Managing for Results: Building on Agencies' Strategic Plans to Improve
Federal Management (Stmnt. for the Rec., 10/30/97, GAO/T-GGD/AIMD-98-29).

GAO concludes that because of recent progress by federal agencies in
developing their strategic plans, these plans should generally provide a
workable foundation for continuing efforts to expand performance-based
management in the government. Much of this progress appears to have
resulted from consultations with Congress. Although difficult
implementation challenges remain, Congress and the agencies have, by
taking advantage of the consultation process, established the groundwork
for continued progress in implementing the Government Performance and
Results Act and generating information that Congress and agencies need
to improve management of the federal government. The Results Act
establishes an iterative process for performance-based management, with
the foundation being the agency's strategic plan. The next step--the
annual performance plans--offers an opportunity for Congress and the
agencies to further clarify goals and ensure that proper strategies are
in place to achieve them. Agencies' annual plans and the governmentwide
performance plan prepared by the President can form the basis for agency
and congressional decisions about how best to manage crosscutting
program efforts. Finally, the annual plans, and later accountability
reports, can help highlight and address issues involving the collection
and analysis of program performance and cost information.

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

 REPORTNUM:  T-GGD/AIMD-98-29
     TITLE:  Managing for Results: Building on Agencies' Strategic Plans 
             to Improve Federal Management
      DATE:  10/30/97
   SUBJECT:  Strategic planning
             Congressional/executive relations
             Interagency relations
             Program evaluation
             Agency missions
             Financial management
             Information resources management
             Management information systems
IDENTIFIER:  GPRA
             Government Performance and Results Act
             
******************************************************************
** This file contains an ASCII representation of the text of a  **
** GAO report.  Delineations within the text indicating chapter **
** titles, headings, and bullets are preserved.  Major          **
** divisions and subdivisions of the text, such as Chapters,    **
** Sections, and Appendixes, are identified by double and       **
** single lines.  The numbers on the right end of these lines   **
** indicate the position of each of the subsections in the      **
** document outline.  These numbers do NOT correspond with the  **
** page numbers of the printed product.                         **
**                                                              **
** No attempt has been made to display graphic images, although **
** figure captions are reproduced.  Tables are included, but    **
** may not resemble those in the printed version.               **
**                                                              **
** Please see the PDF (Portable Document Format) file, when     **
** available, for a complete electronic file of the printed     **
** document's contents.                                         **
**                                                              **
** A printed copy of this report may be obtained from the GAO   **
** Document Distribution Center.  For further details, please   **
** send an e-mail message to:                                   **
**                                                              **
**                                            **
**                                                              **
** with the message 'info' in the body.                         **
******************************************************************


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


Before the Committee on Government Reform and
Oversight
House of Representatives

Not to Be Released
Before 2:00 p.m.  EST
Thursday
October 30, 1997

MANAGING FOR RESULTS - BUILDING ON
AGENCIES'
STRATEGIC PLANS TO IMPROVE
FEDERAL MANAGEMENT

Statement for the Record by James F.  Hinchman
Acting Comptroller General of the United States

GAO/T-GGD/AIMD-98-29

GAO/GGD/AIMD-98-29T


(410222)


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

  CFO - Chief Financial Officer
  DOE - Department of Energy
  EPA - Environmental Protection Agency
  FASAB - Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board
  GPRA - Government Performance and Results Act
  GSA - General Services Administration
  OMB - Office of Management and Budget

MANAGING FOR RESULTS:  BUILDING ON
AGENCIES' STRATEGIC PLANS TO
IMPROVE FEDERAL MANAGEMENT
==================================================== Chapter STATEMENT

Mr.  Chairman and Members of the Committee: 

I am pleased to be here today to discuss the strategic plans that
agencies submitted to Congress and the Office of Management and
Budget (OMB) in September and how Congress and the agencies can build
on those plans to more effectively implement the Government
Performance and Results Act, which is known as the Results Act or
GPRA. 

