The Results Act

The issuance of the Governmentwide Performance Plan in February 1998 marked the culmination of the first annual performance planning cycle under the Government Performance and Results Act. The Office of Management and Budget developed an approach and framework for this plan that generally addressed the basic requirements of the Results Act. The plan was issued with the President's budget submission and included a broad range of governmentwide management objectives and a mission-based presentation of key performance goals based on agency performance plans. The plan's framework should ultimately allow for a cohesive presentation of governmentwide performance, but the specific contents of this initial plan did not always give an integrated, consistent, and results-oriented picture of the federal government's performance goals for fiscal year 1999. To add value to the government's overall performance planning and management efforts, attention is needed in two critical areas: (1) addressing observed weaknesses of individual agency performance plans that necessarily affect the quality of governmentwide performance planning and (2) emphasizing an integrated, governmentwide perspective throughout the plan. Also, much work remains to improve agency performance plans, the "building blocks" of the governmentwide plan.

GAO noted that: (1) the issuance of the Governmentwide Performance Plan in February 1998 marked the culmination of the first annual performance planning cycle under the Government Performance and Results Act; (2) OMB developed and implemented an approach and framework for this plan that generally addressed the basic requirements of the Results Act; (3) the plan was issued with the President's budget submission and included a broad range of governmentwide management objectives and a mission-based presentation of key performance goals based on agency performance plans; (4) the plan's framework should ultimately allow for a cohesive presentation of governmentwide performance, but the specific contents of this initial plan did not always deliver an integrated, consistent, and results-oriented picture of fiscal year 1999 federal government performance goals; (5) many of the issues discussed in this report can be traced to the challenges of preparing the first-ever governmentwide plan for an entity as large and diverse as the federal government; (6) future plans will need to go beyond the formal requirements of the act if they are to more fully address its basic purposes and meet the evolving needs of congressional and other users; (7) to add value to the government's overall performance planning and management efforts, attention is needed in two critical areas: (a) addressing observed weaknesses of individual agency performance plans that necessarily affect the quality of governmentwide performance planning; and (b) emphasizing an integrated, governmentwide perspective throughout the plan; (8) as GAO noted in its recent individual agency and overall assessments, much work remains to improve agency performance plans, the building blocks of the governmentwide plan; (9) OMB will need to work with federal agencies to strengthen these plans to ensure a solid foundation for the governmentwide plan; and (10) at the same time, by more explicitly emphasizing governmentwide perspectives and better integrating the performance implications of all federal strategies within more consistent and complete mission-based presentations, the governmentwide plan can continue to complement and extend agency performance planning processes and provide valuable new contexts and information for federal decisionmakers.

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.

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