Department of Homeland Security: A Comprehensive and Sustained	 
Approach Needed to Achieve Management Integration (16-MAR-05,	 
GAO-05-139).							 
                                                                 
The creation of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)	 
represents one of the largest reorganizations of government	 
agencies and operations in recent history. Significant management
challenges exist for DHS as it merges the multiple management	 
systems and processes from its 22 originating agencies in	 
functional areas such as human capital and information		 
technology. GAO was asked to identify opportunities for DHS to	 
improve its management integration.				 
-------------------------Indexing Terms------------------------- 
REPORTNUM:   GAO-05-139 					        
    ACCNO:   A19477						        
  TITLE:     Department of Homeland Security: A Comprehensive and     
Sustained Approach Needed to Achieve Management Integration	 
     DATE:   03/16/2005 
  SUBJECT:   Federal agencies					 
	     Federal agency reorganization			 
	     National preparedness				 
	     Personnel management				 
	     Productivity in government 			 
	     Strategic planning 				 
	     Systems management 				 
	     Homeland security					 

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GAO-05-139

                 United States Government Accountability Office

                     GAO Report to Congressional Requesters

March 2005

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY

A Comprehensive and Sustained Approach Needed to Achieve Management Integration

                                       a

GAO-05-139

[IMG]

March 2005

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY

A Comprehensive and Sustained Approach Needed to Achieve Management Integration

  What GAO Found

GAO found that while DHS has made some progress in its management
integration efforts, it has the opportunity to better leverage this
progress by implementing a comprehensive and sustained approach to its
overall integration efforts. GAO assessed DHS's integration efforts to
date against three of nine key practices consistently found to be at the
center of successful mergers and transformations: setting implementation
goals and a time line to build momentum and show progress, dedicating an
implementation team to manage the transformation, and ensuring top
leadership drives it. While there are other practices critical to
successful mergers and transformations-including using the performance
management system to define responsibility and assure accountability for
change-GAO selected these three key practices because they are significant
to building the infrastructure needed for DHS at this early juncture in
its management integration efforts.

Establishing implementation goals and a time line is critical to ensuring
success and could be contained in an overall integration plan for a merger
or transformation. DHS has issued guidance and plans to assist its
integration efforts, on a function-by-function basis (information
technology and human capital, for example); but it does not have a
comprehensive strategy, with overall goals and a time line, to guide the
management integration departmentwide.

GAO's research shows that it is important to dedicate a strong and stable
implementation team for the day-to-day management of the transformation.
DHS has established a Business Transformation Office (BTO), reporting to
the Under Secretary for Management, to help monitor and look for
interdependencies among the individual functional integration efforts.
However, the role of the BTO could be strengthened so that it has the
requisite responsibility and authority to help the Under Secretary set
priorities and make strategic decisions for the integration, as well as
implement the integration strategy.

The current responsibilities of the Under Secretary contain some of the
characteristics of a COO/CMO. GAO has reported that such a position could
help elevate, integrate, and institutionalize DHS's management
initiatives. Recent DHS actions, such as management directives clarifying
roles for the integration, can provide the Under Secretary additional
support. However, it is still too early to tell whether the Under
Secretary will have sufficient authority to direct, and make trade-off
decisions for the integration, and institutionalize it departmentwide. The
Congress should continue to monitor whether it needs to provide additional
leadership authorities to the Under Secretary, or create a new position
that more fully captures the roles and responsibilities of a COO/CMO.

                 United States Government Accountability Office

Contents

  Letter

Results in Brief
Background
Selected Key Mergers and Transformation Practices Can Help Guide

DHS in Taking a Comprehensive and Sustained Approach to its

Management Integration Efforts
Conclusions
Recommendations for Executive Action
Matters for Congressional Consideration
Agency Comments and Our Evaluation

1 4 7

9 21 22 23 24

Appendixes

Appendix I: Scope and Methodology 26

Appendix II: Comments from the Department of Homeland Security 28

  Related GAO Products

Figures Figure 1: DHS Organizational Structure, as of December 2004 8
Figure 2: Key Practices and Implementation Steps for Mergers and
Organizational Transformations 10

Contents

Abbreviations

BTO Business Transformation Office
BTS Border & Transportation Security Directorate
CAO Chief Administrative Officer
CBP Customs & Border Protection
CFO Chief Financial Officer
CHCO Chief Human Capital Officer
CIO Chief Information Officer
CIS Citizenship and Immigration Services
CMO Chief Management Officer
COO Chief Operating Officer
CPO Chief Procurement Officer
DHS Department of Homeland Security
EPR Emergency Preparedness & Response Directorate
FPS Federal Protective Service
ICE Immigration & Customs Enforcement
IG Inspector General
INS Immigration & Naturalization Service (legacy)
IT Information Technology
OMB Office of Management and Budget

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

A

United States Government Accountability Office Washington, D.C. 20548

March 16, 2005

The Honorable Tom Davis
Chairman
Committee on Government Reform
House of Representatives

The Honorable Jon C. Porter
Chairman
Subcommittee on the Federal Workforce and Agency Organization
Committee on Government Reform
House of Representatives

The Honorable Jo Ann Davis
House of Representatives

The creation of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) represents
one of the largest reorganizations and consolidations of government
agencies, personnel, programs, and operations in recent history. As DHS's
Under Secretary for Management has stated, the implementation of the
department is at once a full-scale government divestiture, merger,
acquisition, and start-up. DHS faces significant management and
organizational transformation challenges as it works to protect the nation
from terrorism and simultaneously establish itself. It must integrate
approximately 180,000 employees from 22 originating agencies,1
consolidate multiple management systems and processes, and transform
into a more effective organization with robust planning, management, and
operations. For these reasons, in January 2005, we continued to designate
the implementation and transformation of the department as high risk.2
DHS's Inspector General also reported, in December 2004, that integrating
DHS's many separate components into a single, effective, efficient and
economical department remains one of its biggest challenges.3
Furthermore, DHS must continue to meet these daunting challenges while
transitioning to new leadership.

1 DHS was initially created with 22 originating agencies, and the Plum
Island Animal Disease Center was transferred into DHS in June 2003.

2 GAO, High-Risk Series: An Update, GAO-05-207 (Washington, D.C.: January
2005).

3 DHS, Major Management Challenges Facing the Department of Homeland
Security, OIG-05-06 (Washington, D.C.: Dec. 1, 2004).