In recent years, governments around the world, including ours, have
faced a citizenry that is demanding that government become at once
more effective and less costly.\1 These twin demands are the broad
forces behind the move to a performance-based approach to management
in public sector organizations--the most important effort to improve
government management in over a generation. 

In my appearance before this Committee last February, I discussed the
statutory framework that Congress has established as part of the
federal government's response to the public's demands for improved
federal management.\2 That framework, which was enacted under the
leadership of this Committee and the Senate Committee on Governmental
Affairs, includes as its essential elements the Chief Financial
Officers (CFO) Act; information technology reform legislation,
including the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 and the Clinger-Cohen
Act of 1996; and the Results Act.  If effectively implemented, this
statutory framework promises to bring a more disciplined approach to
federal management and to provide Congress and agency decisionmakers
with vital information to better assess the performance and costs of
federal programs. 

I said in February that the agency strategic planning and
congressional consultation process, which was just beginning at that
point, provided an important opportunity to establish the foundation
for making the needed improvements in federal management.  Over the
last several months, as agencies were developing their strategic
plans, Congress and agencies have taken advantage of the consultation
process to work together.  Congress clearly underscored its
commitment to the Results Act in the correspondence between the
Speaker of the House, the Majority Leaders of the Senate and House,
and other senior Members of Congress and the Director of OMB on the
Majority's expectations for consultation. 

In addition to the many consultations and the feedback provided to
agencies, congressional committees, particularly in the House,
conducted numerous oversight hearings on agencies' progress in
developing strategic plans.  Signalling their commitment to improving
federal management and implementing the Results Act, the
Appropriations Committees have clearly indicated their intention to
support and extend the use of agency goals and performance measures
during the appropriations process.  This should allow the
Appropriations Committees to reap the byproducts of better management
and better data for guiding budget decisions. 

The active bipartisan engagement of Members and congressional staff
unquestionably contributed to the progress that agencies have made in
developing strategic plans.  On the whole, these plans should prove
useful to Congress in undertaking the full range of its
appropriation, budget, authorization, and oversight responsibilities
and to agencies in setting a general direction for their efforts. 
Nonetheless, agencies' strategic planning efforts, and more generally
the implementation of the Results Act, are still very much a work in
progress.  The strategic plans that agencies recently provided to
Congress and OMB are only the starting points for the broad
transformation that is needed to successfully implement
performance-based management, and, as expected, difficult
implementation issues remain to be addressed. 

At the request of this Committee and others in Congress, we have
produced a large body of work in recent years that assessed agencies'
efforts in beginning to implement the Results Act and highlighted the
major implementation challenges that need to be addressed.\3 Most
recently, Mr.  Chairman, you and others in the Majority Leadership
asked us to review agencies' draft strategic plans as well as their
September submissions to Congress and OMB.  In July and August, we
issued separate reports on the draft plans that 27 agencies provided
to Congress as part of the consultation process.  We then issued a
report summarizing our reviews of the draft plans, which highlighted
the key planning issues that were most in need of sustained
attention.\4 Not surprisingly, many of the key planning issues that
emerged, such as the need to coordinate crosscutting program efforts
and ensure that data are sufficiently accurate and reliable, are
consistent with the Results Act implementation challenges that we had
been reporting on for some time.  Our reviews of the September plans
found that, while some progress had been made in addressing these
issues, they likely will continue to challenge agencies' further
efforts to implement the Results Act. 


--------------------
\1 See, for example, Managing for Results:  Experiences Abroad
Suggest Insights for Federal Management Reform (GAO/GGD-95-120, May
2, 1995); Managing for Results:  State Experiences Provide Insights
for Federal Management Reforms (GAO/GGD-95-22, Dec.  21, 1994); and
Government Reform:  Goal-Setting and Performance
(GAO/AIMD/GGD-95-130R, Mar.  27, 1995). 

