Managing For Results: Enhancing the Usefulness of GPRA Consultations
Between the Executive Branch and Congress (Testimony, 03/10/97,
GAO/T-GGD-97-56).

GAO discussed ways to enhance the usefulness of consultations between
executive branch agencies and Congress as the agencies develop their
strategic plans, as required by the Government Performance and Results
Act (GPRA).

GAO noted that: (1) although GPRA requires congressional consultations,
it does not specify what constitutes a consultation, at what point in
the development process of a strategic plan the consultations should
take place, or which committees should be involved in consultations; (2)
both committee staff and agency officials GAO interviewed recognize that
the consultations on strategic planning are important to developing an
agency plan that appropriately takes into account the views of Congress;
(3) however, as is to expected during the initial stages of a new
effort, all participants are struggling to define how the consultation
process can work effectively; (4) although the establishment of a set of
best practices, or the attainment of common understandings of what
consultations will entail, can help ensure that those consultations are
as productive as possible, no single set of best practices has yet
emerged; (5) instead, GAO's work on preliminary consultations suggested
some general approaches that may contribute to the usefulness of future
consultations, including: (a) creating shared expectations; (b) engaging
the right people; (c) addressing differing views of what is to be
discussed; and (d) establishing a consultation process that is
iterative; (6) a recent letter to the Director of the Office of
Management and Budget 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 on GPRA-required consultations should provide a
good foundation for successful consultations; (7) ultimately, the
guidelines included in the letter, the approaches GAO identified, and
other practices that may emerge as agency officials and committee staff
continue to learn to work together in developing strategic plans, can
help create a set of practices that promote successful consultations;
and (8) successful consultations, in turn, can promote a basic
understanding among the stakeholders of the competing demands that
confront most agencies and congressional staff, the limited resources
available to them, and how those demands and resources require careful
and continuous balancing.

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

 REPORTNUM:  T-GGD-97-56
     TITLE:  Managing For Results: Enhancing the Usefulness of GPRA 
             Consultations Between the Executive Branch and Congress
      DATE:  03/10/97
   SUBJECT:  Agency missions
             Congressional/executive relations
             Strategic planning
             Reengineering (management)
             Congressional oversight
             Productivity

             
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Cover
================================================================ COVER


Before the Subcommittee on Management, Information
and Technology
Committee on Government Reform and Oversight
House of Representatives

For Release on Delivery
Expected at
10:00 a.m.  EST
Monday
March 10, 1997

MANAGING FOR RESULTS - ENHANCING
THE USEFULNESS OF GPRA
CONSULTATIONS BETWEEN THE
EXECUTIVE BRANCH AND CONGRESS

Statement of L.  Nye Stevens, Director
Federal Management and Workforce Issues
General Government Division

GAO/T-GGD-97-56

GAO/GGD-97-56T

(410110)


Abbreviations
=============================================================== ABBREV

  GPRA - Government Performance and Results Act
  OMB - Office of Management and Budget
  PPBS - Planning-Programming-Budgeting System
  ZBB - Zero-Base Budgeting

MANAGING FOR RESULTS:  ENHANCING
THE USEFULNESS OF GPRA
CONSULTATIONS BETWEEN THE
EXECUTIVE BRANCH AND CONGRESS
====================================================== Chapter SUMMARY

Under the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA), each agency
is to develop a strategic plan to lay out its mission, long-term
goals, and strategies for achieving those goals.  Agencies are
required to submit their plans to Congress by September 30, 1997, and
the plans are to take into consideration the views of Congress and
other stakeholders.  To ensure that these views are considered, GPRA
requires that as agencies develop their strategic plans, they consult
with Congress and solicit the views of other stakeholders. 

Although GPRA requires congressional consultations, it does not
specify what constitutes a consultation, at what point in the
development process of a strategic plan the consultations should take
place, or which committees should be involved in consultations.  Both
committee staff and agency officials GAO interviewed recognize that
the consultations on strategic planning are important to developing
an agency plan that appropriately takes into account the views of
Congress.  However, as is to be expected during the initial stages of
a new effort, all participants are struggling to define how the
consultation process can work effectively. 

