A recent GAO report on the executive branch’s approach to new requirements in the Government Performance and Results Act recommends that “OMB improve the implementation of the act.” But a sub-theme in the report describes how agencies are actually building a long-term, solid foundation for a performance-driven government. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) is requiredRead… Read more »
The Obama Administration has built on efforts from the Bush Administration to embed the use of evidence and evaluation in making funding decisions. There are now four different types of initiatives underway, or proposed, in a range of federal agencies. Within OMB, there is an active effort to catalyze agencies to develop and undertake aRead… Read more »
Policymakers are fixated on short-term budget austerity measures such as furloughs, pay freezes, and conference and travel spending. However, there is a small, but growing effort to take a longer, more strategic look at how to manage austerity by finding what works and targeting dollars there instead of to programs that cannot demonstrate effectiveness. ThisRead… Read more »
Several new studies demonstrate the difficulty of defining what constitutes the “atom” of a federal program, but a recent Washington Post article begins to uncover why it is so elusive, much like finding sub-atomic particles in physics. Defining Federal Programs Isn’t Simple There is more than one way to define what constitutes a federal “program,”Read… Read more »
When it rains, it pours! April saw a lot of action regarding the federal performance agenda. The big news for many was the announcement last week that Shelley Metzenbaum, who is the Office of Management and Budget official spearheading the Obama Administration’s performance management initiatives on a day-to-day basis, will be leaving to return homeRead… Read more »
Redundant federal programs are leading to billions in waste. Even worse, the Government Accountability Office says in their new report that the government is slow to adopt reforms to fix the problem. Nikki Clowers is a Director of Financial Markets and Community Investment Issues at GAO. She told Chris Dorobek on the DorobekINSIDER program thatRead… Read more »
In a previous post, “9 Sources of Cyber Threats Highlighted in GAO Report,” Pat Fiorenza discussed Table 1 of GAO’s report Cyber Security: National Strategy, Roles, and Responsibilities Need to Be Better Defined and More Effectively Implemented, describing the various types of attacks that vulnerable users can fall victim to. In this blog, I willRead… Read more »
The movement to assess and improve the usability of federal government websites is small, vocal, and growing. GSA’s First Fridays program makes free usability testing available to federal agencies, and a wide range of agencies have undertaken their own regular assessments of their sites and applications. Slowly but surely, the archaic mindset that a .govRead… Read more »
For the 12th year in a row human resources issues have topped the Government Accountability Office’s High Risk List. (You can find our conversation with the GAO here.) But really how can agencies improve hiring and retention with hiring and pay freezes plus budgets cuts and the threat of sequesters? Tom Fox is the ViceRead… Read more »
The Government Accountability Office has stepped into new territory by adding climate change to its list of the 30 most high risk challenges facing the federal government. What’s