Managing for Results: Using GPRA to Help Congressional Decisionmaking and
Strengthen Oversight (Testimony, 03/22/2000, GAO/T-GGD-00-95).

The Government Performance and Results Act arose, in part, out of
Congress' frustration that its policy and spending decisions and
oversight had been handicapped by a lack of precise information on
program goals, performance, and costs. Today, agencies must set
multiyear strategic goals and corresponding annual goals, measure their
performance, and report on their results. The implementation of the act
is now at a critical point. By the end of March, agencies are to publish
annual performance reports that, for the first time, will provide an
overall picture of the performance of federal programs. The information
becoming available as a result of the act also affords an opportunity to
reexamine what government does, how it does it, and who benefits. In
short, the act has the potential to ensure that the government delivers
the results that the American people expect and deserve. The Comptroller
General's testimony provides an overview of the act's implementation
across the executive branch, discusses how the House of Representatives
has used the act to improve program oversight and decisionmaking, and
suggests ways to use the act to address some of the critical program and
management issues confronting the government.

--------------------------- Indexing Terms -----------------------------

 REPORTNUM:  T-GGD-00-95
     TITLE:  Managing for Results: Using GPRA to Help Congressional
	     Decisionmaking and Strengthen Oversight
      DATE:  03/22/2000
   SUBJECT:  Performance measures
	     Agency missions
	     Internal controls
	     Productivity in government
	     Program evaluation
	     Interagency relations
	     Congressional/executive relations
	     Congressional oversight
	     Reporting requirements
	     Strategic planning
IDENTIFIER:  GPRA
	     Government Performance and Results Act

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GAO/T-GGD-00-95

United States General Accounting Office
GAO

Testimony

Before the Subcommittee on Rules
and Organization of the House, Committee on
Rules
House of Representatives

For Release on Delivery
at 9:30 a.m. EST
Wednesday
March 22, 2000
GAO/T-GGD-00-95

MANAGING FOR RESULTS
Using GPRA to Help Congressional Decisionmaking

and Strengthen Oversight

Statement of David M. Walker
Comptroller General of the United States

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Statement
Managing for Results: Using GPRA to Help
Congressional Decisionmaking and Strengthen
Oversight
Page 4                            GAO/T-GGD-00-95
Mr. Chairman, Mr. Hall, and Members of the
Subcommittee:

I appreciate the opportunity to be here this
morning to discuss the House Committees' use of
the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993
(commonly known as GPRA or the Results Act) to
inform their decisionmaking and oversight. As you
know, GPRA was passed in part out of congressional
frustration that congressional policymaking,
spending decisions, and oversight had been
severely handicapped by a lack of sufficiently
precise program goals and adequate program
performance and cost information. GPRA sought to
remedy that situation by requiring agencies to set
multiyear strategic goals and corresponding annual
goals, measure performance toward the achievement
of those goals, and publicly report on their
progress.

GPRA is a central component of a statutory
framework that Congress has put in place over the
last decade to improve the performance,
management, and accountability of the federal
government. Other major elements of the framework
include financial management reforms, such as the
Chief Financial Officers (CFO) Act, and
information resources management improvements,
such as the Clinger-Cohen Act. Through this
statutory framework, Congress has sought to
improve the fiscal, program, and management
performance of federal agencies, programs, and
activities.  The effective implementation of this
statutory framework, although important, is not an
end in itself.  Rather, the implementation of the
framework is the means to an end-improved federal
performance through enhanced congressional and
executive branch decisionmaking and oversight.
Traditionally, the danger to any management reform
is that it can become a hollow, paper-driven
exercise where management improvement initiatives
are not integrated into day-to-day activities of
the organization.  In short, performance
improvements within an agency will not occur just
because, for example, the agency has published a
strategic plan or the results of an audit of its
financial statements.  Rather, performance
improvements occur only when congressional and
executive branch decisionmakers use these and
other documents-and the management systems that
generate them-to help inform decisions and improve
confidence in the accountability and performance
of the federal government.

In that regard, we are now at a critical point in
the implementation of GPRA-and thus an opportune
time to examine how the House has used and can use
the Act. Agencies are to publish annual
performance reports by the end of March that, for
the first time, will provide important information
on the overall performance of federal programs.
Moreover, in two recent testimonies before the
Senate and House Budget Committees, I have noted
that the time is right for reexamination and
serious debate about what government does, how it
does it, and who benefits from these activities.1
Information now becoming available as part of
agencies' efforts under GPRA can serve as vital
input into that needed reexamination and debate.
Specifically, the information that agencies are to
provide under GPRA and other parts of the
statutory framework should prove invaluable to
Congress as it grapples with our nation's
continuing fiscal and federal government
management challenges. The current projected
surpluses provide an opportunity to rise out of
the limited time horizons of recent deficit
debates and focus squarely on long-term challenges
demanding attention. Accurate, reliable, and
timely performance and cost information will be
central to congressional efforts to make the hard
choices that addressing long-term challenges
demands. At the same time, we need to redouble our
efforts to make sure that federal programs are
implemented with the transparency, integrity,
efficiency, and accountability that the effective
stewardship of taxpayers' dollars requires. By
helping Congress address fiscal challenges and
management risks and problems, GPRA can also help
resolve another challenge facing our
country-increasing citizens' confidence in, and
respect for, their government.

To do so, we need to take steps to maximize the
usefulness of GPRA while minimizing related
burdens.  In addition, we need to ensure that both
the executive branch and Congress take GPRA
seriously.  In short, GPRA has the potential to
help Congress and the executive branch ensure that
the federal government provides the results that
the American people expect and deserve.
Substantial efforts have been undertaken and
progress clearly made. However, much of GPRA's
potential benefit remains unrealized. In addition,
we must be careful to ensure that GPRA does not
become an annual paperwork exercise.  Rather, it
should be the foundation of how agencies and
Congress help to maximize the performance and
ensure the accountability of the federal
government for the benefit of the American people.

My statement today will expand on this theme by
covering three topics. First, I will provide an
overview of the implementation of GPRA across the
executive branch and discuss why I believe we are
at a critical stage in the Act's implementation.
Second, I will discuss how the House has used GPRA
to improve programmatic oversight and
decisionmaking and to conduct oversight over
selected agencies' efforts to implement the Act.
Given the setting for this morning's hearing, my
comments will focus on the House Committees.
Nevertheless, the Senate, especially the Senate
Governmental Affairs Committee, has been an active
partner with the House in many of the efforts that
I will discuss. Finally, building in large measure
upon my statements before the Budget Committees, I
will suggest ways that GPRA can be used to address
some of the critical program and management issues
confronting the federal government.

