input on the strategic direction of the agency. AOC's
    high-level summary of the stakeholder reaction it received demonstrates
    the value of

    4At the time of our review, the COO had not approved the agency's draft
    strategic and draft performance plans. We received notification that the
    COO had approved and finalized AOC's strategic and performance plans on
    January 13, 2004. Therefore, throughout our report, we refer to the
    strategic and performance plans as draft because at the time of our
    review, these documents were not yet approved.

    such outreach. The need for a strong and continuing communications
    strategy, an augmented fire safety strategy, and creating a "living"
    planning and improvement approach that becomes part of AOC's culture, were
    among the important issues raised by stakeholders. Building on its
    strategic planning efforts, it is important that AOC continues to involve
    key congressional, as well as other stakeholders, in its strategic
    planning process, and keeps them informed of any operational and
    organizational changes resulting from this planning process.

    In addition, AOC is making progress in strengthening individual
    accountability for organizational goals-creating a line of sight-by
    linking its senior executive performance management system, known as the
    Performance Review Process (PRP), with its draft agency strategic goals,
    as we also recommended. However, AOC has not made as much progress in
    linking its employee performance management system, known as the
    Performance Communication Evaluation System (PCES) to its agency strategic
    goals. We have reported that high performing organizations align
    performance expectations of top leadership with goals and then cascade
    those expectations down to lower levels.5 According to the Director of the
    AOC Human Resource Management Division (HRMD), to align PCES with PRP, AOC
    plans to first consolidate its multiple jurisdictional rating cycles into
    one cycle and then expects to incorporate the agency's strategic goals
    into PCES by January 2005. While consolidating the multiple jurisdictional
    employee performance management cycles may be helpful in the
    administration of its performance reviews, AOC does not need to wait for
    this consolidation of performance review cycles to integrate its strategic
    goals into PCES. By linking both its senior executive and employee
    performance management systems to agency strategic goals, AOC can improve
    the strategic management of its human capital and help achieve these
    goals.

    Furthermore, AOC is progressing in establishing a communications strategy
    and has developed its first agencywide communications plan, as recommended
    in our January 2003 report, and included conducting employee focus groups
    or surveys as part of that plan. According to the Deputy Chief of Staff,
    funds to conduct AOC's employee focus groups or surveys were requested
    after the fiscal year 2004 budget submission in

    5U.S. General Accounting Office, Results-Oriented Cultures: Creating a
    Clear Linkage between Individual Performance and Organizational Success,
    GAO-03-488 (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 14, 2003).

    early December 2002. Therefore, AOC plans to conduct its employee focus
    groups or surveys in fiscal year 2005. Our own experiences at GAO have
    shown that obtaining employee views, such as through focus groups, need
    not be a resource intensive effort and that in any case, the benefits
    often far exceed the incremental costs. We recently reported that because
    people are the drivers of any organizational transformation, it is vital
    to monitor their attitudes.6 As such, AOC employees need to see that AOC
    top leadership not only listens to their concerns, but also takes action
    and makes appropriate adjustments to the transformation in a visible and
    timely way. Because of the importance of considering employee views during
    an organizational transformation, we recommend that AOC not wait until
    fiscal year 2005 to conduct its planned employee focus groups or surveys
    to gather feedback.

    Moreover, as we recommended, AOC completed the development of its
    congressional protocols on June 30, 2003, to strengthen communications
    with key stakeholders and plans to meet with congressional stakeholders to
    discuss these protocols and issue final protocols by March 31, 2004. As
    stated in our January 2003 report, the purpose of agency protocols is to
    help create a basic understanding between AOC and its stakeholders of how
    AOC's efforts and resources can be targeted at the highest priorities.
    Protocols also foster transparency about how decisions and tradeoffs can
    be made and services deployed given the competing demands that confront
    AOC, and how those demands and resources require careful and continuous
    balancing. According to AOC officials, although the development of its
    congressional protocols is complete, implementing these protocols may be
    difficult because of stakeholder concerns about their potential effect on
    decreasing levels of service. In our January 2003 report, we noted that we
    had worked closely with Congress on the development of our own
    congressional protocols, along with careful pilot testing, and then
    implemented our final protocols in 1999. AOC needs to discuss with its
    stakeholders how the use of these protocols will help AOC balance
    immediate needs with the achievement of overall agency strategic goals. A
    pilot test would provide AOC and its customers an opportunity to test the
    application of the protocols to the various types of customer needs AOC
    confronts and to revise those protocols based on feedback obtained during
    the pilot.

    6U.S. General Accounting Office, Results-Oriented Cultures: Implementation
    Steps to Assist Mergers and Organizational Transformations, GAO-03-669
    (Washington, D.C.: Jul. 2, 2003).

      Recommendations for Future Action

    To further progress in developing its strategic management and
    accountability framework and improve communications agencywide, we
    recommend that the Architect of the Capitol take the following actions

    o 	gather and analyze employee feedback from focus groups or surveys
    before fiscal year 2005, as well as communicate how it is taking actions
    to address any identified employee concerns

    o 	conduct a pilot of AOC congressional protocols in one or more of its
    jurisdictions to determine how well protocols would work in addressing
    customer requests for service, while balancing the demands of multiple
    requests with the strategic plan and corresponding project priorities of
    the agency.

      Progress Is Being Made in Establishing Management Infrastructure and Internal
      Control, but Considerable Work Remains Before Effective Information Technology
      Management Capability Will Be in Place

    In our January 2003 report, we made nine recommendations to help AOC
    improve its management infrastructure and internal control to support its
    organizational transformation initiative. In particular, we stated
    effective internal control also could help AOC manage change and cope with
    shifting environments and evolving demands and priorities. We found that
    AOC would need to further develop and consistently apply transparent human
    capital policies and procedures to help encourage trust in management.
    Additionally, we stated that AOC must continue improving its approach to
    financial management to support effective and efficient program management
    by developing and implementing effective budget formulation and execution
    policies and procedures that govern capital projects and operating
    activities AOC-wide. We also noted that AOC needed to adopt an agencywide
    approach to information technology management to position itself to
    optimize the contribution of information technology to agency mission
    performance. Specifically, we recommended that AOC

    o 	strengthen and consistently implement its human capital policies,
    procedures, and processes, such as developing a consistent agencywide
    leave policy, assessing ways in which AOC management could better gather
    and analyze data on employee relations issues, and establishing a direct
    reporting relationship between the Ombudsperson and the Architect;

    o 	continue to improve AOC's approach to financial management by
    developing strategies to institutionalize financial management practices

    that will support budgeting, financial, and program management at AOC; and

    o 	adopt an agencywide approach to information technology management by
    establishing appropriate leadership and developing the policies,
    procedures, and tools needed to effectively and efficiently manage
    information technology resources across the agency.

    AOC is taking the first steps towards improving its management
    infrastructure and internal control, though in some cases, additional
    steps need to be taken to fully address the findings of our January 2003
    report. For example, AOC is making important progress in addressing our
    recommendation to develop and implement agencywide human capital policies
    and procedures by (1) drafting its employee absence and leave policy,
    still pending review and approval by the Architect, (2) providing
    guidelines to its workforce for determining eligibility for Sunday premium
    pay, and (3) completing its policy and procedures for administering pay
    flexibilities. The issuance of these policies is important to addressing
    the concerns raised by AOC employees when we conducted employee focus
    groups as part of our January 2003 report. AOC's HRMD director told us
    that managers and supervisors are now being held accountable through its
    employee performance management systems for the consistent application of
    human capital policies and procedures, such as leave granting, overtime,
    and giving employee awards. As part of its management and oversight
    responsibilities of human capital policies, it is important that AOC
    senior management and HRMD continually monitor whether supervisors and
    managers are fairly administering the policies concerning leave, rewards,
    and recognition. AOC could also use information gathered during employee
    focus groups, employee satisfaction surveys, and informal feedback from
    employees to monitor employee views on the administration of these
    policies.

    Furthermore, as we recommended, AOC has developed and begun to implement
    strategies designed to institutionalize financial management best
    practices. The Office of the Chief Financial Officer (OCFO) has
    established three broad-based action plans to improve financial management
    practices at AOC: (1) build a foundation of financial control and
    accountability, (2) assess the financial management organization's current
    role in meeting mission objectives and organize financial management to
    add value, and (3) improve forward-looking analysis, train managers to
    understand how to use financial information, and improve the partnership
    between financial management and operations. These action

    plans, if properly carried out, represent a reasonable basis for achieving
    AOC's goal of institutionalizing financial management best practices that
    support the effective delivery of programs and services. However, while
    AOC has established three action plans to address our recommendation and
    begun efforts to implement them, none of the individual action items
    associated with the three action plans has been completed, and many are
    not scheduled for completion until fiscal years 2006 and 2007.
    Furthermore, planning for certain items has not yet begun, and for some is
    not scheduled to begin until mid-fiscal year 2004. While AOC has made
    progress since our January 2003 report, much work remains to address
    unplanned action items and complete ongoing planning and implementation
    efforts.

    AOC is also beginning to address its IT investment management challenges.
    We found when preparing our January 2003 report that AOC did not have an
    agencywide, portfolio-based approach to investment management. Thus, we
    recommended that AOC develop a detailed plan to guide the development and
    implementation of such an approach, focusing first on controlling existing
    projects and establishing the management structures to implement the
    portfolio-based project selection process. Such an approach helps an
    organization measure the progress of existing projects and continually
    assess proposed and ongoing projects as an integrated and competing set of
    investment options.

    In response, AOC is developing a new IT portfolio management process,
    referred to as its investment framework, which it plans to implement in
    fiscal year 2004. AOC's IT policy, signed by the Architect, states that
    the framework is to provide an effective means to select projects that
    best support the agency's mission. A draft version of the framework,
    completed in October 2003, is organized along a "select, control, and
    evaluate" model. To execute the select, control, and evaluate processes,
    the framework specifies four management structures-an architecture and
    standards committee, a project management board, a business systems
    modernization office, and an investment review board, with AOC defining
    the memberships of each of these entities. In January 2004, AOC stated
    that it has begun using the framework to control all fiscal year 2004
    investments. An agency official also told us that AOC intends to fully
    implement the framework by May 2004.

    AOC's actions partially address our recommendation. Specifically, we
    recommended that the agency focus first on detailing and implementing
    processes to control existing investments and that efforts to develop and
    implement these processes be guided by a detailed plan. Although AOC

    states that it has revised its project investment review board to include
    key senior agency leaders, it has not focused first on controlling
    existing IT investments. For AOC to implement effective IT investment
    management processes, it is important that it follow our previous
    recommendation on establishing a foundation for its investment management
    framework. In building on this foundation, AOC needs to take additional
    steps to help it execute the more mature investment management processes
    provided for in our investment management guide.7

    Moreover, AOC is taking steps to develop and use an EA. We recommended
    that AOC develop, implement, and maintain an EA, starting with developing
    an architecture policy, establishing executive oversight, and designating
    a chief enterprise architect. Our experience with federal agencies has
    shown that attempting to modernize IT environments without an EA to guide
    and constrain investments often results in systems that are duplicative,
    not well integrated, unnecessarily costly to maintain and interface, and
    ineffective in supporting mission goals. The development, implementation,
    and maintenance of architectures are recognized hallmarks of successful
    private and public organizations that effectively exploited IT in meeting
    their mission goals. In contrast, we reported in our January 2003 report
    that AOC did not have an EA or the management foundation needed to
    successfully develop one.

    In response to our recommendation, AOC has issued an EA policy and
    assigned the Office of Information Resource Management (OIRM)
    responsibility for developing and maintaining the architecture. AOC has
    also assigned responsibility for guiding and approving EA development to
    the agency's senior policy committee, which is composed of representatives
    from across the agency. AOC has committed to hire a chief enterprise
    architect and will request funds to do so in its fiscal year 2005 budget.
    AOC has also established a unit to provide technical and managerial
    support, selected a framework to guide development, and has prepared
    initial versions of its existing and target architectures and a plan for
    migrating from its existing to its target states. The agency states that
    the Deputy Chief of Staff has recently approved these products.

    7U.S. General Accounting Office, Information Technology Investment
    Management: A Framework for Assessing and Improving Process Maturity,
    Version 1, GAO/AIMD-10.1.23 (Washington, D.C.: May 2000).

    Despite these steps, much work remains to satisfy our January 2003
    recommendation aimed at establishing the management foundation for
    developing and using an EA. For example, the agency has not yet hired a
    chief enterprise architect and has not ensured that adequate resources are
    devoted to the program, that architecture environments are described in
    terms of performance and security, and that metrics are used to measure EA
    progress. In addition to addressing these architecture management
    foundational needs, AOC will need to take additional steps to implement
    those architecture management practices associated with effectively
    completing, maintaining, and implementing an EA that are defined in our
    architecture management guide.8

    Improving AOC's organizational internal control will help to support its
    overall management infrastructure, and AOC is doing so by issuing
    consistent agencywide human capital policies and procedures. AOC is also
    improving its overall approach to financial management by developing
    action plans and beginning to implement these plans to institutionalize
    sound financial management practices. AOC has also recognized that
    adopting a corporate approach to IT management is a key enabler of its
    strategy for organizational improvement, and it has demonstrated its
    commitment to do so. However, until AOC completes and implements plans for
    improvement that are consistent with all our recommendations, it will be
    challenged in its ability to optimize the contribution of IT to agency
    mission performance.

      Recommendations for Future Action

    We recommend that to further its progress in the management of its
    information technology, the Architect of the Capitol

    o 	plan for and implement those practices in our IT investment management
    guide associated with corporate, portfolio-based investment decision
    making, such as (1) implementing criteria to select investments that will
    best support the organization's strategic goals, objectives, and mission,
    (2) using these criteria to consistently analyze and prioritize all IT
    investments, (3) ensuring that the optimal investment portfolio with
    manageable risks and returns is selected and funded, and (4) overseeing
    each investment within the portfolio to

    8U.S. General Accounting Office, Information Technology: A Framework for
    Assessing and Improving Enterprise Architecture Management, GAO-03-584G
    (Washington, D.C.: April 2003).

    ensure that it achieves its cost, benefit, schedule, and risk
    expectations; and

    o 	plan for and implement the practices in our architecture management
    guide associated with leveraging an EA for organizational transformation,
    such as (1) ensuring that adequate resources are devoted to the program
    (funding, people, tools, and technology), (2) ensuring that the
    architecture describes both the "as is" and the "to be" environments in
    terms of performance, (3) ensuring that architecture business,
    performance, information and data, applications and services, and
    technology descriptions address security, and (4) ensuring that metrics
    are used to measure EA progress, quality, compliance, and return on
    investment.

      AOC is Beginning to Address Long-standing Issues in Worker Safety, Project
      Management, and Recycling

    In our January 2003 report, we made 15 recommendations to help AOC address
    long-standing program issues, worker safety, project management, and
    recycling. We noted that both the strategic management and accountability
    framework and improving management infrastructure and other internal
    controls that support AOC's transformation cut across the agency's
    programs and influence its performance in all areas critical to achieving
    its mission, especially program areas of long-standing concern to AOC's
    employees and congressional stakeholders. We stated that the Architect
    declared safety his number one priority; nonetheless, relating safety to
    other pressing priorities and developing a clear strategy for how working
    safely will become the cultural norm, was still a work in progress at the
    AOC. Similarly, we reported that AOC had adopted industry best practices
    for project management, but implementation was uneven and could benefit
    from stronger leadership and improvements in performance and financial
    management, priority setting, communication, and strategic management of
    human capital. Finally, although AOC had recently made improvements to the
    House and Senate recycling programs, contamination of recycled materials
    remained high, and the goals for the overall program remained unclear.
    Specifically, we recommended that the Architect of the Capitol

    o 	improve the overall approach to worker safety in identifying
    performance measures, clearly defining policies and procedures for
    reporting hazards, establishing a consistent system for conducting
    investigations and followup, establishing a safety training curriculum,
    assigning clear responsibility for tracking worker safety employee
    training, clarifying the role of the Office of the Attending Physician

    (OAP) in helping AOC to meet its safety goals, and establishing a senior
    management work group to routinely discuss worker compensation issues;

    o 	improve its overall approach to project management by developing a
    Capitol Hill complex master plan and completing building condition
    assessments, developing a transparent process to prioritize agency capital
    projects, developing tools to effectively communicate priorities and
    progress of projects, clearly defining project-management-related
    measures, and aligning project management staff and resources with
    mission-critical goals; and

    o 	improve its overall approach to its recycling program by developing a
    clear mission and goals, developing a performance measurement system to
    support accomplishing its recycling program, and examining the roles,
    responsibilities, and accountability of its recycling program staff.

    AOC is making progress in addressing long-standing areas of concern,
    though much remains to be done. For example, to address our concern
    regarding the lack of clearly defined and documented policies and
    procedures for reporting hazards, AOC has plans to develop a Hazard
    Assessment and Control policy, but it is not expected to be fully
    implemented across all jurisdictions until May 2006. As a key component in
    developing this, AOC (1) plans to identify hazards associated with
    specific job tasks or Job Hazard Analysis (JHA),9 (2) has created a
    schedule for completing each JHA, and (3) contracted with the Public
    Health Service to identify hazards associated with job tasks in each
    jurisdiction. According to AOC officials, the JHA process has been
    completed for two jurisdictions, the Senate office buildings and the
    Construction Management Division. While a majority of the jurisdictions
    await full development and implementation of the Hazard Assessment and
    Control policy, each jurisdiction continues to rely upon its own hazard
    reporting processes. Also, AOC has established a plan and initiated
    actions to improve the reporting of hazards, though the development and
    implementation of agencywide policy and procedures for hazard reporting is
    expected to take

    9AOC's Occupational Safety and Health Program Plan splits the development
    and implementation of the Hazard Assessment and Control policy into two
    segments, one dealing with completion of the JHA and the other dealing
    with implementation of the operational aspects of this policy. The time
    frames we cite here apply to the operational segment of the policy. The
    JHA segment is scheduled to be fully implemented by the end of calendar
    year 2004.

    years to complete due to the time needed to develop and fully implement
    this safety policy. Until AOC completes the implementation of this policy
    and subsequent analysis across all jurisdictions, it will not be able to
    develop a comprehensive picture of AOC hazards. Additionally, until AOC
    completes the system-wide process for investigating incidents across all
    jurisdictions, it will not be able to develop a comprehensive picture of
    AOC incidents, including their causes.

    Additionally, AOC continues to recognize the importance of a disciplined
    project management process and is taking steps to establish a framework
    for better project management and accountability. For example, as we
    recommended, AOC has developed a process to assign project priorities that
    is based on clearly defined, well-documented, consistently applied, and
    transparent criteria. According to the Office of Design and Construction
    Acting Chief, in February 2003, AOC worked with a consultant to develop
    evaluation criteria to set the prioritization of building projects. For
    prioritization purposes, each project is evaluated in five areas, (1)
    preservation, (2) impact on mission, (3) economic impact, (4) safety, and
    (5) security; and assigned a score, based on a 100-point scale, in each
    area. AOC also developed a matrix to provide criteria and guidance on how
    to evaluate and score the projects in each of the five areas. AOC has
    created a clearly defined, well-documented, and transparent process for
    evaluating and prioritizing projects. While determining the priority of
    projects will always be somewhat subjective, AOC has developed a
    reasonable approach using a matrix to help raters score projects in five
    areas. The matrix provides clear guidance when scoring projects in each of
    the five rating areas. Since the evaluation criteria have not yet been
    used to determine which projects will be submitted for funding, it remains
    to be seen if it will be consistently applied. Using this matrix and
    documenting the factors used in making the priority decisions should help
    AOC support its capital improvement program.

