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 [email protected].

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
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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 [email protected] or [email protected].
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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