GPRA Implementation Is at a Critical Stage for
Agencies and Congress
One of the fundamental purposes of GPRA is to
".improve congressional decisionmaking by
providing more objective information on achieving
statutory objectives, and on the relative
effectiveness and efficiency of federal programs
and spending." Congress intended for the Act to
improve the effectiveness of federal programs by
fundamentally shifting the focus of management and
decisionmaking away from a preoccupation with
staffing and activity levels to a broader focus on
the results or outcomes of federal programs.
Agencies traditionally had used the amount of
money spent to support their programs, the number
of staff employed, or the number of tasks
completed as measures of their performance. But at
a time when the value of many federal programs is
undergoing intense-and appropriate-public
scrutiny, an agency that uses and reports only
these measures has not addressed the defining
issue: Whether its programs have contributed to a
real difference in the quality and security of
citizens' lives. Under GPRA, virtually every
federal agency is required to ask itself some
basic questions: What is our mission, what are our
goals, and how can we achieve them? How can we
measure our performance? How will we use
performance information to make improvements and
other management decisions?

In crafting the Act, Congress recognized that the
answers to these questions would lead to cultural
transformations in many agencies. As a starting
point, an agency's strategic plan is to include
the agency's mission statement, identify the
agency's long-term strategic goals, and describe
how the agency intends to achieve its goals
through its activities and through its human
capital, financial, information, and other
resources. Importantly, GPRA requires that in
developing their strategic plans, agencies must
consult with Congress and solicit and consider the
views of those entities potentially affected by or
interested in the plan.

The strategic plans are to be the fundamental
building blocks for agencies to use to set annual
goals for programs and measure the performance of
their programs in achieving those goals. Annual
performance plans are to provide the direct
linkage between the goals outlined in an agency's
strategic plan and what managers and employees
will do day-to-day. In essence, the plan is to
contain the goals the agency will use to gauge its
progress toward accomplishing its strategic goals,
identify the agency's performance measures, and
show the resources needed to achieve its goals.
Also, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is
to use individual agencies' performance plans to
develop an overall federal government performance
plan that OMB is to submit annually to Congress
with the President's budget. Finally, agencies are
to issue annual performance reports showing the
degree to which goals were met and the actions,
plans, and schedules to meet unmet goals.

In almost 2-1/2 years since the requirements of
GPRA were implemented across the executive branch,
Congress has been provided with a wealth of new
and valuable information on the plans, goals, and
strategies of federal agencies. According to OMB,
about 100 agencies published a first set of
strategic plans in 1997 and, as required, will
issue updated plans by this September. These
agencies also issued annual performance plans for
fiscal years 1999 and 2000 and are issuing plans
for 2001.OMB has issued three governmentwide
performance plans covering fiscal years 1999,
2000, and 2001. Finally, by March 31 of this year,
agencies are to release their first-ever
performance reports covering fiscal year 1999.
Figure 1 is a time line of GPRA requirements and
other laws that make up the statutory framework to
improve the performance, management, and
accountability of the federal government,
including the CFO Act and the Clinger-Cohen Act.

Figure  1:  Time Line for Major Reports

a Although required to be submitted by January 31,
the governmentwide 5-year financial management
plans are generally issued in June or July.
b GPRA requires agencies' strategic plans to cover
a period of at least 5 years forward from the
fiscal year in which submitted. They are to be
updated at least every 3 years and are submitted
to OMB and Congress.
Source: GAO review of statutes.

     The issuance of the first performance reports
represents a new and potentially more substantive
stage in the implementation of GPRA. Much of the
focus outside of agencies thus far naturally has
been on the quality of the plans. This focus has
raised such questions as: Do the plans have the
right goals? Are the performance measures
appropriate? Is the best mix of program strategies
in place to achieve the goals? All of these are
important questions, and clear answers are needed
to ensure that agencies' efforts are properly
targeted. However, the performance reports offer
the first opportunity to systematically assess the
agencies' actual performance on a governmentwide
basis and to consider the specific steps that can
be taken to improve performance and reduce costs.
These annual reports on program performance can
also help congressional committees monitor and
select programs for more detailed reviews.

     The first performance reports, and thus the
completion of the first full planning and
reporting cycle of GPRA implementation, also
suggest that it is an appropriate point to examine
how GPRA can be more fully integrated into
executive branch and congressional decisionmaking.
In our summary assessments of the fiscal year 1999
and fiscal year 2000 annual performance plans, we
highlighted a consistent set of areas that we
believe have the greatest potential for improving
the usefulness of GPRA to congressional and
executive branch decisionmakers.2 For example,
much more progress is needed in linking GPRA
performance goals to agency budget presentations,
so that the performance consequences of budget
decisions can be clearly understood.  Similarly,
technology and human capital planning and
decisionmaking are too often not integrated into
considerations of programmatic results.  In our
assessment of the fiscal year 2000 annual plans,
we found that most plans did not sufficiently
address how the agencies will use their human
capital to achieve results.  This suggests that
one of the critical attributes of high-performing
organizations-the systematic integration of human
capital planning and program planning-is not being
adequately addressed across the federal
government.3 This is a fundamental weakness in
agencies' operations-only when the right employees
are on board and provided the training tools,
structure, incentives, and accountability to work
effectively is organizational success possible.
Stated differently, we will never be able to
maximize the performance and ensure the
accountability of the federal government without
placing more emphasis on critical human capital
strategies.  This needs to be a top priority to
make GPRA more alive throughout the executive
branch.

We have seen that integrating GPRA into agency
operations does not come quickly or easily.  It
requires dedicated and persistent leadership
within agencies that uses goals and performance
data as a basis for running organizations day-to-
day and for holding units and individuals
accountable.  It requires leadership on the part
of OMB to ensure performance data are used to
inform budget decisions and that agencies take
GPRA seriously and use it to run their
organizations. Finally, it requires Congress in
its various capacities--oversight, authorization,
appropriation, and confirmation of political
appointees-to use GPRA in its efforts and to
underscore to agencies the importance it places on
effective implementation of the Act. We have made
recommendations in each of the last 2 years
intended to help congressional and executive
branch decisionmakers ensure that GPRA is
effectively implemented and used.  The integration
of GPRA into executive branch and congressional
decisiomaking processes will, no doubt, identify
additional opportunities to effectively target
GPRA plans and reports and therefore also
streamline and simplify those plans and reports.