    AOC has also made some progress toward adopting a more strategic approach
    to its recycling program. For example, consistent with our
    recommendations, AOC is taking steps to clarify the mission of the
    recycling program and establish program goals as part of its environmental
    program plan. In its March 2003 draft strategic plan, AOC states that it
    plans to develop a long-range environmental program plan that will
    establish program mission, vision, goals, and measures.10 The draft
    strategic plan also states that this environmental program plan would
    include clarifying the mission, goals, and measures of the recycling

    program-a component of pollution prevention. Although, according to its
    draft performance plan, AOC is a few months behind its schedule, AOC
    officials told us that work has begun on both of these projects-the
    baseline assessment and waste stream analysis-and both projects will be
    substantially completed by the end of 2003. These AOC officials also
    advised us that the results of the baseline assessment and waste stream
    analysis would provide a basis for establishing program priorities and
    measuring progress. The draft performance plan also provides for
    stakeholder participation in this process both before and after the actual
    environmental program planning process occurs, but this has not yet taken
    place. According to AOC's draft performance plan, stakeholder involvement
    is scheduled to begin in the second quarter of fiscal year 2004, after
    completion of the baseline assessment and waste stream analysis. AOC is
    taking the first steps needed to developing its recycling program mission
    and goals within the broader context of an environmental program plan,
    which is reasonable and consistent with our recommendation.

    Concluding	We noted in our January 2003 report that organizational
    transformation does not come quickly or easily and the changes under way
    at AOC would

    Observations	require a long-term, concerted effort. We stated that by
    drawing on the full potential of its top leadership and management team,
    AOC could begin to take immediate steps on a number of the concerns
    described in our January 2003 report, although we recognized that AOC
    would be able to implement some of these actions more quickly than others.
    Although we have found that AOC is addressing each of our 35 original
    recommendations either through its planning efforts or actions it has
    initiated; a great deal more needs to be done. Moreover, greater effort
    will have to be made if more timely improvements are to occur. Sustained
    commitment and assertive involvement on behalf of AOC leadership will be
    vital to ensure that it completes the many action plans and reaches its
    milestones during the next several years to achieve its organizational
    transformation.

    10According to the AOC draft strategic plan, the environmental program
    plan, to be completed in 2004, will address a wide spectrum of
    environmental management initiatives including environmentally sensitive
    planning and design, compliance with applicable provisions of
    environmental regulations (such as clean air, clean water, and solid waste
    disposal), and pollution prevention.

    As AOC works to establish its strategic management and accountability
    framework, improve its management infrastructure, and address longstanding
    areas of concern, it must continue to demonstrate that progress is being
    made on each of our recommendations to help it sustain the momentum needed
    to accomplish its organizational transformation, particularly in improving
    communications with employees and stakeholders and improving its
    management of information technology.

    Agency Comments	We provided a draft of this report on December 17, 2003 to
    the Architect of the Capitol for his review and comment. We received
    written comments from the Architect on January 20, 2004. In response to
    our draft, the Architect generally agreed with our findings, although
    there are some areas of disagreement. Most of the comments were technical
    changes based on information that was either not provided to us during our
    review or related to activities that occurred outside the timeframe of our
    review. We will assess these activities as part of our future semi-annual
    reviews. Where appropriate, we have revised our draft report in response
    to AOC's comments.

    In his written comments, the Architect disagreed with our characterization
    or assessment of progress in the areas of information technology, worker
    safety, and recycling. Regarding information technology, we reported that
    AOC had taken a number of steps to strengthen investment selection
    processes but had not focused on controlling its existing IT investments,
    as we had recommended. In response, the Architect stated that AOC was now
    controlling existing investments, noting several steps the agency had
    taken to do so. While we do not question whether the agency has taken the
    steps it cited, our position is that those steps either relate to
    investment selection rather than investment control, as defined in our
    investment framework, or the steps were missing necessary details
    describing how the investment control function was being performed. Thus,
    we believe that AOC still needs to focus on investment control.

    Regarding worker safety, the AOC commented that GAO did not fully capture
    the progress that has been made in creating an effective worker safety and
    health program. We believe, however, that the information we present in
    the report is an accurate portrayal of the information we collected during
    the period of our review. New information brought forth in the AOC's
    comments to our draft will be considered during the next semiannual
    review.

    Regarding recycling issues, the Architect states that although the
    contaminated materials had resulted in limited revenue generation, the
    recycling contractor separated the contaminated material from the
    recyclable material, and thus waste reduction did occur. We believe that
    the language contained in our January 2003 report about the level of waste
    reduction the AOC had achieved through its recycling efforts is accurate
    as stated.

    The Architect's written comments and our response are reprinted in app.

    VIII.

    This report is available at no charge on GAO's Web site at
    http://www.gao.gov.

    If you have further questions about this report, please contact me or
    Steven Lozano at (202) 512-6806 or on mihmj@gao.gov or lozanos@gao.gov.
    Major contributors to this report included Justin Booth, Carole Cimitile,
    John Dale, Terrell Dorn, Maria Edelstein, Elena Epps, Brett Fallavollita,
    V. Bruce Goddard, Carl Higginbotham, David Merrill, Susan Pachikara, Masha

    Pastuhov-Pastein, John Reilly, William Roach, Mark Trapani, Kris
    Trueblood, and Michael Volpe.

    J. Christopher Mihm Managing Director, Strategic Issues

    Jeanette M. Franzel Director, Financial Management and Assurance

    Randolph C. Hite Director, Information Technology Architecture and Systems
    Issues

    Appendix I

    Strategic Management

    Our January 2003 report contained 11 recommendations to help the Office of
    the Architect of the Capitol (AOC) establish its strategic management and
    accountability framework in the areas of strategic planning and
    organizational alignment, communications, development of congressional
    protocols by involving stakeholders, accountability reporting through
    annual performance planning and reporting, customer satisfaction,
    performance measurement, strategic human capital management, and
    establishing action-oriented implementation goals. This appendix describes
    AOC's progress to date in addressing each of these recommendations. We
    provide a brief review of findings that led to each recommendation, report
    the actions that AOC has taken to implement the recommendation, and
    provide our analysis of whether AOC's actions address the underlying
    issues that caused us to make the recommendation in our January 2003
    report. We also make additional recommendations to assist AOC in improving
    its communications with employees and stakeholders.

    Recommendation: Improve strategic planning and organizational alignment by
    involving key congressional and other external stakeholders in AOC's
    strategic planning efforts and in any organizational changes that may
    result from these efforts.

    Successful organizations ensure that their strategic planning fully
    considers the interests and expectations of Congress and other
    stakeholders. In moving forward with its strategic planning efforts, it
    will be critical that AOC fully engage key congressional and other
    stakeholders in further developing and implementing its strategic plan, as
    well as revisions, to provide a strong foundation for any organizational
    or operating changes that may be needed to implement the plan. Key
    congressional and other stakeholder involvement will be especially
    important for AOC to help it ensure that its efforts and resources are
    targeted at the highest priorities.

    Actions Taken by AOC: In March 2003, AOC issued a draft strategic plan1
    for fiscal years 2003 through 2007 that contained AOC's four strategic
    focus areas and corresponding strategic goals described in table 1. AOC
    also issued a draft performance plan2 outlining the specific actions and
    milestones to reach for achieving the goals and objectives established in

    1The Architect of the Capitol, Draft Strategic Plan, FY 2003-2007,
    (Washington, D.C.: March 7, 2003).

    the draft strategic plan. The draft strategic plan is to become
    operational through the annual performance planning process, which
    translates strategic goals into objectives, action plans, milestones, and
    performance measures. AOC has developed an overall approach to managing
    organizational performance that includes strategic planning, annual
    planning and accountability reporting, and assessment of AOC's performance
    based on meeting agencywide milestones and measures. AOC staff plans to
    meet with stakeholders to discuss its plan. The draft strategic plan will
    be the cornerstone of this process.

    As stated in its draft strategic plan, AOC plans to update the strategic
    plan every two years, annually produce a performance plan and performance
    report, along with action plans supplemented by more detailed functional
    plans developed along the same planning time line (fiscal years
    2003-2007). In its draft performance plan and based on the strategic focus
    areas in table 1, AOC has developed corresponding strategic objectives,
    action plans, milestones, and target dates to help the agency achieve its
    strategic goals and monitor its progress.

    Table 1: AOC's Strategic Focus Areas and Strategic Goals

    Strategic Focus Area Strategic Goal

    Facilities Management	Maintain and preserve the National Treasures
    entrusted to our care by providing timely and quality facilities
    management and related support services.

    Project Management	Enhance the National Treasures by planning and
    delivering timely and quality projects.

    Human Capital	Attract, develop and retain diverse, satisfied and highly
    motivated employees with the skills, talents, and knowledge necessary to
    support the agency's mission.

    Organizational Excellence	Provide the highest quality services to our
    clients through improved business programs, processes, and systems.

    Source: March 2003 AOC Draft Strategic Plan.

    In addition, AOC is also involving key congressional stakeholders, as we
    recommended, in the development of its agency draft strategic plan and is
    requesting input on the strategic direction of the agency. According to

    2The Architect of the Capitol, Draft Performance Plan, Achieving AOC's
    Strategic Goals and Objectives, (Washington, D.C.: March 7, 2003).

    AOC's Deputy Chief of Staff, as of May 2003, the Architect and other
    senior AOC officials have met with 16 stakeholders, such as Members of
    Congress, committee staff, and other legislative agency staff members, and
    have scheduled seven meetings with additional stakeholders to discuss the
    agency's draft strategic plan to obtain stakeholder input. During these
    meetings, AOC officials reviewed with stakeholders its mission, vision,
    and core values and the four strategic focus areas along with their
    corresponding strategic goals. AOC officials also asked stakeholders to
    comment on: (1) the positive actions they would like to see the agency
    continue or expand, (2) the areas needing improvement or missing entirely,
    (3) ways that AOC could improve its relationship with the stakeholder, and
    (4) criteria used by the stakeholder to judge AOC's performance.

    The need for a strong and continuing communications strategy, an augmented
    fire safety strategy, and creating a "living" planning and improvement
    approach that becomes part of AOC's culture, were among the important
    issues raised by congressional stakeholders. AOC planned to incorporate
    the feedback received from stakeholder meetings into its agency strategic
    and performance plans by December 31, 2003.

    GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing our recommendation by
    improving its strategic planning process and providing more specificity to
    its strategic goals and objectives, along with developing milestone dates
    and activities to assist the agency in monitoring its progress. AOC is
    also involving key congressional stakeholders in the development of its
    draft agency strategic plan and asking for input on the strategic
    direction of the agency. AOC's high-level summary of the stakeholder
    reaction it received demonstrates the value of such outreach. Building on
    these efforts, it is important that AOC continue to involve key
    congressional, as well as other stakeholders, in the strategic planning
    process and keep them informed of any operational and organizational
    changes resulting from this planning process.

    Recommendation: Develop comprehensive strategy to improve internal and
    external communications by providing opportunities for routine employee
    input and feedback.

    We reported that AOC could (1) strengthen its internal communications by
    developing a communications strategy that would help AOC's line employees
    understand the connection between what they do on a day-today basis, AOC's
    strategic goals, and their individual performance expectations, and (2)
    seek employee feedback and develop goals for

    improvement. We also stated that one way of implementing such a
    communication strategy is to conduct routine employee feedback surveys
    and/or focus groups. As part of our January 2003 report, we used focus
    groups to gather employee and supervisor perceptions about working at AOC.
    These focus groups generated a wealth of valuable information to AOC on
    employees' views on a range of issues including perceptions of supervisory
    favoritism and inconsistency in the way that supervisors applied awards,
    overtime, and leave policies. AOC noted that the use of employee focus
    groups or surveys is one strategy it plans to use to help achieve its
    human capital strategic goal of attracting, developing, and retaining
    diverse, satisfied, and highly motivated employees.

    Actions Taken by AOC: AOC published its draft agencywide Strategic
    Communications Plan, 2003-2007 on August 29, 2003, and planned to obtain
    comments from its key congressional stakeholders to complete this plan by
    December 31, 2003. The draft communications plan recognizes that
    communicating with employees, stakeholders, and other customers is
    critical to achieving AOC's strategic goals and contains three strategies:
    (1) educating employees on the agency strategic plan and the change
    process AOC will use to achieve its strategic goals, (2) communicating the
    agency strategic plan's goals and agency accomplishments with
    congressional and external audiences, (3) continuing to expand
    communications initiatives by considering the development of
    correspondence policies and guidelines, a media contact policy, and other
    directives to assure a clear line of communication and a consistent
    message. AOC has developed strategies to communicate with each of its
    identified customers and stakeholders, including AOC employees,
    congressional and other public officials, and the visiting public,
    dignitaries, other federal agencies, historians, and others. In its
    communications plan, AOC has also noted that it will be important to track
    the effectiveness and impact of communications initiatives by conducting
    employee feedback surveys, employee focus groups, stakeholder and client
    surveys and meetings, tracking word of mouth comments, and correspondence.

    According to its draft strategic communications plan, AOC plans to
    initiate several actions to implement this communication strategy. AOC
    plans to:

    o 	publish more frequently the agency's employee newsletter, Shop Talk,
    increasing the number of issues per year from four to six and to feature
    more stories about AOC's strategic plan,

    o 	conduct employee feedback sessions and/or focus groups every two years,

    o 	conduct employee site tours of major AOC projects, such as the Capitol
    Visitor Center in fall 2003, and

    o 	explore sending taped video messages or webcasts from the Architect to
    employees.

    Additionally, according to the Deputy Chief of Staff, AOC will follow up
    on the Architect's commitment, stated in his May 23, 2002 memorandum to
    employees, to conduct employee focus groups, beginning in fiscal year
    2005. According to AOC's Deputy Chief of Staff, the need to conduct an
    employee focus group was identified as part of AOC's draft performance
    plan. However, the Deputy Chief of Staff stated that funds to conduct
    AOC's employee focus groups or surveys were requested after the fiscal
    year 2004 budget submission in early December 2002. Therefore, AOC plans
    to conduct its employee focus groups or surveys in fiscal year 2005, with
    the final analysis of these focus groups to be issued in fiscal year 2005.

    AOC also plans to communicate with congressional stakeholders and other
    public officials by continuing to publish its Highlights Report and begin
    producing an annual financial report and a quarterly capital project
    report to congressional leaders and key staff, as well as conducting
    continuous outreach to congressional press secretaries.

    GAO Analysis: AOC is partially addressing our recommendation. The
    development of its draft agencywide strategic communications plan is a
    positive step towards improving and coordinating communication with its
    internal and external audiences. Because people are the drivers of any
    organizational transformation, it is vital to monitor their attitudes.3
    However, it is most important for employees to see that top leadership not
    only listens to their concerns, but also takes action and makes
    appropriate adjustments to the transformation in a visible and timely way.
    However, AOC does not plan to hold employee focus groups until fiscal year
    2005, even though it is important that AOC leadership obtain employee
    feedback on its transformation in a timely manner. While AOC cites budget

    3U.S. General Accounting Office, Results-Oriented Cultures: Implementation
    Steps to Assist Mergers and Organizational Transformations, GAO-03-669
    (Washington, D.C.: July 2, 2003).

    limitations as preventing them from conducting employee focus groups or
    surveys earlier than fiscal year 2005, our own experience at GAO when we
    obtained employee views, such as through focus groups, showed us it need
    not be a resource intensive effort. In any case, the benefits often far
    exceed the incremental costs.

    Additional Recommendation: We recommend to the Architect of the Capitol
    that AOC gather and analyze employee feedback from focus groups or surveys
    before fiscal year 2005, as well as communicate how it is taking actions
    to address any identified employee concerns.

    Recommendation: Develop a comprehensive strategy to improve internal and
    external communications by completing the development of congressional
    protocols by involving stakeholders.

    In our January 2003 report, we noted that AOC drafted an initial set of
    congressional protocols that would help ensure that AOC deals with its
    congressional customers using clearly defined, consistently applied, and
    transparent policies and procedures. At that time, AOC noted that these
    protocols needed to be made consistent with the approach for AOC's draft
    strategic plan, finalized, and distributed. We also stated that AOC must
    continually involve its stakeholders in the development of these
    protocols.

    Actions Taken by AOC: AOC completed its draft congressional protocols on
    June 30, 2003 and plans to meet with congressional stakeholders in the
    subsequent few months to discuss these protocols. AOC officials stated
    that it may be challenging to implement these congressional protocols
    because the agency's clients have become accustomed to receiving immediate
    service and using an informal means of interacting with AOC staff when
    requesting such services. AOC plans to issue its final protocols by March
    31, 2004.

    GAO Analysis: AOC is partially addressing our recommendation. The purpose
    of agency protocols is to help create a basic understanding between AOC
    and its stakeholders about how AOC's efforts and resources can be targeted
    at the highest priorities, as well as transparency about how decisions and
    tradeoffs can be made and services deployed given the competing demands
    that confront AOC, and how those demands and resources require careful and
    continuous balancing. AOC needs to discuss with its stakeholders how the
    use of these protocols will help AOC to balance immediate customer needs
    with the achievement of overall agency strategic goals. In our January
    2003 report, we noted that we had worked

    closely with Congress on the development of our own congressional
    protocols, along with careful pilot testing, and then implemented our
    final protocols in 1999. A pilot test would provide AOC and its customers
    an opportunity to test the application of the protocols to the various
    types of customer needs the AOC confronts and to revise those protocols
    based on feedback obtained during the pilot.

    Additional Recommendation: We recommend that AOC conduct a pilot of its
    congressional protocols in one or more of its jurisdictions to determine
    how well its protocols would work in addressing customer requests for
    service, while balancing the need of multiple requests with the strategic
    plan and corresponding project priorities of the agency.

    Recommendation: Develop a comprehensive strategy to improve internal and
    external communications by improving accountability reporting through
    annual performance planning and reporting.

    In our January 2003 report, we noted that AOC could adopt the reporting
    elements of the 1993 Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) to
    strengthen accountability and transparency by annually reporting program
    performance and financial information. This is consistent with the
    approach that we have taken with our own performance planning and
    accountability reporting. Such results-oriented accountability reporting
    would help AOC communicate what it has accomplished, as well as its plans
    for continued progress, to its external stakeholders.

    Actions Taken by AOC: According to AOC's draft strategic plan, the agency
    plans to produce an annual performance plan at the beginning of each
    fiscal year that outlines the specific actions, associated milestones, and
    performance measures planned for the upcoming fiscal year. In addition, as
    stated in the AOC draft strategic plan, this plan is scheduled to be
    updated every 2 years, and at the end of each fiscal year, AOC will
    publish an annual performance report that outlines progress towards
    meeting agency goals, as well as the individual performance measures. AOC
    also plans to integrate its performance reporting cycle into the budget
    cycle, so that congressional appropriators and other key stakeholders can
    use the information for planning and resource decisions. In addition, AOC
    plans to provide an annual financial report to congressional leaders and
    key staff.

