Results Act

This report reviews the General Services Administration's (GSA) fiscal year 1999 annual performance plan submitted to Congress as required by the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993. GSA's performance plan has several performance goals for each of its strategic goals, but for the most part, the plan falls short of meeting the criteria set forth in the legislation. The plan does not provide a clear picture of expected performance across the agency because many goals are not quantifiable or results oriented, the goals are not linked to the specific program activities and funding in its budget, and the plan does not discuss GSA's coordination efforts for many crosscutting activities. Also, the plan does not explicitly discuss the resources and strategies that will be needed to achieve goals or the external factors that will affect the goals' accomplishment.

GAO noted that: (1) GSA's performance plan has several performance goals for each of its strategic goals; (2) some of its performance goals and measures are objective and quantified and provide a way to compare actual to planned performance; (3) in addition, the plan contains some goals and measures that involve comparisons of GSA and the private sector; (4) however, for the most part, the plan falls short of meeting the criteria set forth in the Results Act and related guidance; (5) it does not adequately provide a clear picture of expected performance across the agency because: (a) like the goals in its strategic plan, many performance goals, and related measures, are not quantifiable or results oriented; (b) performance plan goals are not always linked to the specific program activities and funding in its budget; and (c) also like the strategic plan, the performance plan does not discuss GSA's coordination efforts for many crosscutting activities; (6) GAO also found that the performance plan generally does not have an explicit discussion of the strategies and resources that will be needed to achieve goals or the external factors that will affect accomplishment of the goals; and (7) although the plan includes a discussion of how GSA plans to verify performance data that provides partial confidence that performance information will be credible, it does not discuss the actions GSA has taken or will take to address known data limitations.

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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