The House Has Used GPRA Practices in
Decisionmaking and Oversight
Congressional use of GPRA concepts and
practices-such as results-oriented goal-setting
and performance measurement-in crafting
legislation, although not uniform, clearly exists
and appears to be growing. The Congressional
Research Service (CRS) reported in December 1998
on the provisions in public laws and the
associated committee reports from the 105th
Congress that were relevant to the implementation
of GPRA.4 Although CRS notes that the data must be
read with caution, it found that 78 committee
reports (including 31 from House Committees)
accompanying bills enacted into law during the
105th Congress included language related to GPRA
or performance measures. This language included
endorsements of the importance of GPRA; comments
on the status of an agency's implementation
efforts, including the quality of its plans; and
other language. In addition, CRS found that a
number of laws enacted during the 105th Congress
incorporated GPRA concepts and practices. These
laws, for example, required the development of a
variety of performance measurement systems to
assess progress in meeting statutory purposes. In
some cases, the statutory direction specified the
goals and performance measures to be used; in
other cases, the laws provided general categories
of required goals and measures. Overall, CRS found
greater attention to performance in laws and
committee reports in the 105th Congress than in
the 104th Congress.

As discussed in the following pages, we have found
that the experiences of the House Committees on
Veterans' Affairs, Science, and Government Reform
provide examples of how House Committees have used
GPRA to improve decisionmaking and conduct
oversight over GPRA implementation within the
agencies.

The House Committee on Veterans' Affairs
The Senate and House Committees on Veterans'
Affairs used GPRA concepts and practices in the
Veterans Millennium Health Care and Benefits Act
(Public Law 106-117) that was passed by Congress
with bipartisan support in November 1999. Among
other things, the act seeks to expand the services
that the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)
provides to assist homeless veterans. However, it
has been unclear as to whether VA's programs are
effective in reaching those most in need and
providing the support and care homeless veterans
require to remain housed and employed.5 As a
result, the act's conference report cited the
need, under GPRA, for agencies to evaluate the
effectiveness and outcomes of their programs.
Thus, the law requires VA to provide to the House
and Senate Committees on Veterans' Affairs a plan
for evaluating its homeless veterans programs. The
law further stipulates that the evaluation plan is
to be prepared in consultation with
stakeholders-specifically, the Department of Labor
and the Department of Housing and Urban
Development.

GPRA concepts and practices also have been used to
help Congress conduct oversight on VA's progress
in addressing significant management issues, such
as problems in processing veterans' benefit
claims. Delays and inaccuracies in veterans'
benefit claims have been a longstanding concern at
VA and within Congress. The House Subcommittee on
Benefits held three hearings between 1997 and
1999, in which we participated, that highlighted
the Veterans Benefits Administration's (VBA)
progress in addressing this and related issues. As
part of those hearings, the Subcommittee examined
VBA's progress in developing results-oriented
goals for its nonmedical benefit programs. Such
goals are important to help Congress and VBA
ensure that VBA efforts are properly targeted and
to track progress in improving the efficiency and
effectiveness of the nonmedical benefits VBA
provides to veterans.

The quality of the services and support provided
to unemployed veterans also has been an issue of
concern. The Subcommittee on Oversight and
Investigations' hearing July 1999 hearing focused
on the absence of a clear picture of the results
that the Department of Labor hopes to achieve for
unemployed veterans through its Veterans'
Employment and Training Service. The Subcommittee
on Benefits also held hearings on GPRA
implementation in Labor's Veterans' Employment and
Training Service. Both Subcommittees' hearings,
which we participated in, examined the progress
the Veterans' Employment and Training Service has
made in its strategic and performance planning and
the significant progress that remains to be made,
such as including annual performance goals that
will allow Congress to monitor VBA's efforts to
help young, minority, and women veterans get jobs.6

The House Committee on Science
     The Committee on Science has long recognized
that strategic planning and performance assessment
in federal research programs offer both an
opportunity and a significant challenge for
federal civilian science agencies and Congress.
Performance assessment may become a powerful tool
in the management of these programs, particularly
in an era of federal downsizing and the need to
allocate federal research and development (R&D)
investments more productively. However, assessment
techniques are in relatively early stages of
development for R&D programs generally, and only
in their infancy for areas such as fundamental
science. Furthermore, the causal relationship
between research outputs and their eventual
outcomes is very complex and may take years before
it becomes evident.

     To better understand the value of our
country's investments in R&D, the Chairwoman and
Ranking Minority Member of the Subcommittee on
Technology requested that we address the issue of
meaningful measures of research. For almost two
decades, numerous reports have documented the
difficulties of quantifying the results of R&D. As
a first step in assessing the results of research,
we presented the relative strengths and
limitations of the input and output indicators
used by the federal and private sectors to measure
the results of R&D.7

     R&D performance assessment and civilian
science agencies' implementation of GPRA were
issues addressed during the Committee on Science's
July 1996 hearing. Specifically, the Committee
focused on (1) how the strategic planning process
can help agencies and Congress identify and
address instances of unfocused missions, unclear
goals, and program fragmentation and overlap; (2)
the challenge of performance measurement in an R&D
environment and the status of agencies' collective
efforts to overcome those challenges; and (3) the
role Congress must play if the Act is to be
successful. In addition, the Committee requested
that our statement show Members how GPRA can be
useful to Congress and what Congress can do to
ensure successful implementation.8

     A year later, the Committee convened another
hearing on civilian science departments' and
agencies' implementation of GPRA. In his opening
remarks, the Chairman stated that the Act should
be viewed as an opportunity to improve the
management and accountability of federal programs.
The Ranking Minority Member also stated that he
was an advocate of strategic planning as a tool to
help an agency achieve great things. Our review of
science agencies' draft strategic plans, however,
found a number of shortcomings, noting that the
plans had not addressed all of the Act's critical
elements, some of the elements that were addressed
were insufficient, and the plans generally did not
address crosscutting activities.9 Some Members of
the Committee concluded that the lack of program
goals and measurements had handicapped
congressional policymaking and spending decisions.
In addition, the lack of coordination of
crosscutting science programs had hampered
managers' ability to run those programs in a way
that seeks to maximize the overall federal
investment in science.