DHS has an overall vision to become a fully integrated and unified
department, adhering to the former Secretary's high-level vision of "One
DHS, One Fight." While the protection of the homeland is the primary
mission of the department, critical to meeting this challenge is the
integration of DHS's varied management processes, systems, and people- in
areas such as information technology, financial management, procurement,
and human capital-as well as in its administrative services. The
integration of these various functions is being executed through DHS's
management integration initiative. The success of this initiative is
important since it provides critical support for the total integration of
the department, including its operations and programs, to ultimately meet
its mission of protecting the homeland. This report focuses on the
progress DHS has made on this functional or management integration.

Specifically, we sought to identify opportunities for DHS to improve these
management integration efforts. To address our objective, we assessed
DHS's efforts to date against selected key practices we have reported are
consistently found to be at the center of successful mergers and
organizational transformations. These practices were identified to assist
DHS in its consolidation before the department was created and were based
on useful practices and lessons learned from major private and public
sector organizational mergers, acquisitions, and transformations.4 We
selected three of these nine practices as criteria for this review because
they are significant to building the infrastructure needed to manage any
merger or transformation and are particularly important to DHS at this
early juncture in its management integration efforts:

o 	Setting implementation goals and a time line to build momentum and show
progress from day one. A merger or transformation is a substantial
commitment that could take years before it is completed, and therefore
must be carefully and closely managed. As a result, it is essential to
establish and track implementation goals and use a time line to pinpoint
performance shortfalls and gaps and suggest midcourse corrections.

4 GAO, Highlights of a GAO Forum, Mergers and Transformation: Lessons
Learned for a Department of Homeland Security and Other Federal Agencies,
GAO-03-293SP (Washington, D.C.: Nov. 14, 2002) and GAO, Results-Oriented
Cultures: Implementation Steps to Assist Mergers and Organizational
Transformations, GAO-03-669 (Washington, D.C.: July 2, 2003).

o 	Dedicating an implementation team to manage the transformation process.
Dedicating a strong and stable implementation team with the responsibility
for the transformation's day-to-day management is important to ensuring
that it receives the focused attention needed to be successful.

o 	Ensuring top leadership drives the transformation. Sustained and
consistent leadership can help provide the long-term attention required to
effectively address significant management challenges and transformational
needs.

We focused our review primarily on the management integration activities
of DHS's Management Directorate because the Homeland Security Act of 2002
establishes that the Under Secretary for Management is responsible for the
transition and reorganization process for the department.5 We did not
include an assessment of the mission or program integration efforts of DHS
in this review primarily because GAO has additional work under way on
these efforts. To address our objective, we reviewed key transition,
management integration, and planning and policy documents, and met with
the chiefs of staff or directors of operations for the five directorates6
in DHS, as well as the U.S. Secret Service, the U.S. Coast Guard, the
Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services, and other DHS offices.
Within the Management Directorate, we reviewed documents from and met with
the Under Secretary for Management, the Chief Financial Officer, the Chief
Procurement Officer, the Chief Human Capital Officer, the Chief
Information Officer, and the Chief Administrative Officer. We also
examined reports from GAO, DHS's Inspector General, and others that
addressed the integration of departmentwide management functions, such as
the development of an integrated departmental financial management system,
information technology, and others. A more detailed discussion of our
scope and methodology is in appendix I.

We conducted our work from April 2004 through February 2005 in accordance
with generally accepted government auditing standards.

5 Pub. L. No. 107-296, S: 701(a)(9).

6 The Homeland Security Act established five directorates within DHS for
each of the following areas: (1) management, (2) science and technology,
(3) information analysis and infrastructure protection, (4) border and
transportation security, and (5) emergency preparedness and response. The
U.S. Secret Service and the U.S. Coast Guard were also transferred to DHS,
but are not within a directorate.

Results in Brief	Recently, DHS has made some progress in addressing its
departmentwide management integration through the issuance of guidance and
plans to assist the integration of each individual management function
within the department, as well as the establishment of a Business
Transformation Office (BTO), which it began in October 2004. However, DHS
has the opportunity to better leverage these initial efforts by
implementing a more comprehensive and sustained approach departmentwide.
In particular, more closely adhering to the following three select key
practices that have consistently been found to be at the center of
successful mergers, acquisitions, and transformations would help DHS
establish the management infrastructure needed to integrate the total
department and achieve its critical mission of protecting the homeland:

Setting Implementation Goals and a Time Line: DHS Has Issued Some Guidance
and Plans to Help Its Management Integration Efforts, But Needs an
Overarching Strategy to Integrate Across Management Functions and to
Identify Critical Interdependencies, Interim Milestones, and Possible
Efficiencies

DHS has issued some guidance and plans to assist each management function,
such as information technology or human capital, in its own consolidation
and integration, but does not have a comprehensive strategy, with overall
goals and a time line, to guide the management integration across
functions and departmentwide. Such a strategy is important because the
pace and type of changes implemented in one function can be critical to
successful change in another function. For example, integrating the
disparate financial management systems DHS inherited depends on the
integration of its many information technology systems. But DHS does not
have a master blueprint with implementation goals, time lines, and interim
milestones that identifies and manages these critical interdependencies
and possible efficiencies across functions. DHS has the opportunity to
build the individual functional plans into such a comprehensive strategy.

Dedicating an Implementation Team: DHS's Business Transformation Office
Could Be Strengthened to Serve as a Dedicated Team to Help Set Priorities
and Make Strategic Decisions for Management Integration and to Implement
the Comprehensive Integration Strategy

In October 2004, DHS established a BTO within its Management Directorate
to help monitor and look for interdependencies among its discrete
management integration efforts. The establishment of this office

could help DHS further coordinate its integration efforts. However, the
BTO is not responsible for leading and managing the coordination and
integration that must occur across functions for DHS to achieve its
critical mission. DHS could strengthen the role of the BTO by giving it
more than a monitoring role, but also the responsibility and authority it
needs to help the Under Secretary for Management create and implement the
overarching management integration strategy, help set priorities, and make
strategic decisions that will drive DHS's integration across the
department.

Ensuring Top Leadership Drives the Transformation: Continued Monitoring Is
Needed to Ensure Senior DHS Leadership Elevates, Integrates, and
Institutionalizes Its Management Initiatives

As it is currently structured, the roles and responsibilities of the Under
Secretary for Management contain some of the characteristics of a Chief
Operating Officer (COO) or Chief Management Officer (CMO), such as
elevating, integrating, and institutionalizing responsibility for key
functional management initiatives. However, the use of clearly-defined,
results-oriented performance agreements and setting a term appointment of
not less than 5 years, are other important mechanisms to help ensure
accountability and sustainability for these initiatives. In October 2004,
DHS issued management directives to clarify accountability for the
integration of the functions across the department. For example, the
financial management directive established that the department's Chief
Financial Officer (CFO) is accountable for consolidating and integrating
financial systems across the department, but must work with the multiple
CFOs who directly report to their respective agency and component heads in
the other four DHS directorates to do so. The directives and the recent
establishment of the BTO could strengthen the role and responsibilities of
the Undersecretary for Management in DHS's management integration efforts.
But it is still too early to tell whether these recent initiatives will
provide the Under Secretary with sufficient authority to direct, and make
trade-off decisions for the management integration initiatives and the
institutionalization of them across the department. The Congress should
continue to closely monitor whether additional leadership authorities are
needed for the Under Secretary, or whether a revised organizational
arrangement is needed to fully capture the roles and responsibilities of a
COO/CMO position, including a performance agreement and term limit.

