The Gov't. Performance and Results Act of 1993 seeks to improve the effectiveness, efficiency, and accountability of Fed. programs by establishing a system for agencies to set goals for program performance and to measure results. In 1998 a report summarized observations on agencies' plans and identified opportunities to improve the usefulness of future performance plans (PP). This report builds on those improve. opportunities by: identifying and describing practices that were applied in some PP that might improve the usefulness of all agencies' annual PP; and providing examples from agencies' FY 1999 PP that illustrate each practice.
The Government Performance & Results Act of 1993 seeks to shift the focus of government perform. & accountability away from a preoccupation with activities to a focus on the results or outcome of those activities. This report provides summary information based on a review & evaluation of the FY 2000 performance plans of the 24 agencies covered by the Chief Financial Officers Act. It summarizes the extent to which the agencies' plans include three key elements of informative perform. plans: (1) clear pictures of intended performance, (2) discussions of strategies & resources, & (3) credible perform. information. Discusses the major strengths & key weaknesses of FY 2000 performance plans.
The Results Act shifts the focus of gov't. decisionmaking & accountability away from a preoccupation with the activities to a focus on the results of those activities. Government agencies are to develop strategic plans, annual performance plans, & annual performance reports. This report is based on reviews of 24 major agencies' strategic plans that were formally submitted to Congress by Sep. 30, 1997. The report: summarizes observations on agencies' plans; & provides additional info. on how the next phase of the Results Act's implementation -- performance planning & measurement -- can be used to address the critical planning issues observed in reviewing the strategic plans.
Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the fiscal year (FY) 2000 performance plans of the 24 agencies covered by the Chief Financial Officers Act, focusing on the: (1) extent to which the agencies' plans include the three key elements of informative performance plans: (a) clear pictures of intended performance; (b) specific discussions of strategies and resources; and (c) confidence that performance information will be credible; and (2) degree of improvement the FY 2000 performance plans represent over the FY 1999 plans. GAO noted that: (1) on the whole, agencies' FY 2000 performance plans show moderate improvements over the FY 1999 plans and contain better information and perspective; (2) however, key weaknesses remain, and important opportunities exist to improve future plans; (3) the plans provide general pictures of intended performance across the agencies suggesting that important opportunities for continued improvements still remain to be addressed; (4) while all the plans include baseline and trend data for at least some of their goals and measures, inconsistent attention is given to resolving mission-critical management challenges and program risks; (5) these management challenges and program risks continue to seriously undermine the federal government's performance and to leave it vulnerable to billions of dollars in waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement; (6) agencies could also provide clearer pictures of intended performance by providing greater attention to crosscutting program issues; (7) coordinating crosscutting programs is important because mission fragmentation and program overlap are widespread across the federal government; (8) most agencies' plans show some improvement in their recognition of crosscutting program efforts; (9) however, few plans attempt the more challenging tasks of discussing planned strategies for coordination and establishing complementary performance goals and common or complementary performance measures; (10) continued progress on this issue is important because GAO has found that unfocused and uncoordinated crosscutting programs waste scarce funds, confuse and frustrate program customers, and limit overall program effectiveness; (11) crosscutting programs involve more than one agency, and coordination therefore requires the ability to look across agencies and ensure that the appropriate coordination is taking place; (12) agencies' discussions of how resources and strategies will be used to achieve results show mixed progress; (13) some agencies show progress in making useful linkages between their budget requests and performance goals, while other agencies are not showing the necessary progress; (14) the continuing lack of confidence that performance information will be credible is also a source of major concern; (15) many agencies offer only limited indications that performance data will be credible; and (16) the inattention to ensuring that performance data will be sufficiently timely, complete, accurate, useful, and consistent is an important weakness in the performance plans.
The Government Performance and Results Act seek to improve the effectiveness, efficiency, and accountability of federal programs by requiring agencies to set program goals and measure results. Under the Act, agencies are to prepare annual performance plans to systematically provide decisionmakers with information on the results to be achieved for a proposed level of resources. Fiscal Year 1999 marks the first time that agencies across government were to prepare annual performance plans covering each program activity in their budgets. This report (1) identifies and describes practices that were applied in some plans that might, if consistently applied, improve the usefulness of all agencies annual performance plans, and (2) provides examples from agencies' fiscal year 1999 performance plans that illustrate each practice.
GAO published an assessment guide to facilitate congressional use of agencies' performance plans developed under the Government Performance and Results Act, focusing on the: (1) annual performance goals and measures for each agency's program activities; (2) strategies and resources needed to achieve annual performance goals; (3) procedures the agency will use to verify and validate its performance data; and (4) issues that need to be addressed, and key assessment questions that can help congressional users elicit the cost and performance information on the Results Act's planning and reporting requirements as well as related guidance on annual performance plans.