     Program results have also influenced funding
authorizations. For example, in April 1997, the
Subcommittee on Technology convened a hearing
within a week of the Science Committee's scheduled
markup on the National Institute of Standards and
Technology's (NIST) authorized funding levels. The
hearing addressed the funding needs of NIST,
including a review of the effectiveness of the
Advanced Technology Program (ATP). The mission of
ATP is to stimulate U.S. economic growth by
developing high-risk and enabling technologies
through industry-driven cost-shared partnerships.
The administration's budget had proposed a 22-
percent increase for fiscal year 1998 and a 122-
percent increase over the next 5 years. In her
opening statement, the Chairwoman stated that she
was interested in hearing from the expert
witnesses, which included GAO, about whether the
accomplishments of ATP supported more than
doubling the size of the program by the year 2002.10
We reported that for 63 percent of the ATP grants,
applicants did not attempt to raise private
capital before applying for their ATP grants; and
roughly half of all applicants indicated that they
would have proceeded with their research even if
they had not received the ATP grants.
Subsequently, the fiscal year 1998 appropriation
provided $182 million for the program, a cut of
10.3 percent, or $21 million, from fiscal year
1997 and $79 million below the President's
request. Two years later, after releasing our
report on ATP's award selection, the Science
Committee Chairman questioned whether the ATP
program was achieving its objectives.11 The next
day, the House Appropriations Committee voted to
terminate the program. After conference action
between the Senate and the House, the program
ultimately received $130 million, a cut of 27
percent for fiscal year 2000.

The House Committee on Government Reform
     The House Committee on Government Reform made
effective implementation of GPRA the centerpiece
of its February 12, 1997, hearing on "Sensible
Government for the Next Century" and emphasized
the role that GPRA will play in improving federal
government agency performance. A key witness was
House Majority Leader Dick Armey, who depicted the
Act as the ultimate common sense tool for
determining whether taxpayer-funded programs are
working.

     Within this Committee, much of the leadership
for GPRA issues has come from the Subcommittee on
Government Management, Information and Technology.
GPRA has been the subject of vigorous oversight by
the Subcommittee, including hearings on key
elements that are at the heart of implementing
GPRA requirements. These elements include such
areas as consultations between federal agencies
and Congress; agencies' strategic plans, in
general, and, in particular, the strategic plans
of OMB, the General Services Administration, and
the Customs Service; performance budgeting pilot
programs; and OMB's capabilities and management
leadership in GPRA implementation.

     To obtain a comprehensive view of the
opportunities and challenges that are intrinsic to
GPRA implementation, the Subcommittee has looked
beyond the federal level. The Subcommittee has
held hearings on a diverse range of topics related
to the Act in an effort to expand the base of best
practices and to provide a body of relevant
experiences from which federal agencies could draw
lessons. For example, the Subcommittee has
examined state and local governments' management
practices in setting goals and achieving results,
foreign government experiences with performance
accountability, and private sector efforts in
organizational flexibility and quality management.

House Oversight of GPRA Implementation
In addition to the uses of GPRA concepts and
practices that I have just noted, the House also
has been deeply involved in seeking to ensure that
agencies' strategic and annual performance plans
are of a sufficient quality that the plans are
useful for congressional decisionmaking. Of
course, the most widely publicized House-led
effort was the "grading" of agencies' draft and
September 1997 strategic plans and fiscal years
1999 and 2000 annual performance plans.

Although the grading received much of the
attention, widespread congressional involvement in
GPRA implementation actually began when agencies
consulted with Congress on their first strategic
plans in early 1997. Consultations on strategic
plans provide an important opportunity for
Congress and the executive branch to work together
to ensure that agency missions are focused, goals
are specific and results-oriented, and strategies
and funding expectations are appropriate and
reasonable. Additional consultations are to take
place before agencies issue their updated
strategic plans, not later than this September.

Congress signaled its strong commitment to GPRA
and the strategic plan consultation process
through a February 25, 1997, letter to the
Director of OMB from the Speaker of the House, the
House Majority Leader, the Senate Majority Leader,
and key committee chairmen from both the House and
the Senate. The letter underscored the importance
that the congressional majority places on the
implementation of the Act, noted a willingness on
the part of Congress to work cooperatively with
the administration, and established expectations
for consultations. The administration also showed
its commitment to consulting with Congress on
agency strategic plans through a letter from the
Director of OMB to executive agencies sent in
November 1996 and earlier guidance to agencies on
the preparation of strategic plans.

In an important effort to reduce congressional
"stovepipes," staff teams from authorizing,
oversight, budget, and appropriations committees
were formed in the House-at times on a bipartisan
and bicameral basis-to cut across committee
jurisdictions to consult with the agencies on
strategic plans. The frequent misalignment between
congressional committee jurisdictions and
executive branch agencies poses significant
challenges to oversight. So, too, with the
consultations on strategic plans. For example,
according to the Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA), around 50 House and Senate Committees and
Subcommittees claim some jurisdiction over EPA
issues. In our 1997 testimony on GPRA
consultations, we noted that both committee staff
and agency officials we met with agreed that to
the extent feasible, consultations should be held
jointly with appropriate authorizing, budget, and
appropriating committees.12 In addition to meeting
with agencies to discuss the agencies' draft
strategic plans, the House-led staff teams also
graded the draft and the September 1997 versions
of the plans. The grades were based on the staff's
assessment of how well the plans met the
requirements of GPRA and related guidance. The
Majority Leader and other Majority congressional
leaders issued two separate and detailed reports
on the findings of the staff teams in assessing
the strategic plans. The reports discussed grading
criteria; the individual agencies' scores; common
strengths and weaknesses; and overall conclusions
and recommendations for OMB, the agencies, and
Congress. In our assessment of agencies' strategic
plans, we found that although they provided a
workable foundation for Congress to use, agencies'
planning efforts were nonetheless very much works
in progress.13

The House also used staff teams in an attempt to
cut across committee jurisdictional boundaries to
grade agencies' fiscal years 1999 and 2000 annual
performance plans. The findings of the fiscal year
1999 plan reviews were sent to the Acting Director
of OMB in June 1998 by the Speaker of the House,
the Majority Leader, and the chairmen of 16 House
Committees. That report commended "the hard work
that agencies have put into Results Act
implementation during the past year." However, the
report noted that the overriding conclusion from
the congressional evaluations of the plans was
that "there is a very long way to go before the
Results Act can be used to integrate reliable
performance data into federal decisionmaking and
day-to-day management." The report provided
detailed discussions of the major recurring
problem areas in the annual plans, such as
weaknesses in agencies' goals and measures, the
often poor quality of performance data, and the
need to better coordinate crosscutting program
efforts.  The House leaders strongly stressed that
the lack of congressional use of the annual
performance plans was a sign of the early stage of
the plans' development and not a sign of Congress'
lack of interest.