In order to provide a comprehensive approach to its management integration
efforts, we recommend that the Secretary of DHS direct the Under Secretary
for Management, working with others, to (1) develop an

overarching management integration strategy for the department, with
implementation goals and a time line; and (2) provide DHS's recently
established BTO in its Management Directorate, with the appropriate
authority and responsibility to help set priorities and make strategic
decisions for the department's management integration efforts, as well as
serve as a dedicated implementation team. One of BTO's responsibilities
should be to help develop and implement the overarching management
integration strategy. In addition, the Congress may wish to continue to
monitor the progress of DHS's management integration, for example, by
requiring the department to periodically report on the status of its
efforts, to determine whether DHS has (1) implemented a departmentwide
integration strategy; and (2) provided the BTO with sufficient authority
to serve as a dedicated implementation team to lead and sustain the
integration of the department. Finally, Congress may also wish to consider
whether the Under Secretary for Management has the authority to elevate
attention on management issues and transformational change, integrate
various key management and transformation efforts, and institutionalize
accountability for addressing management issues and leading
transformational change, as the department's management integration moves
forward. If necessary, Congress may want to reassess whether it needs to
statutorily adjust existing positions, or create a new COO/CMO position,
with provisions for a term limit and performance agreement, that has the
necessary responsibilities and authorities to more effectively drive the
integration.

In commenting on a draft of this report, DHS generally agreed with the
report's recommendations. DHS also provided some additional information on
the planned responsibilities and role of the BTO. For example, the
department commented that the BTO is establishing an integrated project
plan/integration strategy and anticipates it will be released by June
2005.

Background	The creation of DHS is an historic opportunity for the federal
government to fundamentally transform how the nation will protect itself
from terrorism and other threats. Not since the creation of the Department
of Defense in 1947 has the federal government undertaken an organizational
merger of this magnitude. Enacted on November 25, 2002, the Homeland
Security Act established DHS by merging 22 disparate agencies and
organizations with multiple missions, values, and cultures. On March 1,
2003, DHS officially began operations as a new department. DHS is now the
third largest federal government agency with an anticipated budget of
$40.7 billion for fiscal year 2005 and an estimated 180,000 employees.

In accordance with section 1502 of the Homeland Security Act, the
President provided a DHS reorganization plan to appropriate congressional
committees specifying the agencies that would integrate into DHS, along
with an overall organizational structure, but the plan did not specify how
the integration of these agencies and employees would occur.7 Section 701
of the Homeland Security Act gave the Under Secretary for Management at
DHS the responsibility for the management and administration of the
department, including the transition and reorganization process, among
other things.8 As seen in figure 1, the Chief Financial Officer (CFO), the
Chief Information Officer (CIO), the Chief Human Capital Officer (CHCO),
the Chief Procurement Officer (CPO), and the Chief Administrative Officer
(CAO) are all housed within the Management Directorate.9 Figure 1 shows
the organizational structure of the department, as of December 2004.

7 The White House, Department of Homeland Security Reorganization Plan
(Washington, D.C.: Nov. 25, 2002).

8 Other responsibilities of the Under Secretary for Management under
section 701 include financial management, procurement, human resources and
personnel, information technology and communications systems, facilities
and property management, security, performance measurements, grants and
other assistance management programs, internal audits, and maintenance of
immigration statistics.

9 In addition to reporting to the Under Secretary for Management, the CFO
is also to report to the DHS Secretary on matters of financial management.
See 31 U.S.C. 902(a)(1); Department of Homeland Security Financial
Accountability Act of 2004, Pub. L. No.108-330, S: 3(a), (e).

Figure 1: DHS Organizational Structure, as of December 2004

                                  Source: GAO.

  Selected Key Mergers and Transformation Practices Can Help Guide DHS in Taking
  a Comprehensive and Sustained Approach to its Management Integration Efforts

DHS would have the comprehensive and sustained approach to its management
integration efforts that it needs over the long term to successfully
transform the agency, if it more closely adhered to three selected key
practices that we have found consistently at the center of successful
mergers, acquisitions, and transformations. Otherwise, the department runs
the risk of not establishing and maintaining the management infrastructure
needed to steer the integration of the department and ultimately to help
meet its critical mission of protecting the homeland.

We identified these key practices through a forum the Comptroller General
convened in September 2002, as DHS was being created, to help DHS merge
its various originating components into a unified department.10 The forum
was designed to identify and discuss useful practices and lessons learned
from major private and public sector organizational mergers, acquisitions,
and transformations. In July 2003, we further identified implementation
steps for the nine key practices raised at the forum.11 These key
practices and implementation steps are shown in figure 2.

10 See GAO-03-293SP. 11 See GAO-03-669.

Figure 2: Key Practices and Implementation Steps for Mergers and Organizational
                                Transformations

Practice Implementation steps

Ensure top leadership drives the transformation.  o  Define and articulate
a succinct and compelling reason for change.

o  Balance continued delivery of services with merger and transformation
activities.

Establish a coherent mission and integrated  o  Adopt leading practices
for results-oriented strategic planning and reporting. strategic goals to
guide the transformation.

Focus on a key set of principles and priorities at the  o  Embed core
values in every aspect of the organization to reinforce the new outset of
the transformation. culture.

Set implementation goals and a time line to build  o  Make public
implementation goals and time line.
momentum and show progress from day one.  o  Seek and monitor employee
attitudes and take appropriate follow-up actions.

o  Identify cultural features of merging organizations to increase
understanding of former work environments.

o  Attract and retain key talent..

o  Establish an organizationwide knowledge and skills inventory to allow
knowledge exchange among merging organizations.

Dedicate an implementation team to manage the  o  Establish networks to
support implementation team. transformation process.  o  Select
high-performing team members.

Use the performance management system to define  o  Adopt leading
practices to implement effective performance management
the responsibility and assure accountability for systems with adequate
safeguards.
change.

Establish a communication strategy to create shared  o  Communicate early
and often to build trust. expectations and report related progress.  o 
Ensure consistency of message.

o  Encourage two-way communication.

o  Provide information to meet specific needs of employees.