Although the establishment of a set of best practices, or the
attainment of common understandings of what consultations will
entail, can help ensure that those consultations are as productive as
possible, no single set of best practices has yet emerged.  Instead,
GAO's work on preliminary consultations suggested some general
approaches that may contribute to the usefulness of future
consultations.  These approaches include creating shared
expectations, engaging the right people, addressing differing views
of what is to be discussed, and establishing a consultation process
that is iterative.  A recent letter to the Director of the Office of
Management and Budget 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 on GPRA-required
consultations should provide a good foundation for successful
consultations.  Ultimately, the guidelines included in the letter,
the approaches GAO identified, and other practices that may emerge as
agency officials and committee staff continue to learn to work
together in developing strategic plans, can help create a set of
practices that promote successful consultations.  Successful
consultations, in turn, can promote a basic understanding among the
stakeholders of the competing demands that confront most agencies and
congressional staff, the limited resources available to them, and how
those demands and resources require careful and continuous balancing. 


MANAGING FOR RESULTS:  ENHANCING
THE USEFULNESS OF GPRA
CONSULTATIONS BETWEEN THE
EXECUTIVE BRANCH AND CONGRESS
==================================================== Chapter STATEMENT

Mr.  Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee: 

I am pleased to be here today to discuss ways of enhancing the
usefulness of consultations between executive branch agencies and
Congress, as the agencies develop their strategic plans.  Under the
Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA), each agency is to
develop a strategic plan to lay out its mission, long-term goals, and
strategies for achieving those goals.  Agencies are required to
submit their plans to Congress by September 30, 1997.  The strategic
plans are to take into consideration the views of Congress and other
stakeholders.  To ensure that these views are taken into account,
GPRA requires agencies to consult with Congress and solicit the views
of other stakeholders as they develop their strategic plans. 

These consultations 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.  In previous
testimony before the full Committee on February 12, we identified
examples of management-related challenges stemming from unclear
agency missions; the lack of results-oriented performance goals; the
absence of well-conceived strategies to meet those goals; and the
failure to gather and use accurate, reliable, and timely program
performance and cost information to measure progress in achieving
results.\1 We also described how GPRA can assist Congress and the
executive branch in addressing these challenges and improving the
management of federal agencies. 

Congress and the administration have both demonstrated that they
recognize that successful consultations are key to the success of
GPRA and therefore to sustained improvements in federal management. 
For example, Congress signaled its strong commitment to GPRA and the
consultation process through a February 25, 1997, letter to the
Director of the Office of Management and Budget (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 GPRA, noted a willingness on
the part of Congress to work cooperatively with the administration,
and established expectations for consultations.  The administration
also has shown its commitment to consulting with Congress on agency
strategic plans through a letter from the Director of OMB to
executive agencies sent last November and earlier guidance to
agencies on the preparation of strategic plans. 

This willingness on the part of Congress and the administration to
work together is a likely precondition to successful consultations. 
Nonetheless, the consultations may still prove difficult because they
entail a different working relationship between agencies and Congress
than has generally prevailed in the past.  In a forthcoming report,
we will compare and contrast key design elements and approaches of
GPRA with those of past federal initiatives that sought to link
resources to results, such as the Planning-Programming-Budgeting
System (PPBS) and Zero-Base Budgeting (ZBB).  One clear lesson that
emerged from those prior initiatives is that constructive
communication across the branches of government is difficult, but
absolutely essential if management reform is to be sustained. 
Discussions between agencies and Congress on strategic planning are
likely to underscore the competing and conflicting goals of many
federal programs, as well as the sometimes different expectations of
the legislative and executive branches. 

Over the past few months, we have been asked to help brief a number
of congressional committees on GPRA and, in some cases, directly
assist them in their consultations with agencies.  Building in part
on that effort, and at the request of the Chairman of the House
Budget Committee, we have been examining selected consultations on
strategic plans that have taken place thus far.  As part of related
work we were doing in January looking at agencies' progress in
developing strategic plans, officials at the headquarters level, from
11 of the 24 largest executive branch agencies, said that they had
been in contact with congressional committees--often at the
initiative of Congress--on their strategic plans.  Headquarters-level
officials in the remaining 13 executive branch agencies said that
although they had not met with congressional staff, officials from
some of their components had met with authorizing committees and
appropriating subcommittees on matters related to strategic planning. 