Similar to the reports on strategic plans, the
assessment of the fiscal year 1999 annual
performance plans also contained a series of
recommendations. First among these recommendations
was that "Congress and the Executive branch must
work together to ensure that the Results Act
provides performance data that is useful and then
is used" (emphasis in original). Our reviews of
agencies' fiscal year 1999 annual performance
plans also found that agencies had a long way to
go. We concluded that overall, substantial further
development was needed for the plans to be useful
in a significant way to congressional and other
decisionmakers.14

The grades of the fiscal year 2000 performance
plans were not publicly released, and we are not
aware of any plans to grade the fiscal year 2001
plans. Our own assessment of the fiscal year 2000
plans found that on the whole, the plans showed a
moderate improvement over the fiscal year 1999
plans and contained better information and
perspective. However, we noted that key weaknesses
remained and important opportunities existed to
improve future plans.15

Next Steps in Using GPRA to Strengthen
Congressional Decisionmaking and Oversight
In my recent statement before the House Budget
Committee, I used four broad themes to discuss the
significant performance problems in federal
programs and agencies that our work has
identified: 16

ï¿½    Attack activities at risk of fraud, waste,
abuse, and mismanagement.
ï¿½    Improve the economy and efficiency of federal
operations.
ï¿½    Reassess what the federal government does.
ï¿½    Redefine the beneficiaries of federal
government programs.

Concerted and continuing congressional oversight
is key to addressing the federal government's
persistent performance, management, and
accountability problems. This morning, I will
describe how GPRA concepts, practices, and
products are tools Congress can use to help its
decisionmaking and strengthen its oversight and
thereby help resolve these and related issues,
such as the coordination of crosscutting programs
and agencies' capacity to gather and use
performance information.

Attack Activities at Risk to Fraud, Waste, Abuse,
and Mismanagement
     Over the years, our work has shown that
federal functions and programs critical to
personal and national security, ranging from
Medicare to weapons acquisition, have been
hampered by daunting financial and program
management problems, exposing the federal
government to waste and abuse. Since 1990, as part
of our "High-Risk" initiative, we have reported on
specific federal activities and functions that are
particularly vulnerable to waste, fraud, abuse,
and mismanagement.

     The high-risk areas we have reported on have
real consequences that are important and visible
to the American people. One program on our high-
risk list, Supplemental Security Income (SSI), is
the largest cash assistance program for the poor.
In 1998, about 6.5 million SSI recipients received
more than $29 billion in benefits. However, since
its inception in 1974, the SSI program has been
fraught with problems. For example, the Social
Security Administration (SSA) has estimated that
overpayments to recipients in nursing homes may
exceed $100 million per year. Overall, in fiscal
year 1998, current and former recipients owed SSA
more than $3.3 billion-including over $1 billion
in newly detected overpayments for that year.

     The annual planning process under GPRA
provides an excellent vehicle for helping to
address high-risk functions and programs and to
ensure that clear accountability for progress is
established. In our assessment of the fiscal year
1999 performance plans, we noted that precise and
measurable goals for resolving mission-critical
management problems are important to ensuring that
the agencies have the institutional capacity to
achieve their more results-oriented programmatic
goals.17 Similarly, our assessment of the fiscal
year 2000 annual performance plans concluded that
plans with goals and strategies that address
mission-critical management challenges and program
risks show that agencies are striving to build the
capacity to be high-performing organizations and
reduce the risk of waste, fraud, abuse, and
mismanagement.18

Recent efforts to identify and reduce the level of
improper payments in Medicare show how GPRA can
help in focusing attention on mission- critical
problems. Medicare is one of the fastest growing
major social programs in the federal budget, and
it is projected to almost double in size during
the next 10 years.  With responsibility for
financing health care delivered by hundreds of
thousands of providers on behalf of tens of
millions of beneficiaries, Medicare is inherently
vulnerable to fraud, waste, and abuse.  Following
findings from the fiscal year 1996 financial
audits conducted by the Inspector General with
assistance from GAO under the CFO Act, the
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has
begun to identify improper payments in its
financial statements for the $170- billion-a-year
Medicare fee-for-service program. HHS adopted this
improper payment quantification as a measure for
its annual performance plans that focus on
reducing the amount of improper payments each
year.  Such measures are important to helping
Congress and the executive branch ensure that
program management is taking the steps needed to
reduce improper payments.

For example, one of the goals in HHS' Health Care
Financing Administration's (HCFA) fiscal year 2000
performance plan is to reduce the percentage of
improper Medicare fee-for-service payments to 7
percent by fiscal year 2000 and to decrease this
to 5 percent by fiscal year 2002.  Spotlighting
the program's payment of claims has led to a
number of actions to help prevent improper
payments.  Between fiscal years 1996 and 1998, the
estimated total of payments made in error in this
program dropped from $23.2 billion, or about 14
percent of total Medicare fee-for-service
payments, to $12.6 billion, or about 7.1 percent
of the $176.1 billion processed fee-for-service
payments reported by HCFA. The drop in estimated
erroneous payments was attributable largely to
better claims documentation by providers rather
than a reduction in improper billing practices.
The bulk of what remains in the estimate of
erroneous payments is attributable to such
practices as miscoding payments to inappropriately
enhance revenues, billing for services that are
not medically necessary, and billing for services
never rendered.