Involve employees to obtain their ideas and gain  o  Use employee teams.
ownership for the transformation.  o  Involve employees in planning and
sharing performance information.

o  Incorporate employee feedback into new policies and procedures.

o  Delegate authority to appropriate organizational levels.

Build a world-class organization.  o  Adopt leading practices to build a
world-class organization.

Source: GAO.

To assess DHS's progress to date in integrating its management functions,
we determined that three of the nine practices were especially important
to ensure the agency has the management infrastructure it needs this early
in the process to manage and sustain its integration: (1) an overarching
integration strategy, with implementation goals and a time line that links
its various individual management integration initiatives; (2) a dedicated
implementation team with the responsibility and authority to drive the
department's management integration; and (3) committed and sustained
leadership. DHS has opportunities to more fully implement each of these
practices and increase its ability to successfully integrate.

    DHS Has Issued Some Guidance and Plans to Help Its Management Integration
    Efforts, But Needs an Overarching Strategy to Integrate Across Management
    Functions and to Identify Critical Interdependencies, Interim Milestones,
    and Possible Efficiencies

We have reported that a merger or transformation is a substantial
commitment that could take years before it is completed, and therefore
must be carefully and closely managed and monitored to achieve success.
Establishing implementation goals and a time line is critical to ensuring
success, as well as pinpointing performance shortfalls and gaps and
suggesting midcourse corrections. Such goals and time lines could be
contained in an overall integration plan for a merger or transformation
effort. It is important to note that such a plan typically goes beyond
what is contained in an agency strategic plan, and provides more specific
operational and tactical information to manage a sustained effort. For
example, as required by the Government Performance and Results Act of
1993, a strategic plan generally contains the high-level goals and mission
for an agency based on its statutory requirements, while an integration
strategy would provide the activities and time lines needed, along with
assigned responsibilities, for accomplishing the goals of an
organizational merger or transformation.12 Finally, another element
essential to executing a merger or transformation is to make the
implementation goals and time lines public, so that employees, customers,
and stakeholders are aware of what is to be accomplished and when.

Our prior work shows that DHS needed to carefully plan and manage its
integration, and a study commissioned by DHS underscored that the
department should use an overall integration strategy to help accomplish
this. For example, prior to the establishment of the department, we
identified a number of management challenges that DHS might face as it
moved forward in its integration, such as the establishment of a
comprehensive planning and management focus and the need for a
resultsoriented approach to ensure accountability and sustainability.13 In
December 2002, we recommended that careful and thorough transition
planning would be critical to the successful creation of DHS and that the
importance of the transition efforts to implement the new homeland

12 GAO, Executive Guide: Effectively Implementing the Government
Performance and Results Act, GAO/GGD-96-118 (Washington, D.C.: June 1996).

13 GAO, Homeland Security: Proposal for Cabinet Agency Has Merit, But
Implementation Will Be Pivotal to Success, GAO-02-886T (Washington, D.C.:
June 25, 2002); GAO, Homeland Security: Critical Design and Implementation
Issues, GAO-02-957T (Washington, D.C.: July 17, 2002); See GAO-03-102.

security could not be overemphasized.14 Specifically, we recommended to
OMB that in developing an effective transition plan for DHS, it should
ensure that the plan incorporates the key practices we identified as being
found at the center of successful mergers and transformations. In July
2004, we reported on the merger of the Federal Protective Service (FPS)
into DHS and recommended that FPS develop an overall transformation
strategy for how it will carry out its expanding mission, as well as meet
other challenges it faces.15 DHS agreed with our recommendation. Moreover,
in early 2003, DHS recognized the challenges it faced and commissioned a
comprehensive management study to help the department create an operating
structure that integrates the department's components and to facilitate a
DHS-wide integration plan linked to core missions and capabilities, among
other things.16 This management study also recommended that DHS develop a
comprehensive integration plan with major milestones defined, encompassing
all of the department's integration initiatives including functional
management and mission integration activities.

Early on, the department made some progress in consolidating the processes
and systems of each individual function in areas such as information
technology, financial management, procurement, and human capital. For
example, according to DHS's performance and accountability report for
fiscal year 2004 and updated information provided by DHS officials, the
department has accomplished the following activities as part of its
integration efforts:

o 	reduced the number of financial management service centers from 19to 8,

o 	consolidated acquisition support for 22 legacy agencies within 8 major
procurement programs,

14 GAO, Homeland Security: Management Challenges Facing Federal
Leadership, GAO-03-260 (Washington, D.C.: Dec. 20, 2002).

15 GAO, Homeland Security: Transformation Strategy Needed to Address
Challenges Facing the Federal Protective Service, GAO-04-537 (Washington,
D.C.: July 14, 2004).

16 Booz | Allen | Hamilton, Department of Homeland Security Management
Study, (Washington, D.C.: July 8, 2003).

o 	reduced the number of its payroll systems from 8 to 2, and expects to
be using one single payroll system by the beginning of fiscal year 2006,

o  consolidated 22 different human resource offices to 7,

o 	consolidated 271 processes associated with administrative services down
to 103,

o  consolidated bank card programs from 27 to 3, and

o 	realigned more than 6,000 support services employees (both government
and contractor) from the legacy U.S. Customs Service and the legacy
Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) to support the 68,000
employees of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Immigration and
Customs Enforcement (ICE), and Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS)
organizations.

In addition to improving the effectiveness of the department, according to
DHS, these consolidation activities are aimed at realizing the
efficiencies and economies of scale envisioned by the President and the
Congress in creating DHS, by eliminating overlap and redundancies in these
processes, systems, and services. The DHS IG reported in December 2004
that while DHS has made notable progress in integrating its many separate
components in one department, structural and resource problems continue to
inhibit progress in certain support functions.17 For example, while the
department is trying to create integrated and streamlined support service
functions, most of the critical support personnel are distributed
throughout the various components and are not directly accountable to the
management chiefs. We have also identified areas of concern with some of
these efforts and have made a number of recommendations to make these
support functions more effective and efficient. (See app. II for a list of
GAO reports on these individual consolidation efforts.) For example, we
reported that DHS intends to acquire and deploy an integrated financial
enterprise solution and reports that it has reduced the number of it
legacy

17 Also see DHS, Office of Inspector General, Major Management Challenges
Facing the Department of Homeland Security, OIG-05-06 (Washington, D.C.:
December 2004); DHS, Office of Inspector General, Review of the Status of
Department of Homeland Security Efforts to Address Its Major Management
Challenges, OIG-04-21 (Washington, D.C.: March 2004).

financial systems.18 While DHS has established an office within the
Management Directorate to manage its financial enterprise solution
project, we concluded that the acquisition is in the early stages and
continued focus and follow through will be necessary for it to be
successful.

