A Systematic Management Approach Is Needed for Congressional Reporting Requirements

GAO identified problems in the way congressional reporting requirements are presently being managed which affect the timeliness and usefulness of the information Congress receives in support of its legislative, oversight, and budgetary functions.

Improvements are needed within all branches of the federal government, including Congress. Congressional reporting requirements are not being managed in a way that achieves the objectives for which they were created. They are managed by several organizations acting independently, with little or no coordination among them. As a result, performance of tasks overlaps, and functional and informational gaps exist. At present, there is no comprehensive monitoring system for the reporting requirements. As a result, there is no way of ensuring that the agencies meet the requirements adequately, submit reports when they are due, or disclose that reports are late. The most serious flaws are that: the receipt of reports by Congress is not adequately recorded, delinquent reporting is not followed up, and the distribution and use of report documents are not monitored or evaluated. GAO believes that Congress, the federal agencies, and the Executive Office should consider: (1) the development of a uniform policy and guidance for the congressional groups with principal functional responsibility for meeting the reporting requirements; (2) streamlining the identification and inventory tasks; (3) creating an adequate monitoring system; (4) reducing late executive agency responses to reporting requirements; and (5) improving the ability of Congress to relate each report it receives to the policy and program issues that the reporting requirements are designed to address.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

Director: Kenneth W. Hunter Team: General Accounting Office: Program Analysis Division Phone: (202) 275-9577