    AOC also plans to monitor its progress against the measures and
    achievements of milestones through monthly assessment meetings with

    agency senior executives and senior management team. AOC held its first
    assessment meeting on June 23, 2003, to gather its progress on milestones
    to date. According to the draft performance plan, AOC had planned to
    report progress to stakeholders on September 30, 2003. However, according
    to AOC officials, because the draft strategic and performance plans had
    not yet been approved by the Chief Operating Officer (COO), and thus the
    milestone activities were also not approved, a September 30 meeting was
    not held with stakeholders.

    GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing our recommendation.
    According to the AOC draft strategic and performance plans, AOC is
    committed to implementing a strategic management framework including
    issuing a strategic plan every 2 years, developing an annual performance
    plan, and an annual performance report that discusses how AOC is
    progressing on meeting its goals, as well as mid-year status briefings.
    Meeting with congressional and other stakeholders to discuss progress on
    the accomplishment of its milestones periodically is an important part of
    establishing an annual reporting structure, as well as communicating
    effectively with stakeholders to help AOC build its management and
    accountability framework. Once the agency draft strategic and performance
    plans are approved, AOC will be in a position to hold its mid-year status
    briefings as indicated in its annual performance plan.

    Recommendation: Develop a comprehensive strategy to improve internal and
    communications by continuing to regularly measure customer satisfaction
    AOC-wide.

    In our January 2003 report, we reported that in June 2002, AOC made a
    concerted effort to gather the views of some of its clients through a
    building services customer satisfaction survey for the Senate, House
    Capitol building, and Library of Congress and planned to continue
    conducting this survey annually. The purpose of the survey was to obtain
    valuable feedback from AOC customers about the services received. We
    recommended that AOC's continuing efforts to routinely measure customer
    satisfaction AOC-wide with both its congressional customers as well as
    other customers, such as visitors to the Capitol Hill complex, would help
    AOC identify its service quality strengths, performance gaps, and
    improvement opportunities.

    Actions Taken by AOC: According to documents we reviewed, as a result of
    conducting the June 2002 building services customer survey, AOC

    reported back to each jurisdiction in March 2003 the actions it had taken
    to improve building services. In June 2003, AOC administered its second
    building services customer satisfaction survey for the Senate, House,
    Capitol building, and Library of Congress jurisdictions. According to its
    draft performance plan and letters accompanying the second customer
    satisfaction survey, AOC expected to report the final results of this
    second building services customer satisfaction survey in December 31,
    2003. The Architect also stated in these letters that AOC will use the
    results of these customer satisfaction surveys to identify service
    improvement initiatives and priorities for action that will be
    incorporated into the AOC business plan, as well as monitor the quality of
    AOC services and the progress of improvement initiatives. According to the
    Deputy Chief of Staff, AOC is planning to conduct its customer survey
    annually.

    GAO Analysis: AOC has fulfilled our recommendation because it has taken
    actions based on the 2002 customer satisfaction survey, continues to
    measure customer satisfaction in 2003, and plans to conduct an annual
    customer survey.

    Recommendation: Strengthen performance measurement and strategic human
    capital management by developing annual goals and measuring performance.

    Measuring performance enables an organization to track its progress in
    achieving its goals, gives managers crucial information on which to guide
    their organizational and management decisions, creates powerful incentives
    to influence organizational and individual behavior, and helps to assure
    accountability. Developing annual performance goals that provide a
    connection between the long-term strategic goals in the strategic plan and
    the day-to-day activities of managers and staff members will help AOC
    establish a management and accountability framework and reporting system
    that is needed for organizational transformation.

    Actions Taken by AOC: According to its draft strategic plan, AOC's
    performance measurement approach is to adopt specific strategies and
    practices to move towards business decision making that is supported by
    performance data, using both qualitative and quantitative performance
    measures to demonstrate progress towards achievement of its strategic
    goals and objectives. AOC has identified a number of high-level agencywide
    performance measures to monitor and evaluate the success of its work
    corresponding to its four strategic focus areas: facilities management,
    project management, human capital, and organizational excellence. AOC

    plans to adopt specific strategies and practices to move towards
    decisionmaking that is supported by performance data, using both
    qualitative and quantitative performance measures to demonstrate progress
    towards its strategic goals and objectives. According to AOC's draft
    strategic plan, the performance measures to be developed will serve as the
    basis for the annual performance goals that connect its strategic goals to
    the day-to-day work of AOC employees. The high-level agencywide
    measurement areas used to monitor AOC's success, and for which AOC leaders
    will be held accountable, have been identified as follows: client
    satisfaction, employee satisfaction, projects on-time, projects on-budget,
    project quality, facility maintenance, asset preservation, employee
    safety, clean audit, recycling, and budget execution. According to the AOC
    draft strategic plan, the targets will establish standards for desired
    performance on each measure. However, the specific metrics and the
    methodology to obtain data for each of these areas, as well as the targets
    for each measure, have not yet been developed. In July 2003, AOC hired a
    management analyst to help create more specific program-level measures,
    corresponding to agency-level performance measures described previously,
    that will form the basis of an agencywide performance measurement system.

    GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing our recommendation. AOC
    has begun to institutionalize important elements of its strategic
    management and accountability framework by developing annual goals and
    issuing its strategic and performance plans. As such, AOC has taken its
    first steps towards identifying high-level agencywide measures and has
    committed to creating a more specific performance measurement system to
    help the agency track its own progress in meeting its strategic goals and
    keeping key stakeholders informed. The creation of a performance
    measurement system will be essential to helping AOC track and report on
    its agencywide performance measures. Our analyses in Appendixes V, VI, and
    VII that assess AOC's key program issues, worker safety, project
    management, and recycling cite the lack of specific performance measures
    as continuing critical issues for AOC to address.

    Recommendation: Strengthen performance measurement and strategic human
    capital management by creating a line of sight by linking AOC's senior
    executive and employee performance management systems to mission-critical
    goals.

    Effective performance management systems can be strategic tools for
    organizations to drive internal change and achieve external results. These
    systems align individual performance expectations with organizational

    goals.4 High performing organizations align performance expectations of
    top leadership with goals and then cascade those expectations down to
    lower levels. In our January 2003 report, we noted that AOC had instructed
    its senior executives to incorporate the agency's draft strategic or
    missioncritical goals and responsibilities into their performance
    requirements, which describe how an individual's work contributes to
    organizational goals and results. We recommended that AOC align its
    employee performance management system, Performance Communication
    Evaluation System (PCES), with its senior executive performance management
    system, Performance Review Process (PRP), to strengthen individual
    accountability for organizational goals.

    Actions Taken by AOC: As of July 1, 2003, AOC reported that it completed
    its PRP. Each senior executive is to be held accountable for the following
    four performance requirements: leadership and management, customer
    satisfaction, safety, and human capital management. Senior executives are
    to identify the critical actions that pertain to these performance
    requirements and support the achievement of specific milestones as
    outlined in the agency's draft performance plan.

    AOC's director of the AOC Human Resources Management Division (HRMD) told
    us that when the recently appointed COO completes and reviews the
    strategic plan and the agency's strategic goals, AOC will be able to
    incorporate these strategic goals into PRP and subsequently link these
    goals into PCES. This is to be completed by January 2005. According to the
    HRMD director, to align PCES with PRP, AOC will need to coordinate its
    multiple rating cycles into one cycle. The Senior Policy Committee met on
    June 24, 2003, to discuss coordinating the performance rating cycles and
    agreed to implement one standard performance rating cycle beginning in
    January 2005 from January 1 to December 31 of each year.

    GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing our recommendation. AOC
    is working to create the line of sight needed to link senior executive
    performance with agency strategic goals by identifying performance
    requirements for senior executives that are intended to contribute to the
    achievement of the agency's draft strategic plan. While consolidating the
    jurisdictional employee performance management cycles

    4U.S. General Accounting Office, Results-Oriented Cultures: Creating a
    Clear Linkage between Individual Performance and Organizational Success,
    GAO-03-488 (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 14, 2003).

    would be helpful in the administration of performance reviews at AOC, AOC
    need not wait for this consolidation to make important progress in
    integrating its strategic goals into PCES. As AOC's performance management
    effort moves forward, it will be important that AOC adopt additional
    performance management practices that leading organizations have used to
    enhance performance and ensure accountability.5

    Recommendation: Strengthen performance measurement and strategic human
    capital management by establishing agencywide core and technical
    competencies and holding employees accountable for these competencies as a
    part of the performance management system.

    In our January 2003 report, we recommended that AOC consider developing
    core and technical competencies as the basis for its performance
    management systems. Agencywide core and technical competencies can serve
    as guidance for employees as they strive to meet organizational
    expectations. The core competencies should be derived from AOC's strategic
    plan and workforce planning efforts and reflect AOC's core values. All
    employees should be held accountable for achieving core competencies as
    AOC moves to transform its culture. We also suggested that as AOC develops
    a cadre of managerial and professional employees, the development of
    specific technical competencies can assist the agency in creating and
    developing a successful leadership and managerial team.

    Actions Taken by AOC: AOC's HRMD director told us that AOC is creating a
    leadership development program that identifies competencies for senior
    executives and agency managers. In addition, this draft leadership program
    will identify training to match those competencies and provide alternative
    training options to meet the program requirements. According to the HRMD
    director, in September 2003, this draft leadership development program was
    submitted for management consideration by the Senior Policy Committee and
    is still pending approval. The Director also told us that the
    identification of competencies for all employees in a defined framework
    would begin after the Office of Workforce Planning and Management (WFPM)
    is established.6 AOC is also revising existing competencies for shop
    supervisors. According to the HRMD director, she will be working with the
    heads of the Office of Design and Construction

    5See U.S. GAO-03-488.

    and the Procurement Division in fall 2003 to identify technical
    competencies for project managers and contracting officers, respectively.

    GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing our recommendation. AOC
    is taking the initial steps towards establishing competencies for its
    senior managers and also developing the training opportunities to help its
    managers achieve those competencies. Given the designated organizational
    purpose of WFPM, it is appropriate that AOC plans to use this office to
    help assess the competencies needed for employees, as we noted in our
    January 2003 report that competencies can help form the basis for an
    organization's selection, promotion, training, performance management, and
    succession planning initiatives-all traditional functions of a strategic
    workforce planning approach. We have found that successful organizations
    include human capital professionals acting together with agency leaders
    and line managers to develop strategic and program plans to accomplish
    agency goals.7 Through this joint action, agency and human capital leaders
    and their staffs share accountability for successfully integrating
    strategic human capital approaches into the planning and decision-making
    of the agency. As WFPM is established, it is important that AOC adopt such
    an approach.

    AOC is also making progress towards the development of technical
    competencies by working with its respective offices in developing
    competencies for its project managers and contracting officers. However,
    it is important that AOC continue the development of both its technical
    and core competencies for all employees and ensure that these competencies
    are tied to the agency's strategic plan. Part of the typical competency
    development process is the validation phase, which allows employees an
    opportunity to validate the accuracy of the defined competencies. This
    validation process is critical to capturing the competencies accurately
    and also gaining employee ownership and acceptance of the competencies for
    incorporation into the performance management system.

    6According to AOC, the purpose of the Office of Workforce Planning and
    Management is to oversee and conduct such organizationwide functions as
    workforce planning and analysis, succession planning, organizational
    staffing, staff resource allocation, and to review organizational
    structure and alignment of functions.

    7U.S. General Accounting Office, Human Capital: Selected Agency Actions to
    Integrate Human Capital Approaches to Attain Mission Results, GAO-03-446
    (Washington, D.C.: Apr. 11, 2003).

    Recommendation: Strengthen performance measurement and strategic human
    capital management by developing the capacity to collect and analyze
    workforce data.

    Collecting and analyzing data are fundamental building blocks for
    measuring the effectiveness of human capital approaches in support of the
    mission and goals of an agency. The ability to collect and analyze data
    will greatly enhance AOC's ability to acquire, develop, and retain talent,
    while allowing it to effectively plan for the needs of its workforce. AOC
    needs to develop a fact-based, comprehensive approach to the collection
    and analysis of accurate and reliable information across a range of human
    capital activities.

    Actions Taken by AOC: AOC has created WFPM as described above, but has not
    yet established the ability to collect and analyze workforce data.
    According to the HRMD director, AOC does not plan to purchase any system
    until WFPM is staffed, although AOC has been reviewing possible vendor
    systems designed to help it collect workforce data.

    GAO Analysis: AOC's plans are addressing our recommendations. However,
    until the office is established and additional actions are undertaken, we
    cannot fully assess its actions in response to this recommendation.
    Moreover, AOC does not need to wait until it contracts with a vendor to
    begin to identify and establish reliable data sources and collection
    methods that will help to support its workforce planning and management
    process. Early development of reliable data provides a baseline that an
    agency can use to identify current workforce problems. Regular updating of
    the data enables agencies to plan for improvements, manage changes in the
    programs and workforce, and track the effects of changes on achieving
    program goals. To ensure a data-driven, performanceoriented approach to
    human capital management, senior agency officials, including both program
    leaders and human capital leaders, can provide oversight and
    accountability for the integration and alignment of the agencies' human
    capital approaches. As shown in figure 1, federal agencies collect and
    analyze a variety of information to support their specific workforce
    planning efforts.

    Figure 1: Examples of Workforce Data That Are Collected and Analyzed by
    Other Federal Agencies

    o  	Actual and projected attrition rates (including retirements) showing
    how many people have left the agency in the past and the estimated number
    who will leave in the future

    o  	Exit surveys or interviews with departing employees to better
    understand the reasons that people leave

    o  Knowledge, skills, and experiences of current workforce

    o  	Size and shape of the workforce including information such as, the
    distribution of employees by pay level and ratio of managers to employees

    o  	Dispersal of performance appraisal ratings, such as the mean, mode,
    and standard deviation of scores

    o  Number of performance awards and their distribution among divisions and
    offices

    o  Total human capital cost in dollars and as a percentage of the total
    operating budget

    o  Average period required to fill vacancies, and trends over time

    o  Acceptance rates among job candidates to whom positions are offered

    o  Costs of promotion, grade increase, and within-grade increases

    Source: Compiled from previous GAO reports.

    Recommendation: Strengthen performance measurement and strategic human
    capital management by identifying current and future workforce needs and
    developing strategies to fill gaps.

    AOC can benefit from strategically identifying its current and future
    workforce needs and then creating strategies to fill any gaps. Workforce
    planning efforts linked to strategic program goals and objectives can help
    the organization better identify needs such as ensuring a diverse labor
    force, succession planning for scarce skill sets, and other competencies
    needed in the workforce.

    Actions Taken by AOC: In our January 2003 report, we stated that AOC
    recognized the need to strategically plan for its workforce and had
    requested funding for four positions in its fiscal year 2003 budget to
    create an organization and workforce management team reporting to the
    Deputy Chief of Staff within the Office of the Architect. According to AOC
    officials, AOC hired the Director of WFPM and filled one staff position on
    October 7, 2003 and is recruiting for the remaining workforce planning and
    management analyst positions. The Deputy Chief of Staff told us that the

    COO would work collaboratively with WFPM to focus on the assessment of
    AOC's skill mix, resource needs, and succession planning for the agency.

    GAO Analysis: AOC's plans are addressing our recommendations, but until
    the office is established and additional actions are undertaken, we cannot
    fully assess its action in response to this recommendation. It is
    encouraging that AOC is working to establish this office that will allow
    the agency to conduct workforce planning and analysis. As AOC's workforce
    planning efforts move forward, AOC will naturally need to develop an
    approach that best meets its organizational needs. Our work looking at
    strategic workforce planning suggests that there are certain principles
    that an organization should address irrespective of the context in which
    planning is done. We have issued several reports that discuss the
    following common core principles of workforce planning.8

    o 	Involve top management, employees, and other stakeholders in
    developing, communicating, and implementing the strategic workforce plan,

    o 	Determine the critical skills and competencies that will be needed to
    achieve future programmatic results,

    o 	Develop strategies tailored to address gaps in number, deployment, and
    alignment of human capital approaches that enable and sustain the
    contributions of all critical skills and competencies,

    o 	Build the capability needed to address administrative, educational, and
    other requirements important to support workforce strategies, and

    o 	Monitor and evaluate the agency's progress towards its human capital
    goals and the contribution that human capital results have made towards
    achieving programmatic goals.

    Recommendation: Establish action-oriented implementation goals over the
    long term and a time line with milestone dates to track the

    8See U.S. General Accounting Office, Human Capital: Key Principles for
    Effective Strategic Workforce Planning, GAO-04-39, (Washington, D.C.: Dec.
    11, 2003); Government Printing Office: Advancing GPO's Transformation
    Effort through Strategic Human Capital Management, GAO-04-85 (Washington,
    D.C.: Oct. 20, 2003); Tax Administration: Workforce Planning Needs Further
    Development for IRS's Taxpayer Education and Communication Unit,
    GAO-03-711 (Washington, D.C.: May 30, 2003).

    organization's progress towards achieving those implementation goals

    Our January 2003 report stated that AOC faces many challenges as it
    transforms to become a more results-oriented, matrixed, client-focused,
    and proactive organization. Making such fundamental changes in AOC's
    culture will require a long-term, concerted effort. We also noted that our
    recommendations covered a broad landscape of issues confronting AOC, such
    as strategic planning, communications, strategic human capital, financial
    management, information technology, as well as long-standing issues in
    worker safety, project management, and recycling. Establishing a strategic
    management and accountability framework and developing management
    infrastructure and internal controls would help AOC achieve its
    organizational transformation. Thus, it was important to craft a
    comprehensive and integrated approach addressing AOC's challenges and
    setting appropriate priorities, even though by necessity it would have to
    be phased in over time.

    Therefore, we recommended that it was essential AOC work with key
    congressional and other stakeholders to establish action-oriented,
    implementation goals over the long term, and a time line with milestone
    dates to track the organization's progress towards achieving those
    implementation goals. We also suggested to Congress that it consider ways
    in which to elevate, integrate, and institutionalize accountability for
    addressing management issues and leading organizational transformation at
    AOC; one option was to create a statutory COO or similar position for AOC
    to improve its executive decision-making capacity and accountability.

    Actions Taken by AOC: In the legislation that mandated we undertake a
    general management review of the AOC, Congress also required that AOC
    respond to our review by preparing a management improvement plan
    addressing our study.9 To satisfy this congressional requirement to create
    a management improvement plan addressing our management review
    recommendations and our specific recommendation that AOC create
    action-oriented implementation goals and a time line with milestone dates
    to track AOC's progress towards achieving its goals, AOC issued its draft
    performance plan in March 2003 for fiscal years 2003-2007 with a
    particular emphasis on fiscal years 2003-2004. This draft performance plan
    includes

    9See Section 129(d) of Pub. L. No. 107-68, Nov. 12, 2001 and corresponding
    reports, Sen. Rep. No. 107-37 at 28,29 (2001) and H.R. Conf. Rep No.
    107-148 at 72 (2001).

    specific action plans developed along the same planning time line as the
    AOC draft strategic plan, as well as the tactical-level actions,
    performance targets, and milestone dates necessary to carry out
    agency-level strategies to achieve its mission-critical goals. In the 2003
    Legislative Branch Appropriations Act,10 Congress created the COO position
    at AOC, and the Architect of the Capitol appointed its first COO, who
    began on July 28, 2003.