     The Department of Energy's (DOE) fiscal year
2000 performance plan provides another
illustration of the value of using GPRA as a
vehicle for addressing major management problems
and program risks in that the plan contains goals
and measures that are designed to address those
challenges and risks. For example, effective DOE
contract management, another area on our high-risk
list, is especially important because DOE relies
on contractors to perform about 90 percent of its
work. Under DOE's corporate management goal, one
objective is to improve the delivery of products
and services through contract reform and the use
of businesslike practices. The strategies DOE
identifies include using prudent contracting and
business management approaches that emphasize
results, accountability, and competition. DOE's
plan also contains three specific measures
addressing contract reform. One of these measures
is to convert one support services contract at
each major site to become a performance-based
service contract using government standards. The
goals and measures that DOE has established will
better enable DOE and Congress to track progress
and ensure accountability in addressing the
agency's high-risk issues.

     Unfortunately, we found that the fiscal year
2000 annual performance plans showed inconsistent
attention to the need to resolve the mission-
critical program risks that continue to undermine
the federal government's economy, efficiency, and
effectiveness. We found that in many cases,
agencies did not address management challenges and
program risks in their fiscal year 2000
performance plans. In those cases where challenges
and risks are addressed, agencies use a variety of
approaches, including setting goals and measures
directly linked to the management challenges and
program risks, establishing goals and measures
that are indirectly related to the challenges and
risks, or laying out strategies to address them.

Improve the Economy and Efficiency of Federal
Programs
     Effective congressional oversight can improve
federal performance by examining the program
structures and strategies that Congress and
agencies have put in place to deliver products and
services and ultimately to achieve results. Such
an oversight effort can seek to ensure that
agencies have the best, most cost-effective mix of
strategies in place to meet their goals.
Examinations of how program structures and
strategies contribute to results are important
because they help Congress and other
decisionmakers assess the degree to which program
approaches are appropriate, reasonable, and
aligned with the agency's goals. Such discussions
also are important to pinpoint opportunities to
improve performance and reduce costs.

     For example, the Department of Veterans
Affairs (VA) owns 4,700 buildings and 18,000 acres
of land, which it uses to operate 181 major health
care delivery locations. VA spends about $1 out of
every $4 of its $18.4 billion budget to operate,
maintain, and improve its delivery locations.
Without major restructuring over the next several
years, billions of dollars will be used to operate
hundreds of unneeded VA buildings. For example, a
VA study projected annual savings ranging from
$132 million to $189 million through consolidation
of medical and administrative services at its
major delivery locations in the Chicago area. VA
needs to develop and implement realignment plans
for all of its health care markets; Congress could
consider a variety of options, such as greater
reliance on community-based, integrated networks
of VA and non-VA providers, to meet the health
care needs of veterans in the most cost-effective
manner.19

     The situation confronting VA is by no means
unique.  Federal capital decisionmaking and
planning often are not done in a systematic manner
as part of the organization's larger strategic
planning process.20  In that regard, agencies'
annual performance plans can help identify
opportunities for more economical and efficient
operations by systematically linking program
strategies to the results they are intended to
achieve.21 We have found that although agencies'
fiscal year 2000 plans contain valuable and
informative discussions of how strategies and
programs relate to goals, additional progress is
needed in explaining how strategies and programs
will be used to achieve results, including how
capital assets will be used to achieve results.
Specifying clearly in performance plans how
strategies are to be used to achieve results is
important to Congress and managers in order to
determine the right mix of strategies and to
maximize performance while limiting costs.

     Continued progress is this regard is
important because over time, and as agencies gain
experience in linking strategies to results,
agencies will be in a better position to
understand and discuss alternative strategies and
program designs and the relative contributions
these alternatives could make to results. Many
federal program areas, such as health care and
housing, use a range of service delivery
mechanisms and program tools to achieve results.
These service delivery mechanisms and program
tools include, for example, regulations, direct
federal service delivery, intergovernmental
partnerships, tax expenditures, and loans or loan
guarantees. GPRA provides the opportunity to build
better understandings throughout the federal
government of how these mechanisms and tools can
be used individually and together to address
public policy issues.

Reassess What the Federal Government Does
It is obviously important to periodically
reexamine whether current programs and activities
remain relevant, appropriate, and effective. Many
federal programs-their goals, organizations, and
processes-were designed years ago to meet the
needs and demands as determined at that time and
within the technological capabilities of that
earlier era. For example, the Department of
Agriculture's Market Access Program (MAP)
subsidizes the promotion of U.S. agricultural
products in overseas markets. Despite changes made
to the program between 1993 and 1998, its results
remain uncertain. Our work has noted several
unresolved questions, including whether subsidized
promotions generate positive net economic returns,
increase exports that would not have occurred
without the program, and supplement rather than
supplant private sector spending.22

GPRA is perfectly suited for assisting Congress
and the executive branch in identifying and
addressing programs that may have outlived their
usefulness. Performance goals that focus on the
results of programs-and performance reports that
show what has been accomplished-will provide
critical information needed for making judgments
about the continuing value of a given program. As
goals are being set, Congress can make decisions
on whether the goals are appropriate and whether
the expected level of performance is sufficient to
justify the federal expenditure and effort. Later,
as results are being reported, Congress can
determine if the actual performance is sufficient
to justify continuing the program.

Redefine the Beneficiaries of Federal Government
Programs
Congress originally defines the intended audience
for any program or service on the basis of certain
perception of eligibility and/or need. To better
reflect changing conditions and target limited
resources, these definitions should be
periodically reviewed and revised. Our work has
identified eligibility rules and subsidies to
states, businesses, and individuals that are no
longer needed or could be better targeted without
changing the basic objectives of the programs.

For example, the Federal Emergency Management
Agency's (FEMA) Public Assistance Program helps
pay state and local governments' costs of
repairing and replacing eligible public facilities
and equipment damaged by disasters. In a May 1996
report, we presented a number of options
identified by FEMA's regional program officials
that could reduce program costs.23 Among the
options discussed was eliminating eligibility for
private nonprofit organizations, many of which
operate revenue-generating facilities such as
utilities and hospitals, and publicly owned
recreational facilities, which generate a portion
of their operational revenue through user fees or
admission charges. Many of these types of
facilities could have alternative sources of
income sufficient to meet disaster-related costs.

As with other issues, GPRA can help Congress as it
considers redefining program beneficiaries. GPRA
is intended to help Congress and the executive
branch focus squarely on the results and costs of
federal programs. Examinations of agencies' goals
and progress in achieving those goals can
highlight cases where federal benefits could be
better targeted to improve results and/or cut
costs.