\2 Managing for Results:  Using GPRA to Assist Congressional and
Executive Branch Decisionmaking (GAO/T-GGD-97-43, Feb.  12, 1997). 

\3 See, for example, The Government Performance And Results Act: 
1997 Governmentwide Implementation Will Be Uneven (GAO/GGD-97-109,
June 2, 1997). 

\4 Managing for Results:  Critical Issues for Improving Federal
Agencies' Strategic Plans (GAO/GGD-97-180, Sept.  16, 1997). 


   SEPTEMBER PLANS GENERALLY
   INCLUDED REQUIRED ELEMENTS
-------------------------------------------------- Chapter STATEMENT:1

The Results Act requires that strategic plans include six broad
elements--mission statements, general goals and objectives,
strategies for achieving goals, a description of the relationship
between general goals and annual performance goals, key external
factors, and a description of the actual use and planned use of
program evaluations.  When we reviewed the draft plans that 27
agencies provided to Congress for consultation, we found that all but
six of the plans were missing at least one required element and that
about a third were missing two of the six required elements.  In
addition, just over a fourth of the plans failed to cover at least
three of the required elements.  Moreover, we found that many of the
elements that the plans included contained weaknesses--some that were
more significant than others.  We noted in our September report that
complete strategic plans were crucial if they were to serve as a
basis for guiding agencies' operations and help congressional and
other policymakers make decisions about activities and programs.\5

On the basis of our preliminary reviews of major agencies' September
plans, it appears that, on the whole, the agencies made a concerted
effort during August and September to improve their plans.  For
example, all of the September plans we reviewed contained at least
some discussion of each element required by the Act.  And, in many
cases, those elements that had been included in the draft plans for
consultation were substantially improved.  This improvement is in
large part a reflection of the dialogue that occurred between the
agencies and Congress and is therefore also a reflection of the value
of the Results Act requirement for such consultations.  These plans
appear to provide a workable foundation for the next phase of the
Results Act's implementation--annual performance planning and
measurement. 


--------------------
\5 GAO/GGD-97-180, Sept.  16, 1997. 


   CRITICAL IMPLEMENTATION ISSUES
   REMAIN TO BE ADDRESSED AS
   EFFORTS UNDER THE RESULTS ACT
   PROCEED
-------------------------------------------------- Chapter STATEMENT:2

As Congress and agencies build on the strategic planning and other
Results Act efforts undertaken thus far, our work suggests that
several critical issues will have to be addressed if the Results Act
is to succeed in improving the management of federal agencies.  Among
these critical issues are the need to (1) clearly establish a
strategic direction for agencies by improving goal-setting and
performance measurement; (2) improve the management of crosscutting
program efforts by ensuring that those programs are appropriately
coordinated; and (3) ensure that agencies have the data systems and
analytic capacity in place to better assess program results and
costs, improve management and performance, and establish
accountability.  The forthcoming annual performance planning and
measurement and performance-reporting phases of the Results Act
provide important opportunities to address these long-standing
management issues. 


      CLARIFY A STRATEGIC
      DIRECTION TO GUIDE DAILY
      OPERATIONS
------------------------------------------------ Chapter STATEMENT:2.1

It appears that agencies generally have taken the first steps toward
establishing a strategic direction in their September plans, which
should be useful to agencies as they move to the next phase of
performance-based management--that is, performance planning and
measurement.  However, the strategic plans are still very much works
in progress, and agencies will likely need to revisit their strategic
planning efforts as they develop the forthcoming annual performance
plans.  As agencies develop those plans, they will need to ensure
that goals and strategies are appropriate given the current fiscal
environment and that goal-setting and performance measurement efforts
form the basis for managing program products, services, and daily
activities. 