For our current review, we selected consultations to cover a range of
types of interactions (from single meetings to sustained contacts),
types of agencies (e.g., regulatory, direct service, and
business-like), and type of congressional committee (e.g.,
authorizing and appropriating).  Based on our selection criteria, we
interviewed staff from five House committees who participated in the
selected consultations with agencies.  These interviews included
staff from both authorizing committees and the appropriations
committee.  We also interviewed officials from 9 of the 11 executive
agencies who participated in those consultations.  All of the
selected consultations took place before the congressional letter was
sent in late February.  Our work was aimed at identifying approaches
that, in the view of congressional staff and agency officials, have
the potential to enhance the usefulness of the consultations required
by GPRA.  As agreed with the Chairman of the House Budget Committee
and this Subcommittee, I will discuss the results of that work today. 


--------------------
\1 See Managing for Results:  Using GPRA to Assist Congressional and
Executive Branch Decisionmaking (GAO/T-GGD-97-43, Feb.  12, 1997). 


   NUMBER AND SCOPE OF
   CONSULTATIONS, THUS FAR,
   PROVIDE A LIMITED BASIS FOR
   IDENTIFYING USEFUL PRACTICES
-------------------------------------------------- Chapter STATEMENT:1

Congressional staff and agency officials expressed a widespread
appreciation for the essential role that consultations can play in
the development of a strategic plan that is useful to the agency and
appropriately takes into account the views of Congress.  Although
GPRA requires congressional consultations, it does not specify what
constitutes a consultation, at what point in the development process
of a strategic plan the consultation or consultations should take
place, or which committees should be involved in consultations. 
Establishing a set of best practices or reaching a common
understanding of what consultations will entail can help ensure that
the consultations are as productive as possible.  However,
congressional staff and agency officials said they believed that
because of their generally limited experience with such
consultations, it will take time for Congress and agencies to develop
a base of common experiences from which to build a set of specific
best practices for future consultations. 

Most committee staff and agency officials had positive comments about
the meetings that have been held thus far.  However, both committee
staff and agency officials--committee staff in particular--stressed
the very limited nature of the meetings.  The meetings varied
significantly, ranging from routine base-touching sessions with
congressional staff as part of an agency's broad scan of internal and
external stakeholders, to substantive and candid dialogue on an
agency's mission, strategic goals, strategies to achieve those goals,
and outcome-related performance measures. 

Most committee staff and some agency officials we spoke with
characterized the meetings that have taken place thus far as
briefings, preconsultations, or preliminary consultations.  Thus, at
this early point, no single set of best practices for consultations
has emerged from the preliminary meetings.  Instead, committee staff
and agency officials suggested some general approaches that center on
the creation of shared expectations between committee staff and
agency officials that may contribute to the usefulness of such
consultations. 


   CREATING SHARED EXPECTATIONS
   WAS IDENTIFIED AS AN ESSENTIAL
   STARTING POINT FOR SUCCESSFUL
   CONSULTATIONS
-------------------------------------------------- Chapter STATEMENT:2

By working together to create shared expectations, consultation
participants can establish an understanding of what they want to
discuss, what they do not want to enter into the discussions, and
what they expect to achieve from their discussions.  To avoid
misunderstandings and consequent disappointment, both committee staff
and agency officials identified a need to define "up front" what they
expect to achieve from consultations.  For example, one committee
staff member said that he asked for and expected to receive
background information in the initial meeting with an agency about
what the agency had done to achieve the requirements of GPRA, and
that his expectations were met.  However, in another case, two
committee staff who asked for and expected a discussion on an
agency's mission statement, its consistency with statute, and its
relationship to the agency's strategic goals, among other things,
were disappointed.  Instead, they received a 1-1/2 hour slide show on
the requirements of GPRA, even though they had told the agency
beforehand that they did not need such a presentation. 