Rationalize Crosscutting Program Efforts
Virtually all of the results that the federal
government strives to achieve require the
concerted and coordinated efforts of two or more
agencies. Yet our work has repeatedly shown that
mission fragmentation and program overlap are
widespread and that crosscutting federal program
efforts are not well coordinated. Unfocused and
uncoordinated crosscutting programs waste scarce
resources, confuse and frustrate taxpayers and
program beneficiaries, and limit overall program
effectiveness. In addition to the well-publicized
coordination problems in the nation's food safety,
employment training, and community development
programs, our work has shown that this lack of
progress plagues other vital national program
areas as well.

     In spite of direction from Congress and the
President, federal efforts to combat terrorism
have been particularly prone to problems with
interagency coordination. For example, we found
that the executive branch was not tracking
spending or developing priorities for the billions
of dollars that it is investing in this area for
an increasing number of programs and initiatives.
Congress tried to correct this deficiency through
legislation that required OMB to track spending
and report on program priorities and duplication
of effort. Although it has begun tracking this
spending, OMB's 1999 report did not include any
discussion about priorities or efforts to reduce
or eliminate duplicative programs and activities
across the federal government.

     If GPRA is effectively implemented, the
governmentwide performance plan and the agencies'
annual performance plans and subsequent
performance reports should provide Congress with
new information on crosscutting programs. Then,
Congress can use this information to identify
agencies and programs addressing similar missions.
Once these programs are identified, Congress can
consider the associated policy, management, and
performance implications of crosscutting programs
as part of its oversight over the executive
branch. This will present challenges to the
traditional committee structures and processes. A
continuing issue for Congress to consider is how
to best focus on common results when mission areas
and programs cut across committee jurisdictions.

Congress might further want to consider whether a
more structured oversight mechanism is needed to
permit a coordinated congressional perspective on
governmentwide performance matters. One possible
approach would involve modifying the current
budget resolution.24 Already organized by budget
function, similar to the program performance
section of the President's governmentwide
performance plan, the resolution could be adapted
to permit Congress to respond to, and present a
coordinated congressional perspective on, the
President's governmentwide performance plan.

     At present, Congress has no direct mechanism
to respond to and provide a congressional
perspective upon the President's governmentwide
performance plan. For example, Congress has no
established mechanism to articulate performance
goals for the broad missions of government, to
assess alternative strategies that offer the most
promise for achieving these goals, or to define an
oversight agenda targeted on the most pressing
crosscutting performance and management issues.

Build the Capacity to Gather and Use Performance
Information
Our work over the past several years has
identified limitations in agencies' abilities to
produce credible program performance and cost data
and identify performance improvement
opportunities. These limitations are substantial
and long-standing, and they will not be quickly or
easily resolved. Similarly, we continue to be
concerned about the lack of capacity in many
federal agencies to undertake program evaluations.25
The absence of program evaluation capacity is a
major concern because a federal environment that
focuses on results-where federal efforts are often
but one factor among many that determine whether
goals are achieved-depends on program evaluation
to provide vital information about the
contribution of the federal effort.

The challenges facing EPA in collecting consistent
data to provide an overall, national picture of
performance are not unusual. EPA depends on state
and local agencies to provide the performance
information that indicates whether results are
being achieved. As contained in the Clean Water
Act, Congress left the primary monitoring
responsibility to the states for measuring
progress in cleaning up the nation's lakes,
rivers, and streams. However, inconsistencies in
water quality assessments and assessment
methodologies from state to state make it
difficult for EPA to aggregate the data and to use
the information to conclusively determine whether
the quality of rivers, lakes, and streams is
getting better or worse over time. Absent this
information, it has been difficult for EPA to set
priorities, evaluate the success of its programs
and activities, and report on its accomplishments
in a credible and informed way.

Under GPRA, agencies are to communicate to
Congress how they will verify and validate the
performance information that they will use to show
whether goals are being met. Discussing data
credibility and related issues in performance
reports also can provide important contextual
information to Congress. For example, Congress can
use this discussion to raise questions about
problems the agencies have had in collecting
needed results-oriented performance information
and the cost and data quality trade-offs
associated with various collection strategies.
Finally, GPRA requires agencies to include in
their performance reports summary findings of
those program evaluations completed during the
fiscal year covered by the report. Congress can
use such information to obtain a clearer picture
of the agencies' contributions to improvements in
citizens' lives.

Summary
In summary, Mr. Chairman, House Committees have
made use of GPRA in conducting oversight and
making decisions about federal program efforts.
The House also has been actively involved in
overseeing and assessing agencies' progress in
implementing the Act. However, the first annual
performance reports, which are now being issued,
offer the opportunity to move Congress' and the
executive branch's use of GPRA to a deeper and
more substantive level. These reports, which are
to provide the first governmentwide information on
the performance of federal programs, should prove
valuable to Congress as it seeks to improve the
performance, management, and accountability of the
federal government.

     We have long advocated that congressional
committees of jurisdiction hold augmented
oversight hearings on each of the major agencies
at least once each Congress and preferably on an
annual basis. Information in agencies' plans and
reports produced under the Results Act, high-
quality financial and program cost data, and other
related information can help Congress in targeting
its oversight efforts and identifying
opportunities for additional improvements in
agencies' management. This information on
missions, goals, strategies, resources, costs, and
results could provide a consistent starting point
for each of these hearings and allow for more
informed discussions about issues such as the
following:

ï¿½    What progress is the agency making in
limiting its vulnerability to fraud, waste, abuse,
and mismanagement by addressing mission-critical
management challenges and program risks.
ï¿½    Does the agency have the best mix of
programs, initiatives, and other strategies to
achieve results and operate in an economical and
efficient manner.
ï¿½    Is the agency pursuing the right goals and
making progress toward achieving them.
Specifically, changing circumstances and/or
program performance may suggest that programs are
outdated and need to be revised or terminated.
ï¿½    Are the eligibility rules for federal benefit
programs properly targeted and do opportunities
exist for reform, reduction, or termination based
on changing conditions and perceptions of need.
ï¿½    Is the federal government effectively
coordinating its responses to pressing national
needs.
ï¿½    Is the federal government achieving an
expected level of performance for the budgetary
and other resource commitments that have been
provided.  More directly, what type of return are
the taxpayers getting for their investment in the
agency and its programs.
ï¿½    Are there efforts under way to ensure that
the agency's human capital strategies are linked
to strategic and programmatic planning and
accountability mechanisms.
ï¿½    What is the status of the agency's efforts to
use information technology to achieve results.