We found that agencies need to continue to make progress in refining
goals and objectives to better specify the results that they intend
to achieve.  For example, the Department of Health and Human Services
has made progress over the last few months in developing objectives
that, for the most part, are results-oriented and measurable. 
However, ensuring that goals are as results-oriented as they can be
and are expressed in a manner that enables a subsequent assessment of
whether the goals were achieved is a continuing challenge for
agencies and Congress.\6 As an agency develops its performance plan,
which is to contain the annual goals it will use to track progress
toward its longer term strategic goals, it likely will identify
opportunities to revise and clarify those strategic goals in order to
provide a better grounding for the direction of the agency. 

In addition, as an agency seeks to further refine its goals, it also
will need to ensure that it can articulate linkages between
strategies, programs, and initiatives to achieve those goals.\7 We
noted some improvements in the September plans; however, we found
that those plans did not always establish clear linkages between
goals, objectives, and strategies.  The annual performance plans
represent the next chance for agencies to establish such linkages so
that agency managers and Congress will be better able to judge
whether an agency is making annual progress toward achieving
strategic goals. 

Thus, as agencies and Congress begin to implement annual performance
planning, it will be particularly important to reinforce linkages
among goals and activities.  Specifically, our work has shown that
the successful implementation of performance-based management as
envisioned by the Results Act will require agencies to link the goals
and performance measures of each organizational level to successive
levels and ultimately to the strategic plan's long-term goals so that
the strategic goals and objectives drive the agencies' day-to-day
activities.\8 Therefore, agencies' annual performance plans will be
most useful if the annual goals contained in those plans show clear
and direct relationships in two directions--to the goals in the
strategic plans and to operations and activities within the agency. 

Concerning the plans' discussions of agencies' operations and
activities, in some cases, the September strategic plans improved on
the draft plans and now provide a better basis for understanding how
the agency plans to accomplish many of its goals.  For example, the
plan for the Department of Energy (DOE) contains a section on
resource requirements that provides a helpful discussion of the
money, staff, workforce skills, and facilities that the agency plans
to employ to meet its goals.  The plan explains that DOE's strategies
for its goal of supporting national security are to include changes
in the skills of its workforce and in the construction of new
experimental test facilities.  On the whole, however, agencies'
consideration of the resources necessary to achieve goals is one
particular area where continuing improvement efforts are needed.  The
annual performance planning process offers an opportunity for
substantial progress in this area. 

While some of the plans we reviewed contain separate sections on
resources, including financial and human resources, the sections
sometimes lack a discussion of information, capital, and other
resources that are critical to achieving goals.  For example, few
plans discuss physical capital resources, such as facilities and
equipment.  Although many agencies may not rely heavily on physical
capital resources, some of those that do, such as the General
Services Administration (GSA) and the National Park Service, a
component of the Department of the Interior, appear to provide
relatively little focused discussion on their capital needs and
usage. 

Another area that is critical to agencies striving to improve
operations is information technology.  The government's track record
in employing information technology to improve operations and address
mission-critical problems is poor, and the strategic plans we
reviewed often contain only limited discussions of technology issues. 
For example, GSA's plan does not explicitly discuss major management
problems or identify which problems could have an adverse impact on
the agency's meeting its goals and objectives.  The plan does not
address, for instance, how GSA plans to ensure that its information
systems meet computer security requirements.  The lack of such a
discussion in the GSA and other plans is of particular concern
because without it agencies cannot be certain that they are (1)
addressing the federal government's information technology problems
and (2) better ensuring that technology acquisition and use are
targeted squarely on program results. 

Linking performance goals to the federal government's budget and
appropriations processes is another area where establishing clear
linkages will be especially important as agencies and Congress move
to implementation of the annual performance planning and measurement
phase of the Results Act.  Unlike previous federal initiatives, the
Results Act requires agencies to plan and measure performance using
the same structures that form the basis for their budget requests.\9
This critical design element is meant to ensure a simple,
straightforward link among plans, budgets, and performance
information and the related congressional oversight and resource
allocation processes.  However, the extent to which existing budget
structures are suitable for Results Act purposes will likely vary
widely and therefore will require coordinated and recurring attention
by Congress and the agencies. 