    GAO Analysis: AOC has fulfilled our recommendation by issuing its draft
    performance plan, which establishes action-oriented implementation goals
    over the long term and a time line with milestone dates to track the
    organization's progress towards achieving those implementation goals. The
    implementation of these two recommendations in tandem (1) the creation of
    AOC's management improvement plan and (2) the appointment of the COO
    position to help AOC elevate, integrate, and institutionalize
    accountability for addressing management issues and leading its
    transformation, allow AOC to address issues across the agency's programs
    and influence performance in all areas critical to achieving its mission.
    Moving forward, it is critical that AOC complete its draft performance
    plan and then use it as a basis for managing the agency, provide progress
    reports to Congress, and assure AOC's accountability.

    10Section 1203 of Division H, Title I, Pub. L. No. 108-7, Feb. 20, 2003,
    (The Consolidated Appropriations Resolution, 2003).

    Appendix II

                           Strategic Human Capital Management

    We made three recommendations in our January 2003 report to help the
    Office of the Architect of the Capitol (AOC) improve its management
    infrastructure and internal controls by strengthening its human capital
    policies, procedures, and processes by developing a consistent agencywide
    leave policy, comprehensively collecting and analyzing data from its
    employee relations offices, and establishing a direct reporting
    relationship between the Ombudsperson and the Architect. This appendix
    describes AOC's progress to date in addressing each of these
    recommendations. We provide a brief review of why we made each
    recommendation, report the actions that AOC has taken to implement the
    recommendation, and provide our analysis of whether AOC's actions address
    the underlying issues that caused us to make the recommendation in our
    January 2003 report.

    Recommendation: Strengthen AOC's human capital policies, procedures, and
    processes by continuing to develop and implement agencywide human capital
    policies and procedures and holding management and employees accountable
    for following these policies and procedures.

    Effective organizations establish clear and consistent human capital
    policies with clearly stated expectations for both employees and
    supervisors and ensure that there is accountability for following these
    procedures accordingly. As mentioned, we conducted focus groups as part of
    our management review and found that a majority of the focus group
    participants perceived that AOC's supervisors applied awards, overtime,
    and leave policies inconsistently and suspected supervisory favoritism in
    making these decisions. Some focus group participants stated that
    supervisors determined on their own when an employee was entitled to sick
    or annual leave and inconsistently decided when some employees could take
    off time from work. Further, a majority of focus group participants felt
    that the Architect's Awards Program was not applied consistently across
    jurisdictions and shifts for all employees.

    Actions Taken by AOC: Since our January 2003 report, AOC has drafted an
    agencywide absence and leave policy to "assure consistent treatment of
    employees through the establishment of uniform procedures for the
    administration of leave."1 This policy covers most types of employee
    leave, such as annual, sick, family and medical, and absence without pay.
    In September 2003, AOC submitted its draft leave policy to the Architect
    for

    1See AOC Human Resources Manual, Order 630-1, Absence and Leave, July 1,
    2003.

    his review and approval. AOC has submitted its policy and procedures for
    administering various pay flexibilities, such as recruitment bonuses and
    retention allowances, superior qualification appointments, and
    preemployment travel expense reimbursements to the AOC Office of
    Employment Counsel for review. On June 15, 2003, AOC issued its final
    guidelines to supervisors and employees for determining when employees are
    eligible to receive Sunday premium pay.2

    In our January 2003 report, we reported that, in March 2002, AOC had
    issued a policy containing responsibilities and procedures for
    administrating its employee rewards and recognition program. The Human
    Resources Management Division (HRMD) director told us that managers and
    supervisors are held accountable for the consistent application of the
    human capital policies and procedures, such as granting leave, overtime,
    and employee awards in the Performance Communication Evaluation System
    (PCES) within the performance requirement of Supervision and Management.

    GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing our recommendation of
    developing and implementing agencywide human capital policies and
    procedures by issuing an absence and leave policy, providing guidelines to
    its workforce for determining eligibility for Sunday premium pay, and
    completing its policy and procedures for administering pay flexibilities.
    AOC must continue to hold management and employees accountable for
    following these policies and procedures through the performance
    requirements in its performance management systems. As part of its
    management and oversight responsibilities of human capital policies, it is
    important that AOC senior management and HRMD continually monitor whether
    supervisors and managers are fairly administering the policies concerning
    leave, rewards, and recognition. AOC could use information gathered during
    employee focus groups, employee satisfaction surveys, and informal
    feedback from employees to monitor employee views on the administration of
    these policies.

    Recommendation: Strengthen AOC's human capital policies, procedures, and
    processes by assessing ways in which AOC management could better gather
    and analyze data from the various

    2See Pay Under the Architect's Wage System, Chapter 532, "Determining
    Eligibility for Sunday Premium Pay," June 15, 2003.

    employee relations offices and employee advisory council while maintaining
    employee confidentiality.

    AOC has a number of offices, such as the Equal Employment Opportunity and
    Conciliation Program Office, the Office of the Ombudsperson, as well as an
    employee group, the Employee Advisory Council (EAC) formerly known as the
    Architect's Work Team, whose function is to interact directly with
    employees and can gather information regarding employee concerns. In
    addition to the roles that these offices fill in resolving the concerns of
    individual employees, each of these offices can also be a valuable source
    for identifying general issues of agencywide employee concerns. During our
    management review, we found that it was not clear whether there was a
    coordinated approach to track patterns of agencywide employee relations
    issues among these offices and EAC. If this information could be collected
    and analyzed by AOC's senior managers, it could be useful for alerting
    management to issues affecting employee relations. We also noted that an
    agencywide tracking method needed to be balanced to maintain employee
    confidentiality.

    Actions Taken by AOC: According to the Deputy Chief of Staff and HRMD
    director, there is a new objective in the AOC Human Capital Plan, issued
    in December 2003 that allows for additional input into the policy
    development review process from employee groups, such as EAC. In addition,
    the HRMD director told us that in August and October 2003 representatives
    from the Offices of Labor Relations, Equal Employment Opportunity and
    Conciliation Program, Human Resources, and the Office of Employment
    Counsel met to discuss how to best shape information on possible trends in
    employee relations issues among employees. According to the HRMD director,
    this discussion centered on how to best share information among these
    offices and what will be done with the information when a trend is noted.
    AOC plans to establish a defined process for a trial period on how best to
    share and examine employee relations data and then reevaluate this
    process.

    GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing our recommendation by
    holding meetings with the program offices that can provide employee
    relations data and assessments of employee concerns at the agency and by
    including an objective in its Human Capital Plan to solicit additional
    feedback from its EAC. It is important that AOC continue holding these
    meetings to discuss ways in which it can systematically gather and analyze
    information about general employee concerns, while

    maintaining employee confidentiality, and regularly bring these concerns
    to the attention of senior management.

    Recommendation: Establish a direct reporting relationship between the
    Ombudsperson and the Architect consistent with professional standards.

    Our January 2003 report assessed the ombudsperson position at AOC to
    determine whether it adhered to the standards of practice for
    ombudspersons established by professional organizations, including
    embracing the core principles of independence, neutrality, and
    confidentiality. We found that the AOC Ombudsperson reported to the
    Administrative Assistant to the Architect of the Capitol or his or her
    authorized designate, but not directly to the Architect. The Ombudsman
    Association Standards of Practice define independence as functioning
    independently of line management with the ombudsman reporting to the
    highest authority in an organization. Furthermore, the American Bar
    Association's ombudsman standards for independence state that the
    ombudsman's office must be and appear to be free from interference in
    order to be credible and effective.3 We recommended that if the AOC
    Ombudsperson were to directly report to the Architect and not through
    another senior manager, the core principle of independence would be
    strengthened.

    Actions Taken by AOC: The Deputy Chief of Staff told us that in the future
    the Ombudsperson and Architect would have a direct reporting relationship
    and plan to meet directly to discuss the Ombudsperson's monthly status
    reports, though these meetings have not yet taken place. He also told us
    in November 2003 that the current contract with the AOC Ombudsperson
    expired September 30, 2003, and AOC is hiring another contractor for the
    position and expects to fill the position in the next few months. AOC
    officials also stated that the Architect may choose to share the
    Ombudsperson's monthly report findings with the Chief Operating Officer
    and other selected senior managers in AOC, such as the Chief of Staff or
    her Deputy, as a followup to the Ombudsperson's report.

    GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing our recommendation to
    adhere to the standard of independence for the office

    3U.S. General Accounting Office, Human Capital: The Role of Ombudsmen in
    Dispute Resolution, GAO-01-466 (Washington, D.C.: Apr. 13, 2001).

    of an ombudsman, though these meetings have not yet taken place. We
    recommended that AOC establish a direct reporting relationship between the
    Ombudsperson and the Architect to be consistent with professional
    standards, which suggests that the Ombudsperson report directly with the
    highest authority in the agency, in this case the Architect. It is
    appropriate for the Architect to also include the Chief Operating Officer,
    as another one of the highest authorities in the agency, during these
    monthly status meetings. According to the Ombudsman Association's model
    job description under reporting guidelines for an organizational
    ombudsman, "the ombudsman function is independent of and separate from the
    human resource and other existing administrative structures... and
    typically reports directly to the chief executive officer or chief
    operating officer, with access to the board of directors, if applicable."
    It is also appropriate for the Architect to share the Ombudsperson's
    report with selected senior managers in the organization. According to
    Ombudsman Association standards, the ombudsman "may prepare periodic
    reports, either verbally or in writing, on organizational trends and
    activities based on anonymous aggregate data. These reports may also
    identify patterns or problem areas in the organization's policies and
    practices and may recommend revisions or improvements, and may assess the
    climate of the organization and can be communicated in a general way to
    the organization's senior management."

    Appendix III

    Financial Management

    In our January 2003 report, we made one recommendation to help the Office
    of the Architect of the Capitol (AOC) continue to improve its financial
    management by institutionalizing sound financial management practices.
    This appendix describes AOC's progress to date in addressing our
    recommendation. We provide a brief review of why we made this
    recommendation, report the actions that AOC has taken to implement the
    recommendation, and provide our analysis of whether AOC's actions address
    the underlying issues that caused us to make the recommendation in our
    January 2003 report.

    Recommendation: Continue to improve AOC's approach to financial management
    by developing strategies to institutionalize financial management
    practices that will support budgeting, financial, and program management
    at AOC.

    In our January 2003 report, we noted that AOC's Chief Financial Officer
    (CFO) had adopted our executive guide on world-class financial management
    as a road map for improving financial management. According to the CFO,
    the financial management component of AOC's March 2003 draft performance
    plan presents AOC's proposed actions, in response to our January 2003
    recommendation, to institutionalize financial management best practices
    that support the effective delivery of programs and services.
    Specifically, the Office of the Chief Financial Officer (OCFO) has
    established three broad-based action plans to respond to this
    recommendation:

    o  build a foundation of financial control and accountability,

    o 	assess the financial management organization's current role in meeting
    mission objectives and organize financial management to add value, and

    o 	improve forward-looking analysis, train managers in understanding how
    to use financial information, and improve the partnership between
    financial management and operations.

    Build a foundation of financial control and accountability.

    A foundation of financial control and accountability provides a system of
    checks and balances and needed assurances that transactions are
    appropriately recorded and reported, assets are protected, established
    policies and procedures are followed, and resources are used economically
    and efficiently for the purposes intended. In this regard, this action
    plan

    involves leveraging audit resources and the financial statement audit
    process to issue auditable financial statements, developing an approach
    for assessing and improving internal controls, and establishing inventory
    management and control procedures to ensure accurate and useful
    information. The plan also includes developing accurate operating and
    capital budget requests and related plans to properly evaluate the
    execution of programs, as well as processes and procedures needed to
    prepare financial and performance reports for major programs and business
    segments.

    Actions Taken by AOC: OCFO reports that planning for the issuance of
    auditable financial statements has been completed, and implementation is
    underway to issue an audited balance sheet for fiscal year 2003 and a
    complete set of audited financial statements for subsequent fiscal years.
    AOC has established an audit committee to oversee the audits and has hired
    an external auditor to perform the initial audit and report on related
    internal control issues. In addition, OCFO reports that values have been
    established for property, plant, and equipment, and that reconciliation
    procedures have been developed for all major accounts. Various additional
    actions are planned by OCFO to support the fiscal year 2003 audit of the
    balance sheet, including an automated close of the accounting records and
    automated extraction of the financial statements. Current completion dates
    are mid-fiscal year 2004 for issuance of the fiscal year 2003 financial
    statements (including an audited balance sheet) and mid-fiscal year 2006
    to receive an unqualified audit opinion on the complete set of fiscal year
    2005 financial statements.

    About internal controls, OCFO reports that policies and procedures have
    been developed for all major activities of the Accounting and Budget
    Division, including guidance on funds control administration. Key controls
    will be reviewed as part of the fiscal year 2003 financial statement
    audit. AOC plans to respond to the auditor's report on internal controls
    and issue a policy statement on internal controls by September 30, 2004.

    Concerning inventory management and control procedures, OCFO reports that
    AOC has implemented an inventory accounting policy, developed interim
    policies and procedures for inventory management and control, and received
    bids for the purchase of a new inventory control system. AOC plans to
    implement its new inventory system during fiscal year 2004.

    About budgeting, OCFO reports that AOC has implemented operating and
    capital budget processes for the development of the fiscal year 2005
    budget

    estimates submission to Congress. These processes include (1) a new
    capital planning program that standardizes and prioritizes capital project
    submissions, (2) a budget screening process that incorporates comparisons
    of prior-year spending trends for recurring programs, (3) a stakeholder
    review that examines all budgets to the lowest (suballotment) level, and
    (4) final review and approval by the Architect. AOC's current planned date
    for having a budget approved as submitted is September 30, 2007.

    With regard to financial reports for major programs and business segments,
    OCFO reports that coding needed to facilitate the preparation of
    jurisdiction financial reports has been completed. AOC plans to generate
    automated financial reports for fiscal year 2003 and quarterly financial
    reports starting in fiscal year 2004. Actions needed to develop and issue
    annual performance reports for major programs and business segments,
    however, are not as far along. OCFO reports that planning is expected to
    begin in mid-fiscal year 2004, once AOC's performance plan is finalized.
    Currently, OCFO projects that it will issue the initial annual performance
    report in fiscal year 2007.

    Assess the financial management organization's current role in meeting
    mission objectives and organize financial management to add value.

    A financial management organization that meets its mission objectives and
    adds value does so by providing products and services that directly
    support strategic decision making and improving overall performance. To
    build such an organization, this action plan calls for revising OCFO's
    internal operating plan, developing a long-term workforce strategy to
    ensure that financial managers have necessary data analysis skills, and
    benchmarking OCFO processes against industry leaders and other federal
    agencies to facilitate reengineering of costly, inefficient processes.

    Actions Taken by AOC: According to OCFO, planning has begun on the
    revision of the OCFO internal operating plan, which is currently scheduled
    for completion by the end of fiscal year 2004. By mid-fiscal year 2004,
    OCFO plans to begin developing long-term workforce strategies to ensure
    that AOC financial managers have appropriate financial analysis skills and
    to start reviewing and benchmarking financial transactions and processes
    as a basis for streamlining and reengineering financial processes. AOC
    plans to complete both of these action items by the end of fiscal year
    2005.

    OCFO plans to issue a report on benchmarking efforts that will be used,
    beginning in fiscal year 2006, to eliminate, streamline, and reengineer

    costly and inefficient financial processes. Financial process changes are
    expected to be ongoing at the end of fiscal year 2007, the cut-off date
    for the 5-year performance plan.

    Improve forward-looking analysis, train managers in understanding how to
    use financial information, and improve the partnership between financial
    management and operations.

    Equipping managers with the skills and capabilities needed to effectively
    use financial information in prospective analysis improves the opportunity
    for meaningful partnerships between financial management and operations.
    To this end, this action plan seeks to establish a link between financial
    management and operations that helps to provide meaningful information for
    managing and measuring cost and performance. Specifically, this plan
    involves

    o 	integrating AOC's financial and operating systems to facilitate annual
    program reviews,

    o 	training managers to use financial information to improve operational
    planning and decision-making,

    o  implementing a cost accounting system for financial reporting,

    o  placing financial managers in jurisdictions,

    o  stabilizing financial management system upgrades, and

    o  developing a long-term operating plan.

    Actions Taken by AOC: OCFO reports that planning has begun to (1)
    integrate financial and operating systems to equip decision-makers with
    relevant information and tools to perform ad hoc analysis, (2) establish
    expectations and procedures for conducting annual program reviews, (3)
    train managers to use financial information to improve operational
    planning and decision-making, and (4) acquire and install a cost
    accounting system for financial reporting.

    Once financial and operating systems are integrated and expectations and
    procedures for the annual reviews are established, OCFO will be able to
    conduct its first annual program review. The review is currently planned
    for fiscal year 2004; however, due to potential key system integration

    issues, OCFO is currently considering rescheduling the review for fiscal
    year 2006.

    OCFO reports that many financial and procurement managers in the
    jurisdictions and central office have been trained in appropriations law,
    with further appropriations law training planned as an ongoing program.
    Additionally, OCFO anticipates that planning for other training can begin
    in mid-fiscal year 2004, with courses conducted later in the fiscal year.
    Letters of authority to properly trained managers authorizing them to
    conduct various financial activities are currently scheduled for
    distribution by the end of fiscal year 2004.

    AOC acquisition and installation of a cost accounting system is currently
    scheduled for September 30, 2005; however, according to OCFO, this step
    needs to be moved to fiscal year 2006 because AOC has requested fiscal
    year 2005 funding for determining how it should perform cost allocation,
    and for support in system set-up and testing.

    OCFO reports that planning has been completed on efforts to establish
    financial managers in jurisdictions, and the hiring of the first group of
    these managers is underway with completion expected by the end of fiscal
    year 2006.

    With regard to financial management systems, OCFO reports that AOC
    continues to make progress in implementing major phases of its financial
    management system implementation plan, with the contracting module and
    inventory system-the final two phases-planned for production operations in
    October 2004. AOC's upgrade of the financial management system is also
    scheduled for October 2004, with future upgrades of major releases
    scheduled annually.

    While plans are underway to revise OCFO's existing internal operating
    plan, as discussed previously, efforts have not yet begun to develop and
    issue a long-term operating plan. Completion of the long-term plan is
    currently scheduled for September 30, 2007.

    GAO Analysis: Since January 2003, AOC has made progress in addressing our
    recommendation. It has developed and begun to implement three broad-based
    action plans that are intended to accomplish AOC's goal of
    institutionalizing financial management best practices that support the
    effective delivery of programs and services. These action plans, if
    properly carried out, represent a reasonable basis for achieving AOC's
    goal.

    However, none of the individual action items associated with the three
    action plans has been completed, and many are not scheduled for completion
    until fiscal years 2006 and 2007. Furthermore, planning for certain items
    has not yet begun, and for some is not scheduled to begin until mid-fiscal
    year 2004. With regard to the length of time needed to complete individual
    action items, AOC management noted that they represent a measured approach
    to improving financial management while the agency's other processes and
    systems mature. While AOC has made progress since our January 2003 report,
    much work remains in beginning to address unplanned action items and
    complete ongoing planning and implementation efforts.