The congressional letter provided guidelines that are intended to
make consultations more productive.  For example, the letter
described expectations for the contents of draft strategic plans and
said that agencies should provide relevant materials in advance of
consultations.  The congressional letter also provided a list of the
types of topics that the congressional majority expects to be
discussed during consultations.  Our work suggests that the
guidelines in the congressional letter should go a long way toward
assisting committees and agencies in conducting their consultations
by helping to establish a shared understanding of the congressional
majority's expectations.  For example, two committee staff members
told us that they encouraged agencies to provide them with relevant
documents, including early drafts of strategic plans, before the
meetings.  This enabled them to prepare questions and suggestions in
advance.  It also helped them focus better on the presentations and
discussions taking place during the meetings by eliminating the need
to read and respond to the documents at the same time.  Another
committee staff member stressed the importance of limiting the
materials provided as part of consultations to critical documents,
because congressional staff workloads severely constrain the time
available to read additional paperwork. 

Although the congressional letter helps to establish generic
expectations that would be useful in helping to provide a good
foundation for successful consultations, both committee staff and
agency officials we interviewed stressed that consultations
ultimately must be tailored to the individual experiences and needs
of congressional committees and agencies.  More specifically,
congressional staff and agency officials noted that the historical
relationships between an agency and Congress, the strategic issues
confronting the agency, and the degree of policy agreement or
disagreement within Congress and between Congress and the
administration on those strategic issues will heavily influence the
way consultations are carried out. 

They also noted that these political differences will affect the
probability of success of the consultations from either a the
congressional or agency perspective.  For example, one committee
staff member said that major disagreements existed between the
political parties as to the basic direction of an agency under his
committee's jurisdiction.  According to this staff member, when
subcommittee staff met with this agency's officials, the discussion
quickly became quite confrontational, and the session only served to
reinforce tensions rather than resolve them.  To avoid repeating this
situation, the staff member has sought to focus subsequent meetings
on elements of the agency's strategic plan on which the possibility
for consensus exists, such as how best to manage programs, and either
leave issues arising from contentious policy differences for later
consideration or address them through correspondence with the agency. 
The staff member contrasted the consultations with this agency with
those engaged in with another agency, also under the jurisdiction of
his committee, where broad agreement existed between the Members of
the committee and agency officials on the appropriate goals for the
agency and how those goals should be met.  In this case, he said the
consultation process differed significantly in process and tone from
the one in which strong differences existed on basic policy issues. 

Our discussions with congressional staff and agency officials
indicated that consultations also are more effective when they are
tailored for the interests and knowledge levels of participants.  An
approach that committee staff and agency officials generally said
helped them use time productively in initial consultations consisted
of gearing agency presentations to the level of interest and
understanding of the committee staff.  One staff member stressed the
importance of providing information on improvements that have
occurred in programs where strategic planning has been used
successfully.  Two staff members said that when they had their
initial meetings with the agencies, they were just beginning to
understand what GPRA required and what the agencies were doing to
fulfill its requirements.  Consequently, they favored having basic
overview briefings at those initial meetings.  Other staff felt that
they were already well acquainted with GPRA; they therefore said that
such briefings would be a waste of time.  In addition, these latter
staff members said that agencies should encourage follow-up questions
after each meeting and feedback on what went well and what did not go
well during the meeting. 

Our discussions with committee staff and agency officials suggest
that as committees and agencies work together to create shared
expectations, some general approaches may contribute to the
usefulness of the consultations.  These approaches include the need
for engaging the right people, addressing differing views of what is
to be discussed, and establishing a consultation process that is
iterative. 


      ENGAGING THE RIGHT PEOPLE
------------------------------------------------ Chapter STATEMENT:2.1

Including people who are knowledgeable about the topic at hand is
obviously important to any meeting.  Almost everyone we talked with,
both committee staff and agency officials, stressed the importance of
having agency officials who can answer specific program-related
questions attend the consultations, as well as officials with
authority to revise the agency's strategic plans.  Otherwise, as both
committee staff and agency officials said, consultations run the risk
of becoming purely a staff-driven exercise that lacks a real link to
agency management decisions. 