DHS has issued some guidance to help each management function integrate
its portion of the disparate processes and functions inherited when the 22
organizations merged into DHS. According to DHS officials, the following
plans and documents were helping to provide overall guidance for these
functional integration efforts.

o 	Strategic Plan: According to several senior DHS officials, the CFO,
CIO, and the staff officer to the Deputy Secretary, the agency's strategic
plan, issued in February 2004, was the primary guidance being used for
DHS's management integration. The DHS strategic plan describes the
department's vision, mission, core values, and guiding principles to
achieve its mission of protecting the homeland.19 In addition, one of its
seven strategic goals, organizational excellence, acknowledges the need to
integrate the systems, processes, and services the department inherited to
improve efficiency and effectiveness.

o 	Draft Paper on the 21st Century Department: In April 2004, the Under
Secretary for Management also developed a draft 21st century paper to
provide more details as to how DHS would achieve its strategic goal of
organizational excellence. The draft paper summarizes DHS's plans for its
management integration within three primary areas: (1) human capital, (2)
information technology, and (3) business transformation, including the
support areas of procurement and acquisition, administrative services, and
financial management and budgeting.20 The draft paper describes key
integration initiatives it will take within each key area with short-term
milestones, dates, and possible obstacles. For example, the paper
discusses DHS plans to implement the

18 GAO, Financial Management: Department of Homeland Security Faces
Significant Financial Management Challenges, GAO-04-774 (Washington, D.C.:
July 19, 2004).

19 Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Securing Our Homeland, U.S.
Department of Homeland Security Strategic Plan (Washington, D.C.: February
2004).

20 DHS, Management Directorate, 21st Century Department DRAFT "Themes and
Owners" Paper, April 5, 2004.

Maximizing Results, Rewarding Excellence (MAXHR) initiative, the
department's new human resources management system, and the Electronically
Managing Enterprise Resources for Government Efficiency and Effectiveness
(eMerge2) initiative. The latter uses a consolidated departmentwide
solution approach to integrate DHS's financial and administrative systems,
including accounting, acquisition, budgeting, and procurement.

o 	Management Directives: At the request of the Secretary and the Deputy
Secretary, in October 2004, each of the five DHS management chiefs issued
a management directive that, among other things, provides standard
definitions of each of their respective roles and responsibilities, as
well as a general description of how other directorates and agencies will
support them. Specifically, the directives discuss the concept of dual
accountability for both mission accomplishment and functional integration
as the shared responsibility of the heads of DHS's individual agencies or
components and the management chiefs. Each directive also discusses how
the management chief, along with the heads of the directorates, agencies
and others, will annually recommend and establish integration milestones
for the consolidation of the chief's function and the development of
performance metrics for the respective function.

While the documents and plans discussed above are being used to help DHS
generally guide its management integration and DHS has made some progress
in addressing integration concerns within each functional management area,
there still is no overarching, comprehensive plan that clearly identifies
the critical links that must occur across these functions, the necessary
timing to make these links occur, how these critical interrelationships
will occur, and who will drive and manage them. As previously discussed,
an agency's strategic plan does not serve as a tactical or operational
integration strategy and does not include the more detailed blueprints,
time lines, and resources needed for accomplishing the department's
management integration. The department's draft paper also does not have a
comprehensive linkage across all of its functional initiatives with goals,
time lines, and resources needed that would comprise a departmentwide
integration strategy. Nor does it lay out how the integration across these
functions must be managed. For example, to successfully implement DHS's
human capital system, it must coordinate this implementation with IT
modernization. In addition, the majority of the various management chiefs
and senior officials we interviewed did not indicate to us that this draft
paper was being used as an overarching

management integration strategy. Finally, the recently issued management
directives can be helpful in guiding individual functional integration
efforts, as well as increasing departmentwide accountability for achieving
its management integration, but the directives do not serve as a
departmentwide integration strategy.

Some of the plans and directives already issued by DHS could be used as
foundations for building this needed integration strategy. Such a strategy
could also help to ensure that the various functional initiatives are
prioritized, sequenced, and implemented in a coherent and integrated way,
thereby achieving even greater efficiency and cost savings. Based on our
prior work on mergers and transformations, as well as results-oriented
management, such a comprehensive strategy would involve (1) looking across
the initiatives within each of the stove-piped functional units and
clearly identifying the critical links that must occur among these
initiatives; (2) developing specific departmentwide goals and milestones
that would allow DHS to track critical phases and essential activities;
(3) identifying tradeoffs and setting priorities; and (4) identifying any
potential efficiencies that could be achieved. The institution of a
departmentwide management integration strategy could also provide the
Congress, DHS's employees, and other key stakeholders with transparent
information on the integration's goals, needed resources, critical links,
cost savings, and status, and a way for these parties to hold DHS
accountable for its management integration.

    DHS's Business
    Transformation Office
    Could Be Strengthened to
    Serve as a Dedicated Team
    to Help Set Priorities and
    Make Strategic Decisions
    for Management Integration
    and to Implement the
    Comprehensive
    Integration Strategy

Our research shows that a dedicated team vested with necessary authority
and resources to help set priorities, make timely decisions, and move
quickly to implement decisions is critical for a successful
transformation. In addition, the team ensures that various change
initiatives are sequenced and implemented in a coherent and integrated
way. Furthermore, the team monitors and reports on the progress of the
integration to top leaders and across the organization, enabling those
leaders to make any necessary adjustments. Other networks, including a
senior executive council, functional teams, or cross-cutting teams, can be
used to help the implementation team manage and coordinate the day-to-day
activities of the merger or transformation. The 2003 study commissioned by
DHS also recommended that the department should (1) establish a leadership
team with implementation responsibility for integration across
directorates and be held accountable for departmentwide performance, and
(2) create a dedicated program management office responsible for the
execution of both mission and management integration efforts.

The Under Secretary for Management had acknowledged the need for a
dedicated program office to help guide the integration of management
functions across the department, but had not created one until October
2004 when funds were appropriated. Specifically, as part of DHS's fiscal
year 2005 appropriation, the conference committee allocated $920,000 for
DHS to establish a BTO, which will include a director and four additional
staff that will report to the Under Secretary for Management.21 At the
time of our review, DHS was still establishing the office within its
Management Directorate and advertising for the director's position, but
had not defined and filled the staff positions. According to the Acting
Chief of Staff to the Under Secretary for Management, the department
intends that the staff hired for the office will have expertise in program
and project management, quality analysis, and performance and data
analysis.