Finally, as I mentioned earlier, through the
appointment and confirmation process, the Senate
has an added opportunity to make clear its
commitment to high performance and sound federal
management by exploring with nominees what they
plan to do to ensure that their agencies are
striving to be high-performing organizations.

As you know, Mr. Chairman, I am personally
committed to the successful implementation of
GPRA-I have seen in my public and private sector
careers how GPRA's purposes of improved
performance and accountability can be achieved
through the disciplined application of the goal-
setting, planning, performance measurement, and
reporting requirements of the Act. As a sign of my
commitment, within the coming weeks, GAO will for
the first time issue a strategic plan and
associated annual performance plan that are
consistent with the requirements and best
practices of GPRA. We seek, through our strategic
and annual planning process, to "lead by example"
by being a model for implementation of GPRA.  We
do this even though we are not required to comply
with GPRA. Rather, we do it because GPRA's
requirements make good business sense. Most
important, our strategic and annual performance
plans will clearly set out our direction and show
how GAO aims to better support Congress in
carrying out its constitutional responsibilities
and in improving the performance and
accountability of the federal government for the
benefit of the American people.

We are very pleased that Congress has turned to us
in recent years to assess the implementation of
GPRA and assist Congress in its oversight and use
of the Act. We look forward to continuing to
support Congress' efforts to strengthen its
oversight and decisionmaking.

Mr. Chairman, this concludes my prepared
statement. I would be pleased to respond to any
questions that you or other Members of the
Subcommittee may have.

Contact and Acknowledgments

For further information regarding this testimony,
please contact J. Christopher Mihm, Associate
Director, Federal Management and Workforce Issues,
at (202) 512-8676. Individuals making key
contributions to this testimony included Susan
Ragland, Dottie Self, Donna Byers, Robin Nazzaro,
and Shelia Drake.

_______________________________
1 Budget Issues: Effective Oversight and Budget
Discipline are Essential-Even in a Time of Surplus
(GAO/T-AIMD-00-73, Feb. 1, 2000); and
Congressional Oversight: Opportunities to Address
Risks, Reduce Costs, and Improve Performance
(GAO/T-AIMD-00-96, Feb. 17, 2000).
2Managing for Results: An Agenda To Improve the
Usefulness of Agencies' Annual Performance Plans
(GAO/GGD/AIMD-98-228, Sept. 8, 1998); and Managing
for Results: Opportunities for Continued
Improvements in Agencies' Performance Plans
(GAO/GGD/AIMD-99-215, July 20, 1999).
3 Human Capital: A Self-Assessment Checklist fort
Agency Leaders (GAO/GGD-99-179, September 1999).
4 Performance Measure Provisions in the 105th
Congress: Analysis of a Selected Compilation,
Genevieve J. Knezo and Virginia A. McMurtry, The
Congressional Research Service, December 1998.
5 Homeless Veterans: VA Expands Partnerships, but
Effectiveness of Homeless Programs is Unclear
(GAO/T-HEHS-99-150, June 24, 1999); and Homeless
Veterans: VA Expands Partnerships, but Homeless
Program Effectiveness is Unclear (GAO/HEHS-99-53,
Apr. 1, 1999).
6 Veterans' Employment and Training Service:
Strategic and Performance Plans Lack Vision and
Clarity (GAO/T-HEHS-99-177, July 29, 1999); and
Veterans' Employment and Training Service:
Focusing on Program Results to Improve Agency
Performance (GAO/T-HEHS-97-129, May 7, 1997).
7 Measuring Performance: Strengths and Limitations
of Research Indicators (GAO/RCED-97-91, Mar. 21,
1997).
8 Managing for Results: Key Steps and Challenges
In Implementing GPRA In Science Agencies (GAO/T-
GGD/RCED-96-214, July 10, 1996).
9 Results Act: Observations on Federal Science
Agencies (GAO/T-RCED-97-220, July 30, 1997).
10 Measuring Performance: Challenges in Evaluating
Research and Development (GAO/T-RCED-97-130, Apr.
10, 1997).
11 Federal Research: Information on the Advanced
Technology Program's Award Selection (GAO/RCED-99-
258R, Aug. 3, 1999).
12 Managing for Results: Enhancing the Usefulness
of GPRA Consultations Between the Executive Branch
and Congress (GAO/T-GGD-97-56, Mar. 10, 1997).
13 Managing for Results: Agencies' Annual
Performance Plans Can Help Address Strategic
Planning Challenges (GAO/GGD/98-44, Jan. 30,
1998).
14 Managing for Results: An Agenda to Improve the
Usefulness of Agencies' Annual Performance Plans
(GAO/GGD/AIMD-98-228, Sept. 8, 1998).
15 GAO/GGD/AIMD-99-215, July 20, 1999.
16 GAO/T-AIMD-00-96, February 17, 2000.
17 GAO/GGD/AIMD-98-228, September 8, 1998.
18 GAO/GGD/AIMD-99-215, July 20, 1999.
19 VA Health Care: Challenges Facing VA in
Developing an Asset Realignment Process (GAO/T-
HEHS-99-173, July 22, 1999).
20 Federal Real Property Management: Answers to
Hearing Questions (GAO/GGD-99-130R, July 1, 1999).
21 Agency Performance Plans: Examples of Practices
that Can Improve Usefulness to Decisionmakers
(GAO/GGD/AIMD-99-69, Feb. 26, 1999).
22 Agricultural Trade: Changes Made to Market
Access Program, But Questions Remain on Economic
Impact (GAO/NSIAD-99-38, Apr. 5, 1999).
23 Disaster Assistance: Improvements Needed in
Determining Eligibility for Public Assistance
(GAO/RCED-96-113, May 23, 1996); and, more
recently, Disaster Assistance: Information on
Federal Costs and Approaches for Reducing Them
(GAO/T-RCED-98-139, Mar. 26, 1998).
24 We first raised this option in GAO/T-AIMD-00-73,
February 1, 2000.
25 GAO/GGD/AIMD-98-228, September 8, 1998.
*** End of document ***