    OCFO has made progress in planning and implementing actions designed to
    build a foundation of control and accountability. These efforts, most of
    which are associated with preparing AOC's first auditable financial
    statements, are well underway. OCFO also reports progress in planning and
    implementing action items related to improving the partnership between
    financial management and operations. However, OCFO reports only limited
    progress on efforts to assess the role of AOC's financial management
    organization in meeting mission objectives and to organize financial
    management so that it adds value to the organization. The CFO and his
    management team must ensure that proper planning begins where needed and
    ongoing planning and implementation is completed to achieve the goal of
    institutionalizing financial management best practices. In addition,
    because many completion dates are not scheduled until fiscal years 2006
    and 2007, the use of interim dates by AOC for monitoring progress would be
    beneficial. We will continue to monitor and evaluate OCFO's progress in
    carrying out the actions needed to achieve this goal and to fully address
    our recommendation.

    Appendix IV

    Information Technology

    In our January 2003 report, we made five recommendations to help the
    Office of the Architect of the Capitol (AOC) adopt an agencywide approach
    to IT management. These recommendations are (1) establishing a chief
    information officer position, (2) developing and implementing effective
    investment management processes, (3) developing, implementing, and
    maintaining an enterprise architecture, (4) defining and implementing
    effective systems development and acquisition processes, and (5)
    establishing an effective information security program. This appendix
    describes AOC's progress to date in addressing each of our
    recommendations. It also provides a brief explanation of why we made each
    recommendation, describes the actions that AOC has taken to implement each
    recommendation, and provides our analysis of whether AOC's actions address
    the underlying issues that caused us to make the recommendation in our
    January 2003 report. It also provides additional recommendations relative
    to investment management and enterprise architecture management.

    Recommendation: Establish a chief information officer or comparable senior
    executive, with the responsibility, authority, and adequate resources for
    managing IT across the agency, who is a full participant in AOC's senior
    decision-making processes and has clearly defined roles, responsibilities,
    and accountabilities.

    Our research of private- and public-sector organizations that effectively
    manage IT shows that these organizations have adopted an agencywide
    management approach under the leadership of a chief information officer,
    or comparable senior executive, who has the responsibility and authority
    for managing IT across the agency. AOC had a decentralized approach to
    management and spending in which each organizational component controlled
    its IT assets.

    Actions Taken by AOC: AOC has issued a centralized IT management policy1
    that assigns the OIRM director responsibility and authority for managing
    IT across the agency and makes the director a key participant in executive
    decision making, serving as the principal advisor to the Architect in
    applying IT to improve business processes. Also, the director's roles and
    responsibilities include controlling the AOC IT budget and chairing the IT
    Project Management Board, which is the project oversight body for OIRM

    1Architect of the Capitol, Centralized Oversight of Information
    Technology, Order 8-1-1, May 30, 2003.

    projects. The director is organizationally positioned to report to the
    agency's Deputy Chief of Staff, who is a member of AOC's senior policy
    committee and also the chairman of the investment review board, which is
    the approval body for new IT investments beginning in fiscal year 2004.
    The director's roles, responsibilities, and accountabilities also include
    overseeing and guiding the development, management, and use of IT
    throughout the agency.

    GAO Analysis: AOC has fulfilled our recommendation. First, AOC has
    established a senior executive (the OIRM director) with the
    responsibility, authority, and resources for managing IT across the
    agency. Second, by having the OIRM director's supervisor chair the
    investment review board and sit on the senior policy committee, and by
    giving the IT director budget control, the agency has made the director a
    participant in senior decisionmaking. Third, AOC has defined in its IT
    policy the director's roles, responsibilities, and accountabilities.

    Recommendation: Develop and implement IT investment management processes
    with the full support and participation of AOC's senior leadership.
    Specifically, the Architect must develop a plan for developing and
    implementing the investment management processes, as appropriate, that are
    outlined in our IT investment management guide.2 At a minimum, the plan
    should specify measurable tasks, goals, time frames, and resources
    required to develop and implement the processes. The Architect should
    focus first on the management processes associated with controlling
    existing projects and establishing the management structures to
    effectively implement an IT management process.

    On the basis of research of private- and public-sector organizations that
    effectively manage their IT investments, our IT investment management
    guide outlines a corporate, portfolio-based approach to investment
    decision making. This approach requires that a sound investment management
    process be able to (1) measure the progress of existing projects and (2)
    continually assess proposed and ongoing projects as an integrated and
    competing set of investment options. AOC had not satisfied

    2U.S. General Accounting Office, Information Technology Investment
    Management: A Framework for Assessing and Improving Process Maturity,
    Version 1, GAO/AIMD-10.1.23 (Washington, D.C.: May 2000).

    the components of either of these two major steps and, as a result, did
    not have an agencywide, portfolio-based approach to investment management.

    Actions Taken by AOC: AOC is developing a new IT portfolio management
    process-called an investment framework-and plans to implement it in fiscal
    year 2004. AOC's IT policy, signed by the Architect, states the framework
    is to provide an effective means to select projects that best support the
    agency's mission. The current version of the framework, completed in
    October 2003, is organized along a "select, control, and evaluate" model.
    In January 2004, AOC stated that it has begun using the framework to
    control existing IT investments, using part of the framework-the process
    used to score proposed investments' value and risk-on all fiscal year 2004
    investments. An agency official told us that AOC intends to fully
    implement the framework by May 2004. To execute the select, control, and
    evaluate processes, the framework specifies four management structures-an
    architecture and standards committee, a project management board, a
    business systems modernization office, and an investment review board, and
    AOC has defined the memberships of each.

    GAO Analysis: AOC is partially addressing our recommendation. AOC's draft
    investment management framework focuses on investment selection. However,
    consistent with our IT investment management guide, we recommended that
    the agency focus first on detailing and implementing processes to control
    existing investments and that efforts to develop and implement these
    processes be guided by a detailed plan. AOC does not have a documented
    plan, with the associated tasks, goals, time frames, and resources needed
    to implement the framework. Also, the agency has not focused first on
    controlling existing IT investments. According to our guide, to control
    existing investments, AOC should be (1) operating an IT investment board
    responsible for controlling investments that includes both senior IT and
    business representatives, (2) providing effective oversight for ongoing IT
    projects throughout all phases of their life cycle, (3) identifying,
    tracking, and managing IT resources; and (4) ensuring that each IT project
    supports the organization's business needs. In January 2004, AOC stated
    that it has begun operating its project investment review board that has
    recently been revised to include senior agency leaders (e.g., chief
    financial officer and superintendents). AOC's framework addresses project
    oversight but does not specify how it will identify, track, and manage IT
    resources or ensure that projects support agency business needs. Further,
    although it intends to fully implement its IT investment management
    process by May 2004, AOC does not have a plan to do so that

    focuses on controlling existing IT projects and fully defining and
    implementing more mature investment management processes. Having such a
    plan would be consistent with our IT investment management guide and our
    recommendation for having a road map for achieving needed investment
    management maturity progression.

    Additional Recommendation: We reiterate our recommendation that AOC
    develop and implement a plan that is consistent with our IT investment
    management guide and thus focus first on the practices associated with
    controlling existing IT investments. We also recommend that AOC plan for
    and implement those practices in our IT investment management guide
    associated with corporate, portfolio-based investment decision-making,
    such as (1) implementing criteria to select investments that will best
    support the organization's strategic goals, objectives, and mission, (2)
    using these criteria to consistently analyze and prioritize all IT
    investments, (3) ensuring that the optimal investment portfolio with
    manageable risks and returns is selected and funded, and (4) overseeing
    each investment within the portfolio to ensure that it achieves its cost,
    benefit, schedule, and risk expectations.

    Recommendation: Develop, implement, and maintain an enterprise
    architecture (EA) to guide and constrain IT projects throughout AOC. The
    Architect should implement the practices, as appropriate, as outlined in
    the Chief Information Officer Council's architecture management guide.3 As
    a first step, the Architect should establish the management structure for
    developing, implementing, and maintaining an EA by implementing the
    following actions:

    o developing an agencywide policy statement providing a clear mandate for
    developing, implementing, and maintaining the architecture;

    o establishing an executive body composed of stakeholders from AOC
    mission-critical program offices to guide the strategy for developing the
    EA and ensure agency support and resources for it; and

    3Chief Information Officers Council, A Practical Guide to Federal
    Enterprise Architecture, version 1.0 (Washington, D.C.: February 2001).

    o designating an individual who serves as a chief enterprise architect to
    develop policy, lead the development of the EA, and manage it as a formal
    program.

    Our experience with federal agencies has shown that attempting to
    modernize IT environments without an EA to guide and constrain investments
    often results in systems that are duplicative, not well integrated,
    unnecessarily costly to maintain and interface, and ineffective in
    supporting mission goals. The development, implementation, and maintenance
    of architectures are recognized hallmarks of successful private and public
    organizations that effectively exploited IT in meeting their mission
    goals. At the time of our initial review, AOC did not have an EA or the
    management foundation needed to successfully develop one.

    Actions Taken by AOC: AOC's centralized IT policy commits to developing,
    implementing, and maintaining an EA and gives OIRM responsibility for
    developing and maintaining it. AOC has also assigned responsibility for
    guiding EA development and approving it to the agency's senior policy
    committee, which is composed of representatives from across the agency.
    According to the AOC Deputy Chief of Staff and the OIRM director, a chief
    enterprise architect position was requested, but not approved, in the
    fiscal year 2004 budget request, but the position has been included in the
    fiscal year 2005 budget request. In the interim, AOC has established a
    business systems modernization office in OIRM to provide technical and
    managerial support for architectural development. The agency also reports
    it has selected an architecture framework, the federal EA framework; hired
    a consultant to provide an architecture methodology and perform EA
    development work, and selected an automated tool to support development.
    Thus far, AOC has initiated activities to develop EA products, including
    completing the initial version of the existing, "as is," and the target,
    "to be," architectures-as well as a plan that will map out the transition
    from the "as is" to the "to be," in September 2003. AOC reports that the
    Deputy Chief of Staff has since approved these products. The agency also
    stated that it has developed a detailed plan addressing resource needs for
    its EA effort, although we have not yet received a copy of the plan. AOC's
    goal is to implement the target architecture by September 30, 2009.

    GAO Analysis: AOC is partially addressing our recommendation. AOC has
    issued a policy on developing, implementing, and maintaining an EA;
    established an executive board to oversee EA development, and assigned
    responsibility to develop, implement, and maintain the architecture to

    AOC's Chief Technology Officer until a chief enterprise architect is
    hired. Thus, AOC has largely implemented our recommendations for launching
    the architecture effort but needs to execute the next steps toward
    completing, implementing, and maintaining an EA as detailed in our guide.4

    Additional Recommendation: We recommend that AOC complete ongoing steps
    associated with developing its EA and implement additional steps to
    complete, maintain, and implement the architecture. In particular, we
    recommend that AOC plan for and implement the practices in our
    architecture management guide associated with leveraging an EA for
    organizational transformation, such as (1) ensuring that adequate
    resources are devoted to the program (funding, people, tools, and
    technology), (2) ensuring that the architecture describes both the "as is"
    and the "to be" environments in terms of performance, (3) ensuring that
    architecture business, performance, information and data, applications and
    services, and technology descriptions address security; and (4) ensuring
    that metrics are used to measure EA progress, quality, compliance, and
    return on investment.

    Recommendation: Require disciplined and rigorous processes for managing
    the development and acquisition of IT systems and implement the processes
    throughout AOC. Specifically, these processes should include the
    following:

    o quality assurance processes, including developing a quality assurance
    plan and identifying applicable process and product standards that will be
    used in developing and assessing project processes and products;

    o configuration management processes, including establishing a repository
    or configuration management system to maintain and control configuration
    management items;

    o risk management processes, including developing a project risk
    management plan, identifying and prioritizing potential problems,
    implementing risk mitigation strategies, as required, and tracking and
    reporting progress against the plans; and

    4U.S. General Accounting Office, Information Technology: A Framework for
    Assessing and Improving Enterprise Architecture Management, GAO-03-584G
    (Washington, D.C.: April 2003).

    o contract tracking and oversight processes, including developing a plan
    for tracking contractor activities, measuring contractor performance and
    conducting periodic reviews, and conducting internal reviews of tracking
    and oversight activities.

    Our experience with federal agencies has shown that not having and
    following rigorous and disciplined development and acquisition processes
    can lead to systems that do not perform as intended, are delivered late,
    and cost more than planned. OIRM's existing information system life-cycle
    guidance defined some of the key development and acquisition processes,
    but did not address either risk management or contract tracking and
    oversight, and only partly addressed quality assurance and configuration
    management. Moreover, these processes had not been adopted and implemented
    agencywide.

    Actions Taken by AOC: AOC awarded a contract in June 2003 to develop a new
    agencywide information systems life-cycle methodology that is to
    incorporate processes consistent with the Software Engineering Institute's
    Capability Maturity Model(R) Integration.5 The contract requires delivery
    of the methodology by January 31, 2004. OIRM plans to pilot test the new
    lifecycle processes, obtain feedback from these tests, and refine the
    processes as necessary before issuing guidance and beginning
    implementation as an AOC-wide standard starting March 31, 2004.

    GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing our recommendation. By
    contracting for a new life-cycle methodology consistent with the Software
    Engineering Institute's Capability Maturity Model(R) Integration, AOC has
    taken action aimed at defining disciplined and rigorous processes for
    managing the development and acquisition of IT systems, including quality
    assurance, configuration management, contract tracking and oversight, and
    risk management. AOC still needs to ensure that it obtains a well-defined
    set of processes and that these processes are in fact implemented by March
    31, 2004, as planned.

    Recommendation: Establish and implement an information security program.
    Specifically, the Architect should establish an information security
    program by taking the following steps:

    5 Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute, Capability Maturity
    Model(R) Integration (CMMISM), version 1.1 (March 2002).

    o designate a security officer and provide him or her with the authority
    and resources to implement an agencywide security program;

    o develop and implement policy and guidance to perform risk assessments
    continually;

    o use the results of the risk assessments to develop and implement
    appropriate controls;

    o develop policies for security training and awareness and provide the
    training; and

    o  monitor and evaluate policy and control effectiveness.

    Our research of private- and public-sector organizations6 recognized as
    having strong information security programs shows that their programs
    include (1) establishing a central focal point with appropriate resources,
    (2) continually assessing business risks, (3) implementing and maintaining
    policies and controls, (4) promoting awareness, and (5) monitoring and
    evaluating policy and control effectiveness. Although AOC had taken
    important steps to establish an information security program, much remains
    to be done, including hiring an information security officer and an
    information security specialist, before this program satisfies recognized
    best practices.

    Actions Taken by AOC: AOC has filled its information security officer
    position and, on May 30, 2003, issued a policy7 that gives this official
    the responsibility and authority to establish and implement an agencywide
    information security program. According to AOC, most of the necessary
    security resources (staff) were in place to begin the program as of
    October 9, 2003, and the agency has since filled the remaining position
    with contract resources. Further, AOC has drafted two additional policies,
    one mandating periodic risk assessments to determine information system
    vulnerabilities

    6U.S. General Accounting Office, Executive Guide: Information Security
    Management, Learning from Leading Organizations, GAO/AIMD-98-68
    (Washington, D.C.: May 1998).

    7Architect of the Capitol, Authority Policy and Responsibility of the
    Chief Information Security Officer,Order 7-1-1, May 30, 2003.

    and use the results to institute appropriate controls,8 and another
    mandating security awareness and training for all AOC system users.9
    According to AOC, issuance of these policies is scheduled for March 31,
    2004, and the agency plans to begin awareness training by April 2004. In
    addition, the agency stated that its comprehensive IT security plan is
    being revised and estimates that this work will be completed in June 2004.
    Also, AOC plans to contract out the development of audit and review
    procedures to monitor and evaluate policy and program effectiveness; use
    AOC, contractor, and inspector general staff to conduct risk assessments
    and audits; and contract for an independent security audit of AOC systems
    by September 30, 2004.

    GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing our recommendation. AOC
    has laid some of the foundation for establishing an effective security
    program, such as designating an information security officer and giving
    this official the authority to implement an agencywide security program;
    but work remains to first define and then execute this program. The key is
    for AOC to follow through on stated commitments to provide proper
    resources for the program, finalize its security policies, define
    processes for implementing the policies, and implement them.

    8Architect of the Capitol, IT Security Risk Management Policy, Order
    7-2-2, July 31, 2003 (Draft).

    9Architect of the Capitol, INFOSEC Training, Education, and Awareness
    Policy, Order 7-13, July 31, 2003 (Draft).

    Appendix V

    Worker Safety

    In our January 2003 report, we made seven recommendations to help the
    Office of the Architect of the Capitol (AOC) improve its overall approach
    to worker safety by identifying performance measures, clearly defining
    policies and procedures for reporting hazards, establishing a consistent
    system for conducting investigations and followup, establishing a safety
    training curriculum, assigning clear responsibility for tracking worker
    safety employee training, clarifying the role of the Office of the
    Attending Physician (OAP) in helping AOC to meet its safety goals, and
    establishing a senior management work group to routinely discuss worker
    compensation issues. This appendix describes AOC's progress to date in
    addressing each of our recommendations. We provide a brief review of why
    we made each recommendation, report the actions that AOC has taken to
    implement the recommendation, and provide our analysis of whether AOC's
    actions address the underlying issues that caused us to make the
    recommendation in our January 2003 report.

    Recommendation: Identify performance measures for safety goals and
    objectives, including measures for how AOC will implement the 43
    specialized safety programs1 and how superintendents and employees will be
    held accountable for achieving results.

    At the time of our management review, 15 of AOC's 43 safety policies had
    been written and approved by the Architect. However, the standard
    operating procedures for these policies had not been approved, and several
    jurisdictions were using separate standard operating procedures that were
    unique to each jurisdiction. In addition, AOC had not yet developed
    performance measures or interim milestones that could be used to assess
    the implementation of these policies. Finally, AOC had not fully linked
    senior manager and employee performance with the achievement of its safety
    goals.

    Actions Taken by AOC: According to AOC officials and documents we
    reviewed, a number of steps have been taken to address this
    recommendation. First, the number of safety policies has been reduced from
    43 to 34 to better reflect the type of activities conducted at AOC.
    Second, AOC has drafted an Occupational Safety and Health Program (OSH)
    Plan, which establishes the objectives, actions, and milestones necessary
    to achieve the agency's safety and health goals. One objective is to
    establish additional policies and procedures to ensure AOC complies

    1The safety programs are now referred to as safety policies.

    with Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) regulations and
    protects employee health. Third, within the draft OSH plan, AOC has
    created a schedule for developing and implementing all 34 safety policies.
    Fourth, AOC is creating a standard template that identifies the critical
    elements, such as the tools and training requirements, for each policy.
    AOC is using the standard template to help ensure that the safety policies
    are consistently implemented across the 11 jurisdictions. Fifth, AOC has
    identified broader program goals that demonstrate its commitment to worker
    safety. AOC is establishing performance measures for each of the 34 safety
    policies to demonstrate progress toward the safety program goals and
    objectives. In addition, AOC has requested increases in the jurisdictional
    training budget for AOC employees. Finally, AOC is using a safety
    performance requirement within its PRP, senior employee performance
    management system, and its PCES, employee performance management system,
    to hold all senior managers and employees accountable for safety results.

    GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing our recommendation. The
    draft OSH plan recognizes that implementation of AOC's 34 safety policies
    will require an agencywide cultural transition that will take a number of
    years of focused commitment to attain, including additional resource
    commitments. While implementation of all 34 safety policies had been
    targeted for completion by fiscal year 2005, this date has been extended
    to fiscal year 2007. 2 As of the beginning of fiscal year 2004, no safety
    policy has been fully implemented.

    The draft OSH plan identifies performance measures for some safety and
    health objectives. For example, the draft OSH plan indicates a performance
    measure for the objective "enhance employee awareness of and involvement
    in all aspects of safety and health" and includes publicizing the minutes
    from monthly meetings of jurisdictions to discuss safety and health.
    However, this performance measure is not fully developed or results
    oriented. To its credit, the draft OSH plan does indicate that performance
    measures for many of the 34 safety policies will

    2According to the Occupational Safety and Health Program Plan, policy
    development is an extensive and iterative process of regulatory research,
    best practice review, integration with existing AOC policies and
    practices, stakeholder input, and management approval.

    be determined as each policy is developed, though many of the safety
    policies will not be developed for a number of years.3

    Implementation of the 34 safety policies, even under the extended time
    frame, could be jeopardized according to AOC officials, if the increased
    staff and funding needs to accomplish the plan are not met. Four of the
    five jurisdictional superintendents we interviewed said they would need
    additional staff to fully implement the safety policies. In addition, both
    jurisdictional and central AOC officials said the jurisdictional training
    budgets would need to be increased to meet the training objectives
    established in the draft Occupational Safety and Health Program Plan.
    Moreover, one AOC jurisdictional official stated that if the request for
    additional staff members were not approved, the implementation plan would
    likely be delayed beyond fiscal year 2007. To the extent that AOC
    establishes a sound business case for additional staff and funding, having
    the appropriate resources in place to implement the safety policies will
    help AOC meet its time frames.

    AOC has been unable to meet the original targeted time frame (fiscal year
    2005) due to the need to revise the methodology for developing the safety
    policies.4 This was mainly due, according to AOC officials, to
    insufficient staff resources in the jurisdictions, as well as the need for
    consistency across jurisdictions. Specifically, AOC headquarters is
    developing a standard template for jurisdictions to use rather than
    relying upon jurisdictions to create their own standard operating
    procedures for each safety policy. While two of the safety policy standard
    templates have been drafted, neither has been released because the agency
    needs to make the procedures more user friendly for front-line employees.

    Although AOC has stated it intends to link performance measures to each of
    the 34 safety policies, the data needed to successfully identify
    individual measures have not been collected. In addition, training needs
    identified in the draft OSH plan are dependent upon approval of additional
    funding

    3In responding to our draft report, AOC officials noted that a key
    indicator was not mentioned -- the Injury and Illness rate. The Injury and
    Illness rate measures job related injuries and illnesses per 100 employees
    as recorded under the Federal Employees Compensation Act program. In
    addition, AOC officials indicated that this rate was 7.87 in FY 2003,
    representing a 56 percent reduction from AOC's FY 2000 rate. Within the
    scope of this assignment, we did not independently verify this rate.

    4See footnote 34.

    requests, if negative service effects are to be avoided, according to AOC.
    Moreover, AOC officials stated the updated time frame for full
    implementation of the safety policies may need to be further extended to
    meet the training commitments identified in the draft OSH plan.

    AOC's efforts to further develop and use performance management systems to
    help clarify accountability for safety results is an encouraging sign.
    However, the system for evaluating front-line employees does not yet
    contain specific objective standards and criteria for evaluating
    individuals on safety issues. Including these would help ensure that
    employees will be encouraged to report hazards, that supervisors will take
    those reports seriously, and that senior managers will be accountable for
    acting on these reports.

    Recommendation: Establish clearly defined and documented policies and
    procedures for reporting hazards similar to those that apply to injury and
    illness reporting.

    During our management review, we found that although AOC had a number of
    mechanisms for involving employees in its safety program and encouraged
    employees to report injuries and hazards, AOC lacked a hazard reporting
    mechanism and moreover, some employees were hesitant to report hazards to
    management because they were not sure how seriously their supervisors
    would treat these reports. As a result, AOC could not ensure that there
    was a complete reporting of hazards.

    Actions Taken by AOC: First, AOC plans to develop a Hazard Assessment and
    Control policy, one of its 34 safety policies, beginning October 2003
    through June 2004 and fully implement the policy by May 2006. Second, as a
    key component in developing its Hazard Assessment and Control policy, AOC
    plans to identify hazards associated with specific job tasks. AOC calls
    this task a Job Hazard Analysis (JHA).5 AOC has created a schedule for
    completing each JHA. In addition, AOC has contracted with the Department
    of Health and Human Services Public Health Service (PHS) to identify
    hazards associated with job tasks in each jurisdiction. For all

    5AOC's Occupational Safety and Health Program Plan splits the development
    and implementation of the Hazard Assessment and Control policy into two
    segments, one dealing with the completion of JHA and the other dealing
    with implementation of the operational aspects of this policy. The time
    frames we cite here apply to the operational segment of the policy. The
    JHA segment is scheduled to be fully implemented by the end of calendar
    year 2004.

    potentially hazardous conditions identified, the job hazard analysis will
    include appropriate use of personal protective equipment, medical
    surveillance, training, and engineering controls. According to AOC
    officials, the JHA process has been completed for two jurisdictions-the
    Senate and the Construction Management Division. Lastly, while a majority
    of the jurisdictions awaits full development and implementation of the
    Hazard Assessment and Control policy and the Facility Management Assistant
    (FMA) system, jurisdictions continue to rely upon their own hazard
    reporting processes. The FMA system will (1) track and analyze the number
    and types of hazards and (2) identify follow-up corrective actions to
    ameliorate hazards. In addition, AOC plans to expand the capacity of the
    FMA system by purchasing an incident investigation module. This will allow
    AOC to track the investigation of incidents following injuries, illnesses,
    fatalities, and near misses. The FMA system is commercially available and
    contains a suite of software components. AOC officials reported that these
    processes vary across jurisdictions and involve formal reporting
    procedures and mechanisms, such as submission of standard forms for
    reporting hazards, as well as informal measures, such as e-mail messages
    and periodic employee meetings. In addition, AOC officials discuss hazards
    as well as other safety and health issues at meetings convened by AOC
    employee and managerial committees.

    GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing our recommendation.
    While AOC has established a plan and initiated actions to improve
    reporting of hazards, the development and implementation of AOC-wide
    policy and procedures for hazard reporting is expected to take years to
    complete due to the time needed to develop and fully implement this safety
    policy. Notably, the Hazard Assessment and Control policy is not expected
    to be fully implemented until 2006.

    AOC has made some strides in its efforts to initiate a comprehensive
    survey of hazards. Until AOC completes the implementation of this policy
    and subsequent analysis across all jurisdictions, it will not be able to
    develop a comprehensive picture of AOC hazards. Additionally, until AOC
    completes the system-wide process for investigating incidents across all
    jurisdictions, it will not be able to develop a comprehensive picture of
    AOC incidents, including their causes.

    Recommendation: Establish a consistent AOC-wide system for conducting
    investigations and follow-up.

    During our management review, we found that although AOC had a number of
    mechanisms to obtain employee involvement and encourage employees to
    report incidents, accidents, and illnesses, the existing control
    mechanisms could not ensure that all reports were treated consistently
    across AOC. As a result, AOC could not ensure that there was a complete
    investigation of incidents, accidents, and illnesses.

    Actions Taken by AOC: AOC plans to develop an incident reporting policy,
    one of its 34 safety policies, to be fully implemented by May 2005. A key
    component of this policy is an incident investigation module. The module
    is expected to track-in electronic form-data on injuries, near misses, and
    property damage following an incident. AOC officials told us they expect
    to purchase the module, as well as complete the policies and procedures
    pertaining to incident reporting, by March 2004. Beginning in March 2004,
    AOC plans to have one jurisdiction test the incident reporting policy.

    As mentioned previously, the incident investigation module will be a
    component of AOC's integrated FMA system. Pending development of the
    incident investigation module of the FMA system, jurisdictions will
    continue to rely upon their own incident investigation methods. These
    processes vary across jurisdictions and include formal reporting
    procedures and mechanisms, such as submission of standard forms for
    reporting injuries and illnesses, safety hotlines, and accident
    investigation teams.

    GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing our recommendation.
    While AOC has established a plan and initiated actions to improve the
    reporting of incidents, the development and implementation of AOC-wide
    policy and procedures for incident reporting is expected to take at least
    a year to complete due to the need to fully develop a reporting system
    that will track incidents. Until this occurs, jurisdictions will continue
    to use separate systems for identifying and reporting incidents.
    Additionally, until AOC completes the systemwide process for investigating
    incidents, it will not be able to develop a comprehensive picture of AOC
    incidents, including their causes, across all jurisdictions. While the
    system takes an extended time to develop, important information
    positioning the agency to develop proactive strategies to avoid incidents
    is left untapped. Moreover, central office safety staff will be able to
    view cross-jurisdictional data. However, officials in two of the five
    jurisdictions we interviewed said they could benefit from increased access
    to incident data from other

    jurisdictions, beyond the limited information currently provided by
    central office safety staff.

    Finally AOC does not, at this time, have a definitive strategy to
    integrate the FMA system with the system to generate work orders to
    correct identified hazards. The lack of a hazard identification work order
    generation link could lead to a missed opportunity to strategically manage
    hazard reporting and the identification of abatement actions. Furthermore,
    some jurisdiction officials told us that having separate systems for
    reporting and abatement creates more work for them. Having separate
    systems could discourage use of the FMA system, thereby defeating its
    purpose. However, a senior AOC official stated that further linkages
    between these separate systems are possible as part of AOC's EA efforts.

    Recommendation: Establish a safety training curriculum that fully supports
    all of the goals of the safety program and further evaluate the
    effectiveness of the training provided.

    During our management review, we found that although AOC uses a
    compliance-based approach to providing safety training, it would benefit
    from targeting its safety awareness training to better motivate employees
    at all levels to incorporate safety into all aspects of their work.

    Actions Taken by AOC: According to AOC documents we reviewed and officials
    we interviewed, the agency has developed a Safety Training Plan to provide
    guidance to all managers and employees to properly identify and select
    training courses to ensure compliance with policy requirements. The plan
    contains a training matrix that lists the training for each safety policy
    with a training requirement, including the list of courses, frequency of
    training, and target audiences (e.g., employees working in the electrical
    and masonry shops) for each safety policy. The plan states that it is not
    intended to replace or supercede specific training requirements that are
    delineated in individual safety policies. In some cases, the course
    content is specifically tailored to an individual jurisdiction and target
    audience, which will assist supervisors and participants with relating the
    training to their work environment. However, such tailoring has not been
    completed for all courses. In addition, AOC uses formal methods to
    evaluate training, such as a participant evaluation form, as well as
    informal methods, such as following up with participants' supervisors to
    obtain feedback on training sessions. Also, Safety Policy Managers audit
    courses and provide feedback to course designers and instructors. Finally,
    the fiscal year 2005 training budget request will include funds for
    additional staff that AOC believes are

    necessary to support front-line work while employees fulfill their
    training requirements.

    GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing our recommendation.
    While AOC has taken some concrete steps to change the culture of workplace
    safety through training, measures to assess the actual effectiveness of
    these training courses on employee behavior have not been developed. A
    senior AOC official also recognized the need to better evaluate AOC's
    training system. AOC officials believe that if the agency's fiscal year
    2005 budget request for additional staff is not met, then (1) the timeline
    for all employees meeting their training requirements, as identified in
    the draft OSH plan, may need to be extended or (2) AOC could experience a
    loss in productivity while employees receive training. Finally, the FMA
    system, which will be used to track and identify corrective actions for
    hazards and incidents, will not be aligned to the training system to help
    identify and target training needs to address high-risk areas.

    Recommendation: Assign clear responsibility for tracking and recording
    training received by AOC employees, including maintaining an inventory of
    employees' certifications and licenses.

    During our management review, we found that the procedures and
    responsibilities for monitoring training requirements for the safety
    program were not well defined. In addition, AOC safety and HRMD officials
    had not established a systematic process to identify training needs for
    individual employees to help ensure the safety program's success.

    Actions Taken by AOC: Although senior officials in the jurisdictions are
    responsible for monitoring employee training needs, they cannot access
    HRMD's database of AOC-sponsored training courses and employees training
    attendance. According to AOC officials we interviewed, some jurisdictions
    continue to track training information on their own, which may create
    inconsistencies in reporting and lead to duplicative recordkeeping. In
    addition, we found that although AOC's draft Safety Master Plan6 noted
    that an electronic reminder tool-called a tickler-would be added to HRMD's
    training database to identify training needs for individual employees, it
    has yet to be developed. A senior AOC official told us that funds have
    currently been made available to research the requirements

    6AOC changed the title of its worker safety plan from Safety Master Plan
    to Occupational Safety and Health Program Plan.

    needed to develop the electronic reminder tool-now referred to as a data
    management system. The official stated that the data management system
    will track whether requirements in training, licensing, certifications,
    and medical surveillance for employees have been met. AOC expects this
    system to be operational by fiscal year 2005. AOC indicated that as part
    of its effort to integrate agency goals and multiple data systems under
    its EA plan, it intends at some point to develop an agencywide system that
    will identify employees' training needs, including certification and
    licensing requirements.

    GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing our recommendation.
    Procedures and responsibilities for monitoring training requirements for
    the safety program, while beginning to move in the right direction, remain
    poorly defined. Although HRMD's database tracks and records employee
    training, including training to meet licensing and certification
    requirements, the database (1) does not proactively identify training
    needed to maintain employees' licensing and certification requirements and
    (2) is not accessible to the jurisdictions. As a result, several
    jurisdictions had created and continue to use separate systems to track
    employee training and maintain certification and licensure requirements.
    Although AOC plans to address employee training requirement gaps through
    the development of its EA plan, it has yet to take any substantial steps
    to do so.

    Recommendation: Clarify and explore the possibility of expanding the role
    of the Office of the Attending Physician (OAP) in helping AOC meet its
    safety goals, consistent with the broad responsibilities laid out in the
    1998 Memorandum of Understanding between AOC and OAP.

    During our management review, we found that although OAP provides
    important health and safety assistance to AOC, such as conducting
    OSHAmandated medical examinations on employees exposed to hazardous
    substances, the role of OAP could be more clearly defined and expanded. In
    particular, the 1998 Memorandum of Understanding between OAP and AOC
    allows a broader role for OAP in several areas, such as providing trend
    information on the results of medical examinations.

    Actions Taken by AOC: Over the past 6 months, an OAP representative has
    been attending AOC's Safety, Health and Environmental Council (SHEC) and
    Jurisdiction Occupational Safety and Health (JOSH) meetings and has been
    involved in reviewing and commenting on AOC's

    development of 34 safety policies, particularly the policy concerning
    medical examinations required for employees exposed to known hazards. In
    addition, OAP has been reviewing recommendations for injured employees who
    are attempting to return to work on "light-duty."

    GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing our recommendation.
    While AOC has taken worthwhile steps to involve OAP in the development of
    safety policies and the discussion of safety issues, it has not identified
    or pursued other key areas where OAP could play a significant role in
    enhancing efforts to ensure worker safety. For example, AOC has not taken
    any concrete steps to obtain data or analyses from OAP medical
    examinations that might identify health-related trends. While AOC
    officials told us that confidentiality issues might interfere with such
    efforts, no steps have been taken to address and overcome this concern.

    Recommendation: Establish a senior management work group that will
    routinely discuss workers' compensation cases and costs, and develop
    strategies to reduce these injuries and costs.

    A senior management work group would provide staff in HRMD, the central
    office, and the jurisdictions with a forum to discuss new and ongoing
    claims and facilitate the exchange of information to further control
    workers' compensation costs. At the time of our last review, HRMD used
    injury data primarily for processing workers' compensation costs, and
    central staff did not systematically analyze the data. Jurisdiction staff,
    on the other hand, did not routinely receive data on costs associated with
    injuries.

    Actions Taken by AOC: Rather than create a separate work group, AOC
    officials discuss workers' compensation costs at the SHEC meetings. SHEC
    meetings are held each quarter and participants include senior managers
    from HRMD, the central office, and the jurisdictions, as well as JOSH
    representatives, an OAP representative, and a senior council member.
    During the meeting, HRMD and its Workers' Compensation Program Unit
    provide relevant data on workers' compensation issues, including
    discussions on best practices that can be used to lower workers'
    compensation costs.

    GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing our recommendation,
    which was intended to ensure that senior management and other key
    stakeholders routinely discuss data on workers' compensation. AOC plans to
    develop new approaches to reduce workers'

    compensation costs based upon these discussions. However, no solutions or
    new approaches to address workers' compensation costs have thus far been
    developed.

    Appendix VI

    Project Management

    In our January 2003 report, we made five recommendations to help the
    Office of the Architect of the Capitol (AOC) improve its overall approach
    to project management by developing a Capitol Hill complex master plan and
    completing building condition assessments, developing a transparent
    process to prioritize agency capital projects, developing tools to
    effectively communicate priorities and progress of projects, clearly
    defining projectmanagement-related measures, and aligning project
    management staff and resources with mission-critical goals. This appendix
    describes AOC's progress to date in addressing each of our
    recommendations. We provide a brief review of why we made each
    recommendation, report the actions that AOC has taken to implement the
    recommendation, and provide our analysis of whether AOC's actions address
    the underlying issues that caused us to make the recommendation in our
    January 2003 report.

    Recommendation: Develop a Capitol Hill complex master plan and complete
    condition assessments of all buildings and facilities under the
    jurisdiction of AOC.

    Master planning is necessary to help AOC establish long-term priorities,
    but progress has been slow. In July 2001, the Senate Committee on
    Appropriations expressed concern that AOC needed to develop a master plan
    for the Capitol Hill complex. Over a year later the National Academy of
    Sciences (NAS) held a planning workshop for AOC to determine the scope of
    a Capitol Hill complex master plan. A key component of a master plan is
    building condition assessments (BCA), which are systematic evaluations of
    an organization's assets. When conducted, BCAs must be carried out
    consistently across all jurisdictions to help ensure that all assets are
    evaluated in the same manner and that AOC-wide priorities can be set. We
    reported in our January 2003 report that AOC had recently formed a
    condition assessment team to develop a detailed statement of work for
    conducting BCAs.

    Actions Taken by AOC: According to the Acting Chief for AOC Office of
    Design and Construction (ODC), AOC received the NAS report in June 2003
    and is developing the requirements for the Capitol Hill complex master
    plan.1 The NAS study provided guidance on developing a scope of services
    for a master plan. Based on more detailed work that AOC has done in

    1National Research Council of the National Academies, Working in Olmsted's
    Shadow: Guidance for Developing a Scope of Services for the Update of the
    Master Plan for the U.S. Capitol and Grounds (Washington, D.C.: The
    National Academies Press, 2003).

    developing the scope for the master plan, AOC revised its schedule to show
    the consultant being selected in February 2004 and the final master plan
    being completed in December 2006.