Based on our discussions with this official, and our analysis of documents
describing the role of this office, the purpose of the BTO is to help
monitor and look for interdependencies among the department's discrete
management integration efforts. Another purpose of the BTO is to
communicate the progress of the functional management initiatives across
the department. For example, implementation of eMerge2, the financial
integration solution currently in development, will involve several
management functions, such as budgeting and procurement. The office is
expected to monitor the progress of each management chief's functional
integration efforts relative to individual management directives described
previously, as well as look for continuous improvement from the services
being delivered. According to the Acting Chief of Staff to the Under
Secretary for Management, the BTO is not responsible for the
implementation of such individual initiatives as eMerge2, or for leading
and managing the coordination and integration that must occur across
functions not only to make these individual initiatives work, but to
achieve and sustain overall functional integration at DHS. Without
creating a dedicated team to serve in this role, it will be more difficult
for DHS to coordinate all integration initiatives across the department
and make the tradeoffs necessary to undertake an integration of the
magnitude of DHS.

As mentioned above, networks, including functional teams, can help the
dedicated implementation team ensure that DHS's efforts are coordinated
and integrated. DHS has recently strengthened the role of its functional

21 See H.R. Conf. Rep. No. 108-774 (2004), accompanying the Department of
Homeland Security Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2005, Pub. L. No.
108-334 (Oct. 18, 2004).

councils through its management directives to help coordinate integration
departmentwide. Early on, each management chief, such as the CIO, CHCO, or
CFO established a functional council to address issues pertaining to the
relative function. For example, the CFO established a Council that
includes component or agency CFOs across DHS and addresses and coordinates
departmentwide financial management issues. The other management chiefs
established functional councils with similar membership drawn from their
relative personnel in each component or agency. Likewise, the Under
Secretary for Management has a respective Management Council that
discusses issues of departmentwide importance, such as training and
development programs, but this council is not dedicated full-time to
managing the integration effort across the agency.

According to senior DHS officials in the Office of the Under Secretary for
Management, the membership of these functional councils had primarily been
serving in an information-sharing role for their particular management
function across the department. The councils also have been helpful in
gaining feedback and buy in from their members on functionspecific issues
of importance across DHS, as well as providing a way to communicate about
these issues. More recently, according to its five management directives,
DHS enhanced the role of its functional councils, to include more
decision-making responsibilities, rather than just serving in an advisory
capacity. In general, the councils are now responsible within each of
their individual functional areas for: (1) establishing a strategic plan,
(2) balancing priorities on how to best capitalize on the respective
management function resources, (3) defining and continuously improving
governance structures, processes, and performance, (4) establishing
centers of excellence, boards, and working groups tied to relevant council
priorities, (5) developing and executing formal communications programs
for internal and external stakeholders, and (6) supporting the respective
management chief in the design, planning, and implementation of an
integration plan for the chief's individual functional area, among other
things.

The increased authorities and responsibilities of the functional councils
could help DHS further coordinate the integration of each individual
function across the department, and the recent establishment of the BTO
could also assist DHS in departmentwide integration issues. However,
neither the functional councils or the BTO are currently serving as a
dedicated team to help manage the department's management integration. The
BTO is well-positioned to serve as a dedicated team, and the role of the
office could be strengthened to provide it with the necessary authority
and

resources to set priorities and make strategic decisions to drive the
overall integration strategy. The BTO could also be responsible for
leading the development and implementation of the integration strategy as
thus described and communicating the progress of the integration to top
leaders and DHS stakeholders. Such a dedicated team, as led by a senior
leader described below, can provide the focused, day-to-day management
needed for successful integration.

    Continued Monitoring Is Needed to Ensure Senior DHS Leadership Elevates,
    Integrates, and Institutionalizes Its Management Initiatives

We have reported that top leadership clearly and personally involved in
the merger or transformation represents stability and provides an
identifiable source for employees to rally around during the tumultuous
times created by such dramatic reorganizations and transformations as
DHS's merger. Leadership must set the direction, pace, and tone for the
transformation and could provide sustained attention over the long term.
As we have previously reported, as DHS and other agencies, such as the
Department of Defense, embark on large-scale organizational change
initiatives to address 21st century challenges, such as national security
concerns-there is a compelling need to elevate, integrate, and
institutionalize responsibility for key functional management initiatives
to help ensure their success.22 We have reported that creation of a COO or
CMO for DHS could help to elevate attention on management issues and
transformational change, integrate various key management and
transformation efforts, and institutionalize accountability for addressing
these issues and leading this change.23 For example, such an official
could provide a single point of contact to manage the integration of
functions that operate within their own vertical "stovepipes," such as
information technology, human capital, or financial management, in a
comprehensive and ongoing manner. Another potentially important mechanism
for such a position is to use clearly-defined, results-oriented
performance agreements accompanied by appropriate incentives, rewards, and
accountability. To help ensure accountability over the long term, setting
a term appointment of not less than 5 years can help

22 GAO, Highlights of a GAO Roundtable: The Chief Operating Officer
Concept: A Potential Strategy to Address Federal Governance Challenges,
GAO-03-192SP (Washington, D.C.: Oct. 4, 2002); GAO, Department of Defense:
Further Actions Are Needed to Effectively Address Business Management
Problems and Overcome Key Business Transformation Challenges,

GAO-05-140T (Washington, D.C.: Nov. 18, 2004).

23 GAO, The Chief Operating Officer Concept and Its Potential Use as a
Strategy to Improve Management at the Department of Homeland Security,
GAO-04-876R (Washington, D.C.: June 28, 2004).

provide the continuing focused attention essential to successfully
completing multiyear transformations, which can extend beyond the tenure
of political leaders.

The role of the Under Secretary for Management does contain some of the
characteristics of a COO/CMO as we have described, such as integrating key
management and transformation efforts by providing a single point of
contact as the chief integrator of management functions across DHS.
Congress anticipated the difficulty of establishing DHS by creating a
Management Directorate as one of the five major organizational units of
the new department and vesting responsibilities for the transition and
reorganization of the department within the Office of the Under Secretary
for Management. According to section 701 of the Homeland Security Act, the
Under Secretary is responsible for the management and administration of
the Department in such functional areas as budget, accounting, finance,
procurement, human resources and personnel, information technology, and
communications systems. In addition, the Under Secretary is responsible
for the transition and reorganization process, to ensure an efficient and
orderly transfer of functions and personnel to the Department, including
the development of a transition plan. The Under Secretary also told us
that she sees one of her roles as integrating the various management
functions across the department.