According to committee staff, agency officials with varying
responsibilities need to be involved in consultations.  For example,
two committee staff members observed that, initially, agency
consultations with congressional staff should include, at a minimum,
officials with direct program responsibility in agencies, as well as
individuals from agency staff offices with general planning
responsibilities.  According to the committee staff members, the
direct involvement of program-level agency officials is important in
order to demonstrate that decisions made as part of the strategic
planning process are serving as a basis for daily operations within
the agency.  These staff members noted that a measure of GPRA's
success is the identification of program officials who are able to
(1) clearly show how their program goals are directly linked to
agency strategic goals and (2) demonstrate how they are using GPRA to
manage their operations.  According to the committee staff members,
the involvement of program officials also is more likely to ensure
that consultations are informative for both Congress and the agency. 

Staff from two committees underscored the importance of including in
the consultations congressional staff who have knowledge of GPRA,
strategic planning, and the ways Congress can use GPRA to aid its
decisionmaking.  They also noted that staff who could discuss the
intricacies of agency programs and who had strong public policy and
finance backgrounds also should be brought in to the consultations to
analyze the plans and the supporting documentation that agencies
provided. 

As the consultations proceed, according to committee staff, the
involvement of Members of Congress and senior management within
agencies is important because Members and senior managers are
ultimately responsible for making decisions about agency strategic
directions and the level of program funding.  In addition, staff said
the involvement of senior management demonstrates their personal
commitment and, in cases where that commitment may not be present, is
helpful to building that commitment.  For example, one committee
staff member said that the higher the level of agency management
involved in consultations, the better the quality of the agency
testimonies at oversight hearings and the greater the importance
given to GPRA and the strategic planning process within the agencies. 

A staff member from another committee said that true consultation
cannot take place without engaging Members of Congress.  He said that
committee staff should be involved in the initial briefings but that,
as discussions progressed, Members needed to be directly involved. 
Member involvement could be obtained in a number of ways in addition
to active participation in consultation sessions.  For example,
Members could send letters to agencies posing questions on strategic
plans and formally documenting their views on key issues. 

Another staff member said that hearings are important because not
only do they result in Member involvement, but they also require the
participation of senior agency management.  In that regard, a number
of House committees are considering holding hearings this spring,
after at least some consultations have taken place, in order to
provide oversight on agency GPRA efforts and as a way of creating a
public record of agreements reached during consultations. 

Congressional staff and agency officials generally agreed that
consultations should be bipartisan and bicameral to ensure buy-in
from all cognizant parties.  In addition, both committee staff and
agency officials agreed that, to the extent feasible, consultations
should be held jointly with appropriate authorizing, budget, and
appropriating committees.  Committee staff recognized that due to the
at times overlapping jurisdictions of congressional committees,
obtaining the involvement of all interested congressional committees
in a coordinated approach to consultations can be challenging.  The
often overlapping or fragmented nature of federal program efforts--a
problem that has been extensively documented in our work--underscores
the importance of a coordinated consultation process.\2 In that
regard, the effort now under way in the House to form teams of
congressional staff from different committees to have a direct role
in the consultation process should prove helpful. 

From our discussions with committee staff and agency officials, it
was not apparent that there was consistency in the meetings that have
been held thus far.  Some agencies have met with their authorizing
committees; others with their appropriators.  Of the five House
committees whose staff we interviewed, four committees included
minority staff in their meetings.  And although some House committee
staff attempted to include Senate staff and staff from other House
committees, their attempts thus far have met with only limited
success. 

Committee staff and agency officials often favored agencies'
obtaining the views of other stakeholders in developing draft
strategic plans before congressional consultations took place.  One
committee staff member said that stakeholders could provide
information that could help an agency show a link between the
achievement of its programs' strategic goals and the resources
required to achieve them.  An agency official said that stakeholders
have helped to identify the major strategic issues facing his agency. 
For example, he said that stakeholders helped to identify perceived
strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and challenges that would be
involved in making strategic changes and achieving his agency's
goals.  In addition, he said that stakeholders also helped identify
future strategic issues and ways to address those issues through
strategic planning. 