    AOC's Acting Chief of ODC said that AOC is completing the statement of
    work for the BCAs. He said that AOC plans to award BCA contracts for its
    three largest jurisdictions-the House, Capitol, and Senate-in 2003.
    According to AOC, the statements of work for the Capitol and Senate BCAs
    have now been completed, and it expected to award the contracts in
    December 2003. These building assessments are expected to take about one
    year to complete. The Acting Chief of ODC said that the BCAs for the other
    buildings under AOC management would be awarded in fiscal years 2004 and
    2005.

    GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing our recommendation,
    although, in its March 7, 2003, draft performance plan, AOC showed that it
    planned to publish the final Capitol Hill complex master plan on April 1,
    2006. In addition, the current schedule shows the final plan being
    completed 8 months later in December 2006. AOC's schedule shows that most
    of the additional time, 6 months, was added so AOC can obtain and
    incorporate comments and finalize the plan.

    Completion of the BCAs is also behind the tentative schedule developed in
    March 2003. The first BCAs were to be completed March 31, 2004. But since
    not all BCA contracts are expected to be awarded until December 2003, and
    the work is expected to take about 1 year, it appears that the initial
    BCAs for the three largest jurisdictions will not be completed until the
    fall of 2004. Completion of the other BCAs will depend on when funding is
    received. Since the BCAs are a key component of the master plan, AOC will
    need to push to get these completed as soon as possible so they can be
    integrated into the master plan. It is important to recognize that once
    the BCAs are completed they should be updated on a regular schedule.

    Recommendation: Develop a process for assigning project priorities that is
    based on clearly defined, well documented, consistently applied, and
    transparent criteria.

    During our management review, the lack of a transparent process to
    prioritize projects was identified as a major weakness at AOC. Priorities
    were determined on the subjective decisions made by jurisdiction officials
    and not on predefined criteria. The only day-to-day prioritization that
    was used was a "hot projects" list. Projects were subjectively placed on
    this list

    based on time sensitivity and high dollar volume; however, the process for
    placing projects onto this list was neither formal nor consistently
    applied. We reported in our January 2003 report that AOC lacked a process
    that can communicate, both internally and externally, the trade-offs in
    prioritizing one project over another or how individual projects fit
    within a broader AOC framework.

    Actions Taken by AOC: According to the ODC Acting Chief, in February 2003,
    AOC worked with a consultant to develop evaluation criteria to prioritize
    building projects. For prioritization purposes, each project is evaluated
    in five areas and assigned a score, based on a 100-point scale, in each
    area. The areas that building projects are evaluated in are

    1.	preservation-preservation of historic or legacy buildings and the
    importance of the Architect's stewardship role,

    2.	impact on mission-impact on mission/client urgency/ accommodating new
    or changed mission,

    3. economic impact-payback, cost savings, or cost avoidance,

    4.	safety-fire and life safety and other code, regulatory, or statutory
    requirements,

    5. security-physical security.

    In working with its consultant, AOC developed a matrix to provide criteria
    and guidance on how to evaluate and score the projects in each of the
    defined areas. For example, when evaluating a project in the area of
    preservation, 80 points may be given to a project that includes the
    preservation of a highly significant historical feature, while only 20
    points may be given to a project with less historical significance.
    Projects are ranked based on the total number of points they receive in
    all five areas. These criteria were developed after the fiscal year 2005
    projects were submitted for the proposed budget, but according to the AOC
    Deputy Director of Engineering, they then applied this criteria to
    prioritize those projects. The prioritized list of projects was then
    shared with the superintendents who validated the results of the
    prioritization. For the fiscal year 2005 projects, the prioritization was
    not used to determine which projects would be included in the budget
    request, but only the order in which they would be done. He said that in
    the future, when the prioritization is used to determine which projects
    would be submitted for

    funding, there may be more discussion about why projects were scored in a
    particular way.

    GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing this recommendation.
    AOC has created a clearly defined, well-documented, and transparent
    process for evaluating and prioritizing projects. While determining the
    priority of projects will always be somewhat subjective, AOC has developed
    a reasonable approach using a matrix to help raters score projects in five
    areas. The matrix provides clear guidance and specifies issues to consider
    when scoring projects in each of the five rating areas. Since the
    evaluation criteria have not yet been used to determine which projects
    will be submitted for funding, it remains to be seen if they will be
    consistently applied. Using this matrix and documenting the factors used
    in making the priority decisions should help AOC support its capital
    improvement program.

    Recommendation: Develop tools to effectively communicate priorities and
    progress of projects, as a part of a broader communication strategy.

    At the time of our management review, AOC lacked the tools to communicate
    its priorities internally to staff and externally to clients and provide
    details on how related projects are linked to one another. AOC officials
    said that the Project Information Center (PIC) system, the database of all
    project-related information, was used to prioritize work and ascertain the
    progress of projects, but it was not capable of producing a unified
    document that shows schedules of active projects, their
    interrelationships, and required staff. Without a resource-loaded project
    master-planning capability, it is difficult to determine the effect of
    priority changes and to quantify project manager staffing requirements. In
    addition, the information in PIC was not consistently updated nor was it
    systematically reviewed to determine its accuracy. While AOC used the PIC
    system to prepare a quarterly capital projects report that provided the
    status of all ongoing capital projects, the report did not highlight
    projects that were behind schedule, over budget, or otherwise of interest
    to clients.

    Actions Taken by AOC: AOC has worked to improve the capabilities of its
    PIC system and the format of its quarterly report on capital projects. AOC
    has improved the capabilities of PIC by adding links to the financial
    management system and building/project drawings. According to AOC
    officials, AOC has identified a software package capable of producing a
    unified schedule that shows staff resources and a purchase order has been

    issued for the software and supporting consulting to accomplish proper
    installation of the application.

    To improve the accuracy and timeliness of PIC data, the Director of the
    Technical Support Division told us that AOC has verbally and in writing
    reemphasized the importance of timely and accurate data. He also said that
    two people review the data monthly looking for inaccuracies and missing
    data.

    AOC has revised the quarterly report format to make it more user friendly.
    The quarterly report is color coded so the user can quickly identify those
    projects that are behind schedule or need additional funding. The report
    also includes summary information and highlights projects of particular
    interest for reasons such as not being on schedule or requiring additional
    funding. The report also discusses the resolution of issues related to
    projects highlighted in the previous report.

    GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing our recommendation. It
    is encouraging that AOC has made improvements to PIC, but AOC will
    continue to have difficulty managing schedules and workload until it is
    able to produce a unified schedule to show the status of the projects and
    the responsible project managers. We did not verify the accuracy of the
    PIC data but the Director of the Technical Support Division said that they
    are focusing on improving data accuracy and completeness.

    While the usefulness of the quarterly report has improved, our analysis
    shows that the project schedule charts can still be confusing. For
    example, the "work on schedule" bar on the chart shows that the work is on
    schedule when it has not yet begun, which can make it appear that a large
    percentage of AOC's projects is on schedule when actually projects have
    not yet begun. It would also be helpful if the individual project
    summaries indicated when a project's schedule has been changed and why the
    schedule was changed. In addition, the report indicates when additional
    project funding is being requested, but it is not always clear if the
    requested funding is for cost overruns or if the funding request was
    planned and is for a new phase of the project.

    Recommendation: Define project-management-related performance measures to
    achieve mission-critical strategic and annual performance goals.

    During our management review, we found that AOC needed to work with its
    stakeholders to determine its long-term strategic goals and annual
    performance goals for project management. The development of annual
    performance goals that provide a connection between long-term goals and
    day-to-day activities would enable AOC to track its progress, provide
    critical information for decision-making and foster individual
    accountability.

    Actions Taken by AOC: AOC's draft strategic plan and draft performance
    plan identify some measures and processes that will be used to monitor and
    evaluate AOC's success. The measures identified in the draft strategic
    plan are (1) projects executed and delivered on time and on budget and (2)
    client satisfaction. In June 2003, AOC defined uniform operating
    procedures for conducting customer satisfaction surveys. As defined in
    these procedures, the purpose of such a customer satisfaction survey is to
    assess the gap between the services provided by AOC and the needs of its
    customers. These procedures generically apply to the process of
    developing, administering, and managing the data from any customer
    satisfaction survey.

    AOC's draft performance plan also identified the following new assessments
    (1) evaluation of design teams' performance, (2) evaluation of
    architects', engineers' (A/E), and general contractors' (GC) performance,
    and (3) post-occupancy evaluations of buildings to evaluate design and
    standards performance over time. In July 2003, AOC issued operating
    procedures for conducting project design satisfaction surveys. The purpose
    of these surveys is to provide internal customers an open platform to
    express appreciation or concern about their design activity. According to
    the procedures, the surveys will be done on an ad hoc basis upon
    completion of a design project. According to an AOC official in the Office
    of the Administrative Assistant, the draft survey is being reviewed within
    AOC.

    As part of the AOC's Design and Construction Office ongoing best practices
    initiative, it had hired a consultant to evaluate five recently completed
    construction projects to identify lessons learned that could be applied to
    other projects. Key participants in the projects were surveyed about how
    the projects performed in the following areas (1) organization/teamwork,
    (2) planning process, (3) design process, (4) procurement process, and (5)
    construction process. The consultant reported on "why projects went
    right," identified areas for improvement, and made recommendations in each
    of the areas. According to the report, upgrades were recommended to

    AOC project manager's manual and standards and these recommendations were
    incorporated into the project manager training held in the spring 2003.

    GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing our recommendation.
    While AOC's draft strategic plan has identified types of performance
    measures, it has yet to formally define specific measurable performance
    goals. The Acting Chief for ODC told us that he believes that the
    performance goal for this division is for all projects to be delivered on
    time and on budget, but this is not specifically written as a goal. In
    addition, clarity is needed for how and when a project's schedule and
    budget benchmarks are established and when they can be changed. For
    example, if a project's schedule is based on receiving funding during the
    current year, yet it does not receive the funding until the next year, we
    understand that AOC will change the project's schedule benchmark. It is
    not clear that this decision is documented in the project summary in the
    quarterly report to Congress.

    As part of obtaining stakeholder input for project management, AOC's draft
    performance plan identifies a number of surveys that will be used to
    monitor and evaluate projects. While AOC has developed procedures for
    conducting the project design satisfaction surveys, the actual survey,
    which was tentatively scheduled to be ready on June 30, 2003, is still
    being finalized within AOC. The A/E and GC surveys are not scheduled to be
    ready for distribution until spring 2004, and the process for developing
    post-occupancy evaluations will not be completed until fall 2005.

    The lessons learned report that sought feedback from stakeholders and
    participants on five recently completed projects to make specific
    recommendations on how to improve performance on future projects is also
    an important development.

    Recommendation: Align project management staff and resources with AOC's
    mission-critical goals.

    At the time of our management review, AOC recognized that the current
    approach of assigning mostly architects and engineers as project managers
    was ineffective. Project managers said that they were being asked to wear
    "too many hats," which often distracted them from their primary duty of
    managing projects. AOC officials responsible for project management had
    proposed the creation of a new and independent Project Management
    Division. However, we noted that such realignment must support the

    agency meeting its mission-critical goals and objectives and would require
    a determination as to which individuals have the skills to be dedicated
    project managers and who would supervise the project managers. We also
    reported that AOC had not developed project management-specific technical
    competencies and defining these competencies would be important for
    ensuring that the right people are employed in the right positions and
    that they are routinely held accountable for their work. We noted that as
    a next step, AOC could also identify and implement training programs that
    are linked to the core and technical competencies required of project
    managers.

    Actions Taken by AOC: ODC has begun to make some organizational changes
    that are awaiting approval by the COO. These changes include the creation
    of a Project Management Division, which is currently staffed by a director
    and three project managers. AOC is hiring five additional project managers
    using position descriptions specifying the duties and knowledge required
    for the position. The project manager's duties include providing
    life-cycle project management expertise and coordination from the planning
    stage through post-occupancy evaluation. AOC will also be providing all
    project managers with training based on AOC's new project management
    manual. Project managers are expected to be dedicated to a project for its
    duration and will report to the Director of Project Management. They will
    be responsible for multidisciplined capital improvement projects with
    budgets of $250,000 or more, while projects budgeted at less than $250,000
    or involving a single discipline, such as lighting retrofits, will
    continue to be managed by architects or engineers.

    The new Director of Project Management has systematically determined the
    number of project managers needed by estimating the length of time it
    takes to perform each task defined in AOC's project management guide. This
    enabled him to determine how many projects one project manager should be
    able to manage concurrently.

    The Director of AOC's HRMD told us that she is working with ODC to
    identify competencies for project managers to help ensure that project
    managers have the skills needed to effectively perform their jobs.

    GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing our recommendation.
    While the new organization chart for AOC's ODC is still pending approval
    by the COO, AOC is creating a Project Management Division led at the
    director level with attendant dedicated project manager positions. It is
    also important that AOC is using a systematic approach to

    determine project workload and develop a request for additional project
    manager positions. AOC's systematic approach may help justify AOC's need
    for additional project managers and manage expectations of its
    stakeholders for projects based on the number of available project
    managers. However, as noted, AOC still does not have the capability of
    producing a unified schedule showing staff resources, which will make it
    difficult to manage staffing levels. AOC is taking the first steps to
    ensure that the right people are employed in the right positions by
    starting to identify competencies for its project management staff,
    creating position descriptions based on those competencies, and using
    those position descriptions as a basis for recruiting and hiring staff.

    Appendix VII

    Recycling

    In our January 2003 report, we made three recommendations to help the
    Office of the Architect of the Capitol (AOC) improve its overall approach
    to its recycling program by developing a clear mission and goals,
    developing a performance measurement system to support accomplishing its
    recycling program, and examining the roles and responsibilities of its
    recycling program staff. This appendix describes AOC's progress to date in
    addressing each of our recommendations. We provide a brief review of why
    we made each recommendation, report the actions that AOC has taken to
    implement the recommendation, and provide our analysis of whether AOC's
    actions address the underlying issues that caused us to make the
    recommendation in our January 2003 report.

    Recommendation: Develop a clear mission and goals for AOC's recycling
    program with input from key congressional stakeholders as part of its
    proposed environmental master plan. AOC may want to establish reasonable
    goals based on the total waste stream- information it plans to obtain as
    part of its long-term environmental management plan-that could potentially
    be recycled.

    During our management review, we found that AOC had established neither a
    clear mission statement nor goals for its recycling program. Various
    program-related documents made indirect references to two different
    missions for the program. One mission was to reduce the total amount of
    solid waste sent to landfills, and the other mission was to generate as
    much revenue as possible from the sale of its recyclable materials to a
    recycling contractor. Similarly, we found that AOC had not established any
    measurable goals for its recycling programs. The absence of AOC recycling
    goals did not allow measures to be linked to a desired level of
    performance, and thus AOC could not demonstrate the extent to which
    performance is achieved. We also stated that establishing meaningful goals
    would require collection of certain other information, including
    information obtained from a waste stream analysis.

    We concluded that the high levels of contamination present in the
    materials collected in both the Senate and House recycling programs had
    not allowed AOC to achieve either substantial waste reduction or revenue
    generation

    it might have otherwise achieved.1 By clarifying the mission of the
    program, AOC could design recycling programs to achieve better results. We
    also suggested that, consistent with the communications strategy we
    discussed in our January 2003 report, AOC should involve its congressional
    stakeholders in the process of developing the mission statement for its
    recycling programs. We recommended that AOC develop a clear mission and
    goals for its recycling program with input from key congressional
    stakeholders as part of its proposed environmental master plan.

    Actions Taken by AOC: In its March 2003 draft strategic plan, AOC states
    that it plans to develop a long-range environmental program plan that will
    establish program mission, vision, goals, and measures.2 The strategic
    plan also states that this environmental program plan would include
    clarifying the mission, goals, and measures of the recycling program-a
    component of pollution prevention. Although, according to its performance
    plan, AOC is a few months behind its scheduled time frame for this work.
    AOC has begun work on both of these projects-the baseline assessment and
    waste stream analysis-and AOC program officials told us that both projects
    will be substantially completed by the end of 2003. These AOC officials
    also advised us that the results of this baseline assessment and waste
    stream analysis would provide a basis for establishing program priorities
    and measuring progress. The performance plan also provides for stakeholder
    participation in this process both before and after the actual
    environmental program planning process occurs; but this has not yet taken
    place. According to AOC's performance plan, stakeholder involvement is
    scheduled to begin in the second quarter of fiscal year 2004, after
    completion of the baseline assessment and waste stream analysis.

    GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing our recommendation by
    taking the first steps toward developing a mission and goals for its
    recycling program. Collecting information through its baseline assessment
    and waste stream analysis will provide the factual information

    1Contamination occurs when potentially recyclable materials are mixed
    together with other categories of recyclables or wet waste. This reduces
    the value of the recyclable materials collected and in some cases, such as
    when paper is mixed with wet waste, the material may no longer be
    recyclable and must be sent to a landfill.

    2According to the AOC draft strategic plan, the environmental program
    plan, to be completed in 2004, will address a wide spectrum of
    environmental management initiatives including environmentally sensitive
    planning and design, compliance with applicable provisions of
    environmental regulations (such as clean air, clean water, and solid waste
    disposal), and pollution prevention.

    AOC needs as a basis for establishing those mission and goal statements.
    In addition, this information will be used in the development of its
    environmental program plan. Also, according to AOC's draft performance
    plan, its stakeholders will be involved both before and after actual
    development of the environmental program plan, scheduled to begin in the
    third quarter of fiscal year 2004. AOC's approach to developing its
    recycling program mission and goals within the broader context of an
    environmental program plan, as discussed in its draft strategic and
    performance plans, is reasonable and consistent with our recommendation.

    Recommendation: Develop a performance measurement, monitoring, and
    evaluation system that supports accomplishing AOC's recycling mission and
    goals.

    In our January 2003 report, we stated that as AOC revisited its program
    mission, goals, and design, the agency would have an opportunity to
    reexamine its recycling performance measurement system efforts to ensure
    that it had the right type of performance measures to support program
    monitoring and decision making. In addition, we stated that monitoring
    performance against goals would enable AOC program managers to identify
    where performance is lagging, investigate potential causes, and identify
    actions designed to improve performance. We also suggested that to support
    the accomplishment of AOC's recycling mission and goals, the performance
    measurement system developed should (1) show the degree to which the
    desired results were achieved, (2) be limited to the few vital measures
    needed for decision-making, (3) be responsive to multiple priorities, and
    (4) establish accountability for results.