Recent initiatives within the Department could help to strengthen the role
and responsibilities of the Under Secretary for Management in leading
DHS's management integration efforts. The management directives, issued in
October 2004, are intended to clarify accountability for the integration
of the functions across the various directorates. The directives create
dual accountability relationships between the department-level functional
chiefs and similar chiefs within the agencies and components in the four
other directorates. For example, the department CFO within the Management
Directorate is accountable for consolidating and integrating financial
systems across the department and must work with the multiple CFOs for the
various components within the four other directorates and agencies to do
so. To help ensure this collaboration occurs, the department CFO has input
to the agency and component CFOs' daily work and annual performance
evaluations, according to the directive on financial management, but these
CFOs still report to and take direction from their agency or component
head. In addition, the recently established BTO could help provide the
Under Secretary for Management with a team of resources dedicated to
monitoring and assisting with the management integration.

It is still too early to tell, however, whether these initiatives will
provide the Under Secretary for Management with the elevated authority
necessary to integrate functions across the department and
institutionalize this new structure, as envisioned for a COO, CMO, or
similar position. For example, the indirect authority over component and
agency chiefs who are critical to integration, and a BTO that primarily
has a monitoring role, may not provide the authority the Under Secretary
needs to set priorities for, and make trade-off decisions about resources
and investments for integrating these functions. Likewise, without a
comprehensive integration plan, the Under Secretary does not have a road
map to guide and manage all the players critical to the integration.

Furthermore, without additional mechanisms in place to increase
accountability and sustainability for achieving the results of the
department's integration, DHS may not be successful in realizing the goals
of an improved homeland security function with integrated management
support. For example, as mentioned previously, at the time of our review,
the then Secretary and Deputy Secretary had announced their intention to
leave DHS in early 2005, raising questions about the agency's ability to
provide the consistent and sustained senior leadership necessary to
achieve integration over the long term. Without a senior leader with a
term limit that extends beyond changes in administration, it may be
difficult for DHS to successfully achieve its management integration. The
Congress should continue to closely monitor whether additional leadership
authorities are needed for the Under Secretary, or whether a revised
organizational arrangement is needed to fully capture the roles and
responsibilities of a COO/CMO position, such as elevating the position,
and including a performance agreement and setting a term limit for it.

Conclusions	Though national needs suggest a rapid reorganization of
homeland security functions, such dramatic transitions of agencies and
programs, as well as the breadth and scope of management support functions
that need to be incorporated into the new department are likely to take
time to achieve. DHS is engaged in a number of individual efforts and
initiatives as it works to implement its vision of an integrated, unified
department. However, the momentum to create a successful homeland security
function generated by the attacks of 9/11 could be lost if DHS does not
work quickly to put in place some key merger and transformation practices
to be more effective in taking a comprehensive and sustained approach to
its management integration.

First, without a comprehensive strategy addressing all departmental
management integration initiatives, DHS may not be able to establish the
critical links, identify tradeoffs, set priorities, and design the
efficiencies needed to succeed in integrating the functional management of
the department, especially given the long-term fiscal challenges facing
the federal government. Some of the guidance and plans DHS has already
created could be used as a foundation for building such an integrated
strategy. Second, a dedicated implementation team, like the planned BTO,
vested with the responsibility and authority, can be used to more actively
drive the department's integration across functions. Finally, Congress
could continue to monitor DHS's management integration efforts and whether
the current role of the Under Secretary for Management in driving and
sustaining these efforts over the long term is effective or needs to be
enhanced by creating a senior leadership position, such as a COO/CMO.
Without taking these steps, DHS may have difficulty providing a
comprehensive approach and sustaining its long-term management integration
efforts.

  Recommendations for Executive Action

In order to build the management infrastructure needed to help support the
department's integration and transformation, we are making two
recommendations to the Secretary of Homeland Security. We recommend that
the Secretary direct the Under Secretary for Management, working with
others, to

o 	develop an overarching management integration strategy for the
department. Such a strategy would, among other things, (1) look across the
initiatives within each of the management functional units; (2) clearly
identify the critical links that must occur among these initiatives; (3)
identify tradeoffs and set priorities; (4) set implementation goals and a
time line to monitor the progress of these initiatives to ensure the
necessary links occur when needed; and (5) identify potential
efficiencies, and ensure that they are achieved. The department should
also use this strategy to clearly communicate a consistent set of goals
and the progress achieved internally to all its employees, and externally
to key stakeholders, such as the Congress; and

o 	designate the planned BTO within DHS's Management Directorate as the
dedicated implementation team for the department's management integration
and provide it with the requisite authority and responsibility to help set
priorities and make strategic decisions to drive the

integration across all functions. The BTO would also be responsible for
helping to develop and implement the overarching management integration
strategy.

Matters for To help ensure accountability and sustainability for DHS's
management

integration over the long term, Congress may wish to continue to
monitorCongressional the following:Consideration

o 	the progress of DHS's management integration, for example, by requiring
the department to periodically report on the status of its efforts,
especially to determine whether it has:

o 	implemented a departmentwide integration management strategy; and

o 	provided the BTO with sufficient authority to serve as a dedicated
implementation team to help set priorities and make strategic decisions to
drive integration across all functions, and

o 	whether the Under Secretary for Management has the authority to elevate
attention on management issues and transformational change, integrate
various key management and transformation efforts, and institutionalize
accountability for addressing these management issues and leading this
change. If not, the Congress could reassess whether it needs to
statutorily adjust existing positions at DHS, or create a new COO/CMO
position, with provisions for a term limit and performance agreement, that
has the necessary responsibilities and authorities to more effectively
drive the integration.

  Agency Comments and Our Evaluation

In commenting on a draft of this report, DHS generally agreed with the
report's recommendations. DHS also provided additional information on the
planned responsibilities and role of the BTO in departmental management
integration. For example, DHS stated that the BTO is the dedicated
resource for providing guidance for the integration of the department's
management process, such as setting project management standards and
establishing standardized processes for monitoring and reporting on the
progress of DHS's integration initiatives. In addition, the department
commented that the BTO is establishing an integrated project
plan/integration strategy and anticipates it will be released by June
2005. However, at the time of our review, agency officials told us that
there was not an integration strategy in place to manage the department's
integration.

Based on our work on mergers and transformation practices, we also
recommended that DHS provide the BTO with the appropriate authority and
responsibilities to help set priorities and make strategic decisions for
the department's integration efforts. DHS agreed with our recommendation
and noted that the BTO is to serve as the agent for the Under Secretary
for Management whose role is to lead the transition and reorganization of
the department. The agency stated that the BTO has been vested with the
authorities necessary to ensure an integration strategy is in place and
will be used to advise management on decisions about, and direction on,
integration. We agree that the BTO is well-positioned to serve as a
dedicated integration team, but continue to believe that the role of the
office could be strengthened to provide it with the necessary authority
and resources to set priorities and make strategic decisions to drive the
overall integration strategy. DHS's more detailed written comments are
reprinted in appendix II.