--------------------
\6 GAO/GGD-97-180, Sept.  16, 1997. 

\7 See Executive Guide:  Effectively Implementing the Government
Performance and Results Act (GAO/GGD-96-118, June 1996); Agencies'
Strategic Plans Under GPRA:  Key Questions to Facilitate
Congressional Review (GAO/GGD-10.1.16, May 1997); as well as our
reports on agencies' draft strategic plans. 

\8 GAO/GGD-96-118, June 1996. 

\9 Performance Budgeting:  Past Initiatives Offer Insights for GPRA
Implementation (GAO/AIMD-97-46, Mar.  27, 1997). 


      COORDINATE CROSSCUTTING
      PROGRAM EFFORTS
------------------------------------------------ Chapter STATEMENT:2.2

A focus on results, as envisioned by the Results Act, implies that
federal programs that contribute to the same or similar results
should be closely coordinated to ensure that goals are consistent
and, as appropriate, program efforts are mutually reinforcing.\10
This suggests that federal agencies are to look beyond their
organizational boundaries and coordinate with other agencies to
ensure that their efforts are aligned.  We have found that
uncoordinated program efforts can waste scarce funds, confuse and
frustrate program customers, and limit the overall effectiveness of
the federal effort.\11

During the summer of 1996, in reviewing early strategic planning
efforts, OMB alerted agencies that augmented interagency coordination
was needed at that time to ensure consistency among goals in
crosscutting programs areas.  It appears that the agencies did not
consistently follow OMB's advice because the draft strategic plans we
reviewed this summer often lacked evidence that agencies in
crosscutting program areas had worked with other agencies to ensure
goals were consistent, strategies coordinated, and, as appropriate,
performance measures similar. 

Since then, however, the agencies appear to have begun the necessary
coordination.  Some September plans, for example, often contained
references to other agencies that shared responsibilities in a
crosscutting program area or discussed the need to coordinate their
programs with other agencies.  For example, the September plan of the
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) contains an appendix that lists
the federal agencies with which EPA coordinated.  This appendix
describes the major steps in the coordination process and lists by
strategic goal the agencies with which greater integration and review
of efforts will be needed.  Similarly, the Department of
Transportation's plan contains a table that shows the contributions
of other federal agencies to each of its major mission areas. 

Presentations such as EPA's and Transportation's could be especially
helpful to Congress in identifying program areas to monitor for
overlap and duplication.  These presentations, and similar ones in
other agencies' September plans that identify agencies with
crosscutting program responsibilities, provide a foundation for the
much more difficult work that lies ahead.  That work involves moving
agencies that share crosscutting program responsibilities to
undertake substantive coordination to ensure that those
responsibilities are being effectively managed. 

The next phases of the Results Act implementation continue to offer a
structured framework to address crosscutting issues.  For example,
the Act's emphasis on results-based performance measures as part of
the annual performance planning process should lead to more explicit
discussions concerning the contributions and accomplishments of
crosscutting programs and encourage related programs to develop
common performance measures.  As agencies work with OMB to develop
their annual performance plans, they can consider the extent to which
agency goals are complementary and the need for common performance
measures to allow for cross-agency evaluations.  The Results Act's
requirement that OMB prepare a governmentwide performance plan that
is based on the agencies' annual performance plans also can be used
to facilitate the identification of program overlap, duplication, and
fragmentation. 

If agencies and OMB use the annual planning process to highlight
crosscutting program issues, the individual agency performance plans
and the governmentwide performance plan should provide Congress with
the information needed 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 program issues.  This information should
also help identify the performance and cost consequences of program
fragmentation and the implications of alternative policy and service
delivery options.  These options, in turn, can lead to decisions
concerning department and agency missions and the allocation of
resources among those missions. 


--------------------
\10 Managing for Results:  Using the Results Act to Address Mission
Fragmentation and Program Overlap (GAO/AIMD-97-146, Aug.  29, 1997). 

\11 GAO/GGD-97-109, June 2, 1997. 