    Actions Taken by AOC: AOC stated in its draft strategic and performance
    plans that it would clarify the mission, goals, and measures of the
    recycling program as part of its environmental program planning process,
    which is scheduled to begin in the third quarter of fiscal year 2004 and
    is expected to be complete by the end of calendar year 2004. According to
    the Safety and Environmental Division (SED) director, AOC currently
    measures and tracks several key performance indicators, such as tonnage
    collected for multiple recycling streams and the quantity of material
    collected for recycling that does not meet specifications for
    reimbursement. The SED director also told us that additional action to
    revise existing and establish new measures is underway, including
    gathering and analyzing data as part of the waste stream analysis study.
    The results from this effort will be used to establish performance goals
    and additional performance measures that

    are appropriate to the program. This effort is part of a broader AOC
    initiative to develop the environmental program plan.

    According to the SED director, AOC plans to develop the environmental
    program plan internally with the option of obtaining consultant services
    if, during the course of the planning process, it finds certain expertise
    is needed but not available on staff. Also according to the SED director,
    AOC has taken steps to increase environmental staffing and contract for
    technical resources necessary to address a variety of environmental issues
    to support the development of the environmental program plan, such as a
    completed best management practices review, a waste stream analysis and
    pollution prevention planning initiative in progress, an environmental
    baseline assessment nearly completed, and an electronic waste recycling
    study. In addition, the SED director also told us that to minimize delays
    in obtaining consultant support, the Environmental Branch has obtained
    funding in the fiscal year 2004 budget to establish an environmental
    contract allowing AOC to more quickly procure consultant services.

    GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing our recommendation. In
    addition to recommending that AOC develop a recycling performance
    measurement, monitoring, and evaluation system, our January 2003 report
    also suggested certain criteria and processes AOC could follow in
    establishing the recycling performance measures. For example, we suggested
    that AOC take certain steps in developing its performance measurement
    system, such as making sure the recycling measures developed show the
    degree to which the desired results were achieved and that AOC use a
    General Services Administration guide for federal agencies that describes
    the steps an agency could use to measure and monitor recycling efforts.3
    However, the development of reasonable performance measures can also
    consider certain other sources, such as government or industry benchmarks
    for recycling programs as well as feedback from congressional
    stakeholders.

    We agree that AOC should not establish performance measures until it has
    obtained the information it needs from the results of the environmental
    baseline and waste stream analysis that will help to establish the
    performance goals of the recycling program. Because AOC has not yet
    identified the performance measures it will use to assess the progress of
    its

    3U.S. General Services Administration, Recycling Program Desk Guide,
    (Washington, D.C.: 2001).

    overall environmental program plan, we cannot assess at this time whether
    the resulting measures will be consistent with the elements of a
    performance measurement system as discussed in our January 2003 report. It
    is important that AOC specify the steps it will take and the information
    sources it will use to develop its recycling program performance measures.

    Recommendation: Examine the roles and responsibilities of AOC's recycling
    program staff to ensure that they are performing the right jobs with the
    necessary authority, and holding the staff accountable for achieving
    program and agency results through AOC's performance management system.

    The roles and responsibilities of AOC's recycling program staff members
    have evolved in recent years, without the guidance of a clearly defined
    mission and goals. We reported in our January 2003 report that AOC had
    recently changed the responsibilities of its recycling program management
    positions to provide a greater focus on program planning and evaluation.
    However, these program managers reported that much of their time was spent
    on day-to-day program implementation activities, leaving little time to
    fulfill their expanded roles.

    In addition, we found that the existing structure did not provide a clear
    mechanism to determine individual accountability for achieving results.
    Under the existing structure, jurisdictional recycling program managers
    are accountable only to their jurisdictional management, i.e., the Senate
    and House office buildings superintendents. The AOC Resource Conservation
    Manager, responsible for AOC-wide recycling programs, had no authority
    over either the jurisdictional managers or the recycling program managers
    in those jurisdictions. In addition, we stated in our January 2003 report
    that approximately 875 bargaining unit and trade union employees, such as
    the recycling workers and custodial staff that collect recyclable
    materials, were not covered by AOC's employee performance management
    system, PCES.

    Actions Taken by AOC: AOC has created two new positions, an Environmental
    Branch Manager and Environmental Technician within SED that have duties
    and responsibilities related to the recycling program. In addition to
    these positions in SED, AOC has also filled a previously vacant Assistant
    Recycling Program Manager position within the House officebuilding
    jurisdiction. AOC officials said that these new positions would provide
    additional resources for improved planning and evaluation of the recycling
    program.

    In addition, each jurisdiction reported that it evaluated respective
    recycling operations and made changes in staffing and organization plans,
    some of which have been implemented. The Senate jurisdiction examined its
    recycling function and determined in May 2003 that the jurisdiction's
    recycling staff, then assigned to one of three different organizational
    units, should be consolidated into one division reporting to the Recycling
    Program Manager. In the justification for making the change, the
    Superintendent for the Senate jurisdiction stated that, because of the
    diluted span of control and lack of accountability that existed under the
    present organizational structure, his jurisdiction could not achieve the
    desired level of program performance and execution. The Senate
    jurisdictional proposal also included adding four positions to the
    recycling collection staff. In addition, according to the Senate recycling
    program manager, this proposal has been submitted to AOC management and is
    pending approval.

    Similarly, to address staffing and organization issues, management in the
    House jurisdiction decided to replace its part-time recycling collection
    staff-plagued by a high turnover rate and consequently a constant need to
    fill vacancies and train new staff- with full-time staff. This staffing
    change was accomplished using the same number of full-time equivalent
    positions as provided under the prior staffing plan. The House
    jurisdiction also implemented a pilot program to evaluate the feasibility
    of using the designated recycling staff to collect both recyclable
    materials and garbage from the House office buildings. According to the
    Deputy Superintendent of the House Office Buildings, based on the results
    of this pilot program, the House jurisdictional management decided to
    permanently implement the changes tested in the pilot program.

    These changes, however, did not affect the supervisory and reporting
    relationships between the recycling program manager and the collection
    staff. In the House jurisdiction, the collection staff reports through
    line supervisors to a night House superintendent that provides direct line
    supervision of employees who carry out various housekeeping, janitorial,
    and emergency maintenance functions during nonbusiness hours. The House
    Recycling Program Manager has no direct authority over the collection
    staff, but stated that she conducts regular inspections of the recycling
    collection operations, including both individual office compliance with
    the level of source separation implemented in those offices and the
    collection workers' performance of their duties. She stated further that
    she has a good working relationship with the collection workers' direct
    line supervisors and reports any problems she identifies

    during the course of her inspections to them. The House Deputy
    Superintendent affirmed the relationship between the House Recycling
    Program Manager and the collection workers' direct line supervisors and
    told us that the House jurisdiction management has no current plans to
    change the reporting relationship between the House Recycling Program
    manager and the collection staff.

    The House jurisdiction does plan to take action that could provide
    increased accountability for achieving recycling program results. The
    Deputy House Superintendent told us that a recycling program element is
    now included in the Performance Communication Evaluation System (PCES) of
    the staff that directly supervise the recycling collection workers,
    holding them accountable for the collection of recyclables by their staff.
    Even with these changes, full accountability for achieving recycling
    program results cannot be established because, in both the Senate and
    House jurisdictions, the collection workers are bargaining unit and trade
    union employees and are not covered by PCES. According to AOC's HRMD
    director, AOC is currently negotiating with the unions to include these
    employees within PCES.

    GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing our recommendation by
    evaluating the roles and responsibilities of its recycling program staff
    and increasing accountability for program results through its employee
    performance management system. The two positions AOC has filled should
    make more time available for recycling program planning and evaluation
    activities. The staffing and organization evaluations completed in the
    Senate and House jurisdictions and the actions taken by AOC as a result of
    those evaluations may improve the recycling programs operation in those
    jurisdictions.

    Moreover, the proposed Senate reorganization of its reporting relationship
    between the recycling program manager and staff will provide more direct
    accountability for achieving AOC's organizational goals in its recycling
    program by providing a direct line of supervision between recycling
    program management and the staff responsible for the collection and
    processing of recyclable materials. Through the added element now
    incorporated into PCES for House recycling supervisors, AOC is working to
    increase accountability for achieving recycling program results.

                                     Appendix VIII

                       Comments from the Architect of the Capitol

    Note: GAO comments supplementing those in the report text appear at the
    end of this appendix.

                                     See comment 1.

                                     See comment 2.

                                     See comment 3.

                                     See comment 4.

                                     See comment 5.

                                     See comment 6.

                                     See comment 7.

                                     See comment 8.

                                     See comment 9.

                                    See comment 10.

                                    See comment 11.

                                    See comment 12.

                                    See comment 13.

                                    See comment 14.

                                    See comment 15.

                                    See comment 16.

                                    See comment 17.

                                    See comment 18.

                                    See comment 19.

                                    See comment 20.

                                    See comment 21.

                                    See comment 22.

                                    See comment 23.

                                    See comment 24.

                                    See comment 25.

                                   See comment 26-29.

    See comment 30.

    See comment 31.

                                    See comment 32.

                                    See comment 33.

                                    See comment 34.

                                    See comment 35.

                                    See comment 36.

                                    See comment 37.

                                    See comment 38.

                                    See comment 39.

                                    See Comment 40.

                                    See comment 41.

                                     See coment 42.

                                    See comment 43.

                                    See comment 44.

                                    See comment 45.

                                    See comment 46.

                                    See comment 47.

                                    See comment 48.

                                    See comment 49.

                                    See comment 50.

                                    See comment 51.

                                    See comment 52.

    GAO Comments	1. AOC agrees with our recommendation and agrees to take
    appropriate follow-up actions.

    2. AOC agrees with this finding and agrees to take appropriate follow-up
    actions.

    3. See comment 1.

    4. AOC plans are consistent with our findings and have provided additional
    information on its recent plans and actions that we will assess in our
    subsequent semi-annual reviews.

    5. See comment 4.

    6. See comment 4.

    7. The text has been modified to reflect AOC's response.

    8. See comment 1.

    9. See comment 4.

    10. AOC's comments concerning our draft report's treatment of AOC's action
    on our financial management recommendation were technical in nature, and,
    as appropriate, changes were made to the final report.

    11. See comment 10.

    12. See comment 10.

    13. See comment 10.

    14. We have modified our report to reflect AOC's position that the cited
    documents are not draft.

    15. We agree with AOC's comment, and state in our report that AOC's first
    step to implementing the framework was to score and rank projects for
    fiscal year 2004. However, this scoring and ranking of projects for the
    upcoming fiscal year are project selection, not control, practices.
    Further, while we do not question AOC's statement in its comments that its
    investment management boards are beginning to evaluate IT investments,

    AOC's comments did not address what these evaluations entail; and, our
    review showed that AOC's IT investment management framework does not
    specify how the agency will identify, track, and manage IT resources or
    ensure that projects support agency business needs, both of which are key
    IT investment control activities. Therefore, our position remains that AOC
    is focusing first on selecting, rather than controlling, investments.

    We support AOC's cited recent revision to the composition of its
    investment review board, and have recognized AOC's statement in our
    report. We look forward to receiving a revision of the board's charter
    reflecting this membership change.

    16. We agree that a chief enterprise architect position has been requested
    in AOC's fiscal year 2005 budget, and that it has been using contractor
    assistance in developing an enterprise architecture. Our report recognizes
    both of these facts. Also, while we do not question AOC's statement that
    it has developed a detailed plan addressing resources, we have not
    received a copy of this plan.

    17. We agree that AOC's IT investment framework contains the evaluation
    criteria specified in AOC's comment. However, our recommendation is for
    the agency to implement practices in our IT investment management guide
    associated with a corporate portfolio-based investment management process
    for controlling and selecting all proposed and ongoing IT investments. As
    discussed in comment 15, AOC has thus far focused on selecting among
    proposed new investments, to the exclusion of ongoing projects, and it has
    yet to define how it is controlling ongoing projects.

    We agree that our previous recommendation did not reference our
    architecture management maturity guide, but rather the Chief Information
    Officer's Council practical guide. However, our maturity guide is based on
    the content of the practical guide, arranging this content into a series
    of five maturity levels. Further, our previous recommendation was intended
    to provide AOC with the basis for taking the first step toward
    architecture management maturity, and coincides with the first stage of
    our maturity framework. Our new recommendations build on and complement
    our previous recommendation, and thus we agree that AOC will need to
    evolve its architecture plans to progress beyond this initial step.

    18. We have modified our report to reflect this clarification.

    19. We do not question that AOC has taken the eight steps it cites since
    completing its IT investment framework, but do not agree that the agency
    has focused on controlling its existing investments for the following
    reasons. With respect to step 1, AOC's scoring and ranking of then
    proposed fiscal year 2004 projects are project selection, not control,
    practices. Regarding steps 2 and 3, while we do not question AOC's
    statements that it has assigned its project management board
    responsibility for measuring project progress and that its investment
    management boards are beginning to evaluate IT investments, AOC's comments
    did not address the extent of these project reviews. Our review showed
    that AOC's IT investment management framework does not specify how the
    agency will identify, track, and manage IT resources, a key IT investment
    control activity. With respect to the biweekly status meetings that AOC
    states have been occurring for almost two years, we reported in 2003 that
    the agency had not developed the processes needed to manage and oversee
    all AOC existing projects.1 Concerning step 4, we support AOC's cited
    recent revision to the composition of its investment review board, and
    have recognized AOC's statement in our report.

    With regard to the fifth step cited by AOC, we do not question that AOC is
    operating its IT investment board, but it is important to note that the
    AOC IT investment framework describes the project management board as the
    control and oversight board for ongoing investments. Concerning step 6,
    the nature and extent of AOC cited oversight of ongoing projects is
    unknown because AOC's comments did not address what is entailed in the
    project management board and the biweekly status meetings, and the
    framework does not specify how the agency will identify, track, and manage
    IT projects. Regarding step 7, we support the use of tools to identify,
    track and manage IT resources. Concerning the last step AOC cited, we view
    the interviewing of stakeholders as a positive step toward ensuring that
    each IT project supports the organization's business needs.

    20. See comments 15 and 19.

    21. As mentioned in comment 14, we have modified our report to reflect
    AOC's position that the architecture products are not draft and have been
    approved by the Deputy Chief of Staff. We have also recognized the

    1U.S. General Accounting Office, Architect of the Capitol: Management and
    Accountability Framework Needed for Organizational Transformation,
    GAO-03-231 (Washington, D.C.: Jan. 17, 2003).

    statement that a detailed resource plan has been developed, as well as the
    revised date for implementing the architecture. Our report already
    addressed the status of the additional funding request.

    22. See comment 17.

    23. We do not question these statements and note that our report already
    includes this information.

    24. We have modified our report to reflect the recent steps AOC's comments
    state that it has taken to begin establishing and implementing an
    information security program.

    25. The Safety Communication Plan was not raised during interviews with
    AOC officials. AOC has provided additional information that we will assess
    in our subsequent semi-annual reviews.

    26. The text has been modified to reflect AOC's response.

    27. Our report does not overlook the Job Hazard Analysis (JHA) process
    within the Hazard Assessment and Control Policy and states that the JHA
    process is, in fact, a key component of this policy. During our data
    collection period, AOC had only completed a JHA in two jurisdictions. AOC
    has provided additional information that we will assess in our subsequent
    semi-annual reviews.

    28. The baseline safety and environmental assessment mentioned by AOC was
    not brought forth during our data collection and analysis period. However,
    we do recognize in the draft that the Hazard Assessment and Control policy
    will identify hazards associated with job tasks, as well as identify
    corrective actions taken to abate these hazards.

    29. This comment refers to the recycling appendix. These actions were
    taken outside the timeframe of our review and will be assessed in our
    subsequent semi-annual reviews.

    30. See comment 29.

    31. Information provided by AOC officials during our data collection
    period was that they had requested significant and permanent increases in
    their training budget. The text has been modified to reflect AOC's
    response.

    32. AOC's response does not change our assessment that no safety policy
    has been fully implemented. New information provided to us was not raised
    during our review period and therefore will be assessed in subsequent
    semi-annual reviews.

    33. We continue to believe that the performance measure identified in the
    report for the objective "enhance employee awareness of and involvement in
    all aspects of safety and health"-publication of meeting minutes--is not
    results oriented. A good metric to assess employee awareness would
    necessarily be based upon employee responses. In fact, AOC recognized that
    its performance measures in assessing its safety policies are immature.
    The text has been modified to include the AOC's Injury and Illness rate
    for FY2003.

    34. The text has been modified to clarify the need for extending the
    original time frame to implement the safety policies.

    35. These actions were taken outside the timeframe of our review and will
    be assessed in our subsequent semi-annual reviews.

    36. The text has been modified to clarify the added functions AOC may
    purchase for the FMA system in order to expand its capabilities.

    37. The text has been modified to reflect the current uses of the FMA
    system.

    38. See comment 28.

    39. During our data collection period, the AOC had completed a JHA in two
    jurisdictions. These actions were taken outside the timeframe of our
    review and will be assessed in our subsequent semi-annual reviews.

    40. The text has been modified in order to clarify FMA system access
    issues.

    41. Our finding focuses on the need to report illnesses and injuries among
    jurisdictions in a comprehensive and consistent manner. Indeed, through
    its development of its Incident Investigation Module, AOC underscores the

    need for such a reporting system that tracks data across jurisdictions. We
    acknowledge that AOC has a Workers Compensation Tracking System for
    recording and tracking injuries and illnesses.

    42. These actions were taken outside the timeframe of our review and will
    be assessed in our subsequent semi-annual reviews. The text has been
    modified to clarify AOC's current initiatives in this area.

    43. The text has been modified to include additional methods used to
    evaluate training.

    44. We encourage the AOC to move strategically towards an integrated
    system that links identification of hazards with employee training needs.

    45. We encourage the AOC to strategically identify data access issues
    related to employee training records.

    46. During our review, AOC management informed us that medical information
    obtained from Office of the Attending Physician (OAP) exams were not being
    shared with AOC officials because of confidentiality issues. The sharing
    of these data, while addressing confidentiality issues, could benefit AOC
    in its efforts to identify and combat health-related trends among AOC
    employees.

    47. AOC's response does not indicate that the Safety, Health and
    Environmental Council (SHEC) have identified strategies to reduce workers'
    compensation costs. We continue to believe that the SHEC offers
    opportunities to identify strategies to address this issue.

    48. We reported this information in our strategic human capital management
    and project management appendixes in our discussion of competencies.

    49. In August 2003, AOC provided us with an update to their original
    schedule for the Master Plan. We compared this updated schedule to the
    original schedule in the March 2003 draft performance plan and used this
    information for our analysis. AOC did not provide us with any other
    schedule information against which to analyze their progress. Therefore,
    we presented the information made available to us as of November 2003.

    50. We have made the appropriate change in the text.

    51. While we recognize that the recycling contractor separates the
    material collected from AOC and recycles the recyclable portion, it is
    also true that office paper including both white (high grade) paper and
    mixed grade (both white and colored office paper) that is contaminated
    with wet waste (primarily food and beverage waste) can no longer be
    recycled and must be sent to a landfill.

    52. In addition to stating that the Senate jurisdiction proposal included
    adding four positions to the recycling collection staff, we also stated in
    our draft that the proposal recommended consolidating the recycling
    positions into one organizational unit to address the diluted span of
    control and lack of accountability that existed under the present
    organizational structure. AOC did not comment on whether it had approved
    the proposed reorganization. Increasing accountability for obtaining
    recycling goals was the principal point of our discussion and increasing
    staff without changing the organizational structure would not improve
    accountability.

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