As agreed with your office, unless you publicly announce the contents of
this report earlier, we plan no further distribution until 30 days from
the date of this letter. At that time, we will send copies of this report
to the Ranking Minority Member of the Subcommittee on the Federal
Workforce and Agency Organization, House Committee on Government Reform
and to others and made publicly 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
Sarah Veale at (202) 512-6806 or on [email protected] or [email protected].
Major contributors to this report included John W. Barkhamer, Jr.,
Carole Cimitile, Dewi Djunaidy, Masha Pastuhov-Pastein, and
Amy W. Rosewarne.

Eileen R. Larence
Director, Strategic Issues

Appendix I

Scope and Methodology

To identify opportunities for DHS to improve its management integration
efforts, we assessed these efforts by using three of the nine key
practices consistently found at the center of successful mergers,
acquisitions, and transformations.1 We selected three of these practices
as criteria for this review because they are especially important to
ensuring that DHS has the management infrastructure it needs at this early
juncture in its efforts to sustain the integration of the department. The
three selected practices are: ensuring top leadership drives the
transformation, setting implementation goals and a time line to build
momentum and show progress from day one, and dedicating an implementation
team to manage the transformation process. We assessed the extent to which
DHS is using these selected practices to support its management
integration efforts, i.e., the integration of DHS's varied management
processes, systems, and people-in areas such as information technology,
financial management, procurement, human capital, and administrative
services. We focused our review primarily on the management integration
activities of DHS's Management Directorate because the Homeland Security
Act of 2002 establishes that the Under Secretary for Management is
responsible for the transition and reorganization process for the
department. However, we limited the scope of our review to the integration
of management functions at this time and did not review mission or program
integration efforts of the department primarily because GAO has additional
work under way on these efforts.

We reviewed and analyzed key DHS documents about the department's
management integration, as well as interviewed key senior leaders in the
Management Directorate and operational and program leaders from across the
department. Key DHS documents that we used for our review include, but
were not limited to, memoranda from the then Secretary and Deputy
Secretary, the DHS Strategic Plan, various transition and integration
planning and policy documents, materials from offices involved with
integration efforts, and Departmental Management Directives that addressed
the overall approach that each management chief was taking to the
integration of its relevant management area.

We also asked key senior DHS officials to describe to us DHS's approach to
its management integration, such as whether DHS had a plan for its
integration and if a dedicated team was in place to manage the
integration. Within the Management Directorate, we met with the Under
Secretary for Management, the Chief Procurement Officer, the Chief
Financial Officer,

1 GAO-03-669.

Appendix I Scope and Methodology

the Chief Administrative Officer, the Chief Information Officer, and the
Chief Human Capital Officer. Other officials whom we interviewed included
chiefs of staff and/or directors of operations for each of the five
directorates, and key senior leaders from the Secret Service, the Coast
Guard, the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services, the Office of
Public Affairs, and the Office for State and Local Government Coordination
and Preparedness. We also reviewed published assessments on the
organization of DHS and interviewed the authors of these publications to
discuss their views on organizational change at DHS.

We also examined reports from GAO, DHS's Inspector General, and others
that addressed the integration of departmentwide management functions,
such as the development of an integrated departmental financial management
system, and information technology, as well as reports that focused on the
merger of specific agencies or initiatives within the Department, such as
the Federal Protective Service.

We conducted our work from April 2004 through February 2005 in accordance
with generally accepted government auditing standards.

Appendix II

Comments from the Department of Homeland Security

Appendix II Comments from the Department of Homeland Security Appendix II
Comments from the Department of Homeland Security

Related GAO Products

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management challenges, see http://www.gao.gov/pas/2005/dhs.htm.

Department of Defense: Further Actions Are Needed to Effectively Address
Business Management Problems and Overcome Key Business Transformation
Challenges. GAO-05-140T. Washington, D.C.: November 18, 2004.

Homeland Security: Management Challenges Remain in Transforming
Immigration Programs. GAO-05-81. Washington, D.C.: October 14, 2004.

Department of Homeland Security: Formidable Information and Technology
Management Challenge Requires Institutional Approach. GAO-04-702.
Washington, D.C.: August 27, 2004.

Homeland Security: Efforts Under Way to Develop Enterprise Architecture,
but Much Work Remains. GAO-04-777. Washington, D.C.: August 6, 2004.

Financial Management: Department of Homeland Security Faces Significant
Financial Management Challenges. GAO-04-774. Washington, D.C.: July 19,
2004.

Homeland Security: Transformation Strategy Needed to Address Challenges
Facing the Federal Protective Service. GAO-04-537. Washington, D.C.: July
14, 2004.

Department of Homeland Security: Financial Management Challenges.
GAO-04-945T. Washington, D.C.: July 8, 2004.

Status of Key Recommendations GAO Has Made to DHS and Its Legacy Agencies.
GAO-04-865R. Washington, D.C.: July 2, 2004.

Human Capital: DHS Faces Challenges in Implementing Its New Personnel
System. GAO-04-790. Washington, D.C.: June 18, 2004.

Transfer of Budgetary Resources to the Department of Homeland Security.
GAO-04-329R. Washington, D.C.: April 30, 2004.

Human Capital: Preliminary Observations on Proposed DHS Human Capital
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�Organizational Transformations. GAO-03-669. Washington, D.C.:
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Homeland Security: Information Sharing Responsibilities,
Challenges,�and Key Management Issues. GAO-03-715T. Washington,
D.C.: May 8, 2003.

Major Management Challenges and Program Risks: Department
of�Homeland Security. GAO-03-102. Washington, D.C.: January 2003.

Homeland Security: Management Challenges Facing Federal Leadership.
GAO-03-260. Washington, D.C.: December 20, 2002.

Highlights of a GAO Forum: Mergers and Transformation:
Lessons�Learned for a Department of Homeland Security and Other
Federal �Agencies. GAO-03-293SP. Washington, D.C.: November 14,
2002.

Highlights of a GAO Roundtable: The Chief Operating Officer
Concept:�A Potential Strategy to Address Federal Governance
Challenges.
GAO-03-192SP. Washington, D.C.: October 4, 2002.

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Homeland Security: Proposal for Cabinet Agency Has Merit, But
�Implementation Will Be Pivotal to Success. GAO-02-886T.
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Executive Guide: Effectively Implementing the Government
Performance�and Results Act. GAO/GGD-96-118. Washington, D.C.: June
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Security. OIG-05-06. DHS Office of the Inspector General. Washington,
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Its Major Management Challenges. OIG-04-21. DHS Office of the Inspector
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