Commerce Issues

This report is part of the transition series, a set of 28 reports summarizing GAO's findings on major problems confronting federal agencies, as well as economic and management issues facing Congress and the incoming Administration. One cluster of transition reports, including those on the budget deficit and investment, addresses broad policy issues affecting government as a whole and its relationship to the economy. Another group of reports addresses issues affecting specific federal agencies, such as the Defense Department and the Internal Revenue Service. A third group of reports looks at cross-cutting management issues--everything from financial management to information management. GAO highlighted many of these problems in a similar set of reports issued in 1988. In some instances, progress has been made; all too often, however, the problems have continued to fester and grow worse. In general, the state of management in the federal government is poor. Too many management ideas--and resulting agency structures and processes--that worked well in the past now hinder the government from responding quickly and effectively to a world in tremendous flux. Most agencies have no strategic vision of the future, lack sound systems to collect and apply financial and program information to gauge operational success and accountability, and too often do without people with the skills necessary to accomplish their missions. The Comptroller General summarized the series in testimony before Congress; see: Major Issues Facing a New Congress and a New Administration, by Charles A. Bowsher, Comptroller General of the United States, before the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs. GAO/T-OCG-93-1, Jan. 8, 1993 (30 pages).

GAO noted that: (1) the current federal structure may not facilitate productivity and competitiveness improvement; (2) Commerce lacks the prominence, resources, and a clear strategy to significantly affect competitive improvement; (3) Commerce estimates that it needs investments totalling $7.4 billion to repair its deteriorating infrastructure; (4) a decentralized statistical system and a lack of leadership and coordination have resulted in a lack of reliable data on which Commerce could base policy; (5) the 1990 census contained 14.1 million errors, cost 25 percent more than the 1980 census, and continued the trend of steady decline in census accuracy; and (6) Commerce needs to decide on the content of the questionnaire, whether to use sampling, and to improve the address list and geographic information.