--------------------
\2 See, for example, Managing for Results:  Achieving GPRA's
Objectives Requires Strong Congressional Role (GAO/T-GGD-96-79, Mar. 
6, 1996). 


      ADDRESSING DIFFERING VIEWS
      OF WHAT IS TO BE DISCUSSED
------------------------------------------------ Chapter STATEMENT:2.2

Committee staff and agency officials often presented differing views
on what they believed the level of detail discussed during
consultations should be.  Congressional staff, on the whole, wanted a
deeper examination of the details of agency strategic plans. 
Specifically, some staff wanted to know how programs support an
agency's achievement of its strategic goals and how the achievement
of the agency's goals would be determined.  In contrast, other
congressional staff noted that because some agencies lack baseline
and trend data needed to establish performance goals, it is not
possible to discuss program performance measures.  Therefore, the
staff noted the consultations needed to focus on the process of
agencies' strategic planning efforts, such as planning schedules and
time frames and building capacity. 

Some agency officials, however, said that it was their general
impression that the consultations were to concern only their
strategic plans, not issues related to specific programs.  As a
result, these agency officials said they wanted the discussions kept
at a higher level--for example, on agency mission and strategic
goals.  These officials said that they did not believe that the
consultation was a forum for discussing program performance goals,
measures, and costs.  Other agency officials, however, observed that
agencies should be prepared to provide information on programmatic
issues as well as missions and goals. 

Most committee staff agreed with this latter view, saying that
agencies need to be prepared to engage in discussions that go beyond
mission and goals to the program level and the rationale for specific
performance measures.  For example, two committee staff members said
that for agencies to provide a list of goals--whether program
performance goals or strategic goals--without data to show why those
goals were chosen and how progress toward achieving the goals would
be measured, was meaningless.  One of the two staff members said
agency officials need to ensure that their officials understand the
importance of having data to support their strategic planning efforts
and of supplying those supporting data to Congress as part of their
consultations.  The other staff member explained that one reason
Members and committee staff needed such information was to enable
them to intelligently assist agencies in selecting appropriate
performance measures. 


      ESTABLISHING A CONSULTATION
      PROCESS THAT IS ITERATIVE
------------------------------------------------ Chapter STATEMENT:2.3

All of the committee staff and agency officials we spoke with
acknowledged that they had just begun an iterative process that will
take time to complete.  In addition, both committee staff and agency
officials recognized that GPRA-required consultations were new and
would require a learning period.  As a result, all staff and
officials agreed that they should meet as many times as both sides
feel is necessary.  This point is echoed in the congressional letter
to the Director of OMB, which emphasizes that agency officials and
committee staff may need to continually work on updated versions of
the strategic plans. 

One committee staff member and one agency official said that it was
unreasonable to think that this year's consultations would be
all-inclusive and totally productive.  A committee staff member added
that agencies need to have a constant dialogue with congressional
staff.  Finally, an agency official said that all consultation
participants must accept that to be useful, the strategic plan must
be viewed as a dynamic document, subject to change and open to
criticism by all participants. 


------------------------------------------------ Chapter STATEMENT:2.4

In summary, Mr.  Chairman, both committee staff and agency officials
we spoke with recognized that the consultations on strategic planning
are important to developing an agency plan that appropriately takes
into account the views of Congress.  However, as is to be expected
during the initial stages of a new effort, all participants are
struggling to define how the consultation process can work
effectively.  As I mentioned, the letter from Congress to OMB should
be particularly helpful in this regard.  In our discussions with
committee staff and agency officials, they noted some general
approaches, including engaging the right people, addressing differing
views of what is to be discussed, and establishing a consultation
process that is iterative, that may contribute to the usefulness of
consultations.  Ultimately, these approaches, along with other
practices that may emerge as agency officials and committee staff
continue to learn to work together in developing strategic plans, can
help create a basic understanding among the stakeholders of the
competing demands that confront most agencies and congressional
staff, the limited resources available to them, and how those demands
and resources require careful and continuous balancing.  We look
forward to continuing to work with you and other committees on GPRA. 

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


*** End of document. ***