      BUILD THE CAPACITY TO
      GATHER, PROCESS, AND ANALYZE
      PERFORMANCE AND PROGRAM COST
      INFORMATION
------------------------------------------------ Chapter STATEMENT:2.3

To efficiently and effectively operate, manage, and oversee programs
and activities, agencies need reliable, timely program performance
and cost information and the analytic capacity to use that
information.  For example, agencies need to have reliable data during
their planning efforts to set realistic goals and later, as programs
are being implemented, to gauge their progress toward achieving those
goals.  In addition, in combination with an agency's performance
measurement system, a strong program evaluation capacity is needed to
provide feedback on how well an agency's activities and programs
contributed to achieving its goals.  Systematic evaluation of how a
program was implemented can also provide important information about
why the program did or did not succeed as planned and suggest ways to
improve it. 

We have cited a 1994 survey that reported on the widespread absence
of a program evaluation capacity within the federal government.\12
Therefore, it is not surprising that agencies did not consistently
discuss in their September plans how they intended to use program
evaluations to help develop those plans.  However, of greater
concern, many agencies also did not discuss how they planned to use
evaluations in the future to assess progress and did not offer a
schedule for future evaluations as envisioned by the Results Act. 
The National Science Foundation's September plan contains a
noteworthy exception to this trend.  The plan discusses how the
agency used evaluations to develop key investment strategies, action
plans, and its annual performance plan.  It also discusses future
evaluations and provides a general schedule for their implementation. 

The absence of sound program performance and cost data and the
capacity to use those data to improve performance are among the major
barriers to the effective implementation of the Results Act.  Efforts
under the CFO Act have shown that most agencies are still years away
from generating reliable, useful, relevant, and timely financial
information, which is urgently needed to make our government fiscally
responsible.  The widespread lack of available program performance
information is equally troubling.  For example, we surveyed managers
in the largest federal agencies and found that fewer than one-third
of those managers reported that results-oriented performance measures
existed to a great or very great extent for their programs.\13

Our work also suggests that even when performance information exists,
its reliability is frequently questionable.  For example, the
reliability of performance data currently available to a number of
agencies is suspect because the agencies must rely on data collected
by parties outside the federal government.  In a recent report, we
noted that the fact that data were largely collected by others was
the most frequent explanation offered by agency officials for why
determining the accuracy and quality of performance data was a
challenge.\14 In our June 1997 report on the implementation of the
Results Act, we also reported on the difficulties that agencies were
experiencing as a result of their reliance on outside parties for
performance information.\15

Agencies are required under the Results Act to describe in their
annual performance plans how they will verify and validate the
performance information that will be collected.  This section of the
performance plan can provide important contextual information for
Congress and agencies.  For example, this section can provide an
agency with the opportunity to alert Congress to the problems the
agency has had or anticipates having in collecting needed
results-oriented performance information and the cost and data
quality trade-offs associated with various collection strategies. 
The discussion in this section can also provide Congress with a
mechanism for examining whether the agency currently has the data to
confidently set performance improvement targets and will later have
the ability to report on its performance. 

More broadly, continuing efforts to implement the CFO Act also are
central for ensuring that agencies resolve their long-standing
problems in generating vital information for decisionmakers.  In that
regard, the Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board (FASAB) has
developed a new set of accounting concepts and standards that
underpin OMB's guidance to agencies on the form and content of their
agencywide financial statements.\16 As part of that effort, FASAB
developed managerial cost accounting standards that were to be
effective for fiscal year 1997.  However, because of serious agency
shortfalls in cost accounting systems, the CFO Council--an
interagency council of the CFOs of the major agencies--requested an
additional 2 years before the standard would be effective.  FASAB
recommended extending the date by 1 year, to fiscal year 1998, with a
clear expectation that there would be no further delays. 

The FASAB cost accounting standards promise to improve decisionmaking
if successfully implemented.  These standards are to provide
decisionmakers with information on the costs of all resources used
and the costs of services provided by others to support activities or
programs.  Such information would allow for comparisons of costs to
various levels of program performance. 

Over the longer term, the program performance information that
agencies are to generate under the Results Act should be a valuable
new resource for Congress to use in its program authorization,
oversight, budget, and appropriation responsibilities.  To be most
useful in these various contexts, that information needs to be
consolidated with budget data and critical financial and program cost
data, which agencies are to produce and have audited under the CFO
Act.\17 Accountability reports--building on CFO Act requirements--are
to bring together program performance information with audited
financial information to provide congressional and other
decisionmakers with a more complete picture of the results,
operational effectiveness, and costs of agencies' operations.  For
the first time, decisionmakers are to be provided with annual "report
cards" on the costs, management, and effectiveness of federal
agencies. 


--------------------
\12 Managing for Results:  Analytic Challenges in Measuring
Performance (GAO/HEHS/GGD-97-138, May 30, 1997). 

\13 GAO/GGD-97-109, June 2, 1997. 

\14 GAO/HEHS/GGD-97-138, May 30, 1997. 

\15 GAO/GGD-97-109, June 2, 1997. 

\16 FASAB was created in October 1990 by the Secretary of the
Treasury, the Director of OMB, and the Comptroller General to
consider and recommend accounting principles for the federal
government.  If accepted by Treasury, OMB, and GAO, the standards are
to be adopted and issued by OMB and GAO. 

\17 Financial Management:  Continued Momentum Essential to Achieve
CFO Act Goals (GAO/T-AIMD-96-10, Dec.  14, 1995). 


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

In summary, Mr.  Chairman, because of the progress that agencies have
made in developing their strategic plans over the last several
months, these plans generally should provide a workable foundation
for the agencies' continuing efforts to move to a more
performance-based form of management.  Much of this progress appears
to have been the result of the active participation of Members and
congressional staff in consulting on those plans.  While difficult
implementation challenges remain, by taking advantage of the
consultation process, Congress and the agencies established the basis
for continued progress in implementing the Results Act and ensuring
that efforts under the Act provide the information that agency and
congressional decisionmakers need to improve the management of the
federal government. 

The Results Act establishes an iterative process for
performance-based management, with the foundation being the agency's
strategic plan.  The next step--the annual performance plans--offer
the opportunity for Congress and the agencies to continue to clarify
goals and ensure that proper strategies are in place to achieve those
goals.  Agencies' annual plans and the governmentwide performance
plan prepared by the President can form the basis for agency and
congressional decisionmaking about the best way to manage
crosscutting program efforts.  Finally, the annual plans, and later
accountability reports, provide mechanisms for highlighting and
addressing issues centering on the collection and analysis of program
performance and cost information. 

We look forward to continuing to support Congress' efforts to improve
the management of the federal government.  Over the last few years,
we have issued a number of products on the key steps and practices
needed to improve the management of the federal government.\18 These
key steps and practices are based on best practices in private sector
and public sector organizations.  For example, last May we issued a
guide for congressional staff to use as they assessed the strategic
plans that agencies provided as part of the consultations required by
the Results Act.\19 In the coming months, we will issue a companion
guide for reviewing annual performance plans.  We also will continue
to examine the effectiveness of agencies' efforts under the Results
Act and will program work on other issues associated with the
implementation of the Act. 

This concludes my prepared statement.  I would be pleased to respond
to any questions you or other Members of the Committee may have. 

--------------------
\18 See, for example, GAO/GGD-96-118, June 1996; Financial
Management:  Momentum Must Be Sustained to Achieve the Reform Goals
of the Chief Financial Officers Act (GAO/T-AIMD-95-204, July 25,
1995); and Executive Guide:  Improving Mission Performance Through
Strategic Information Management and Technology (GAO/AIMD-94-115, May
1994). 

\19 GAO/GGD-10.1.16, May 1997. 


*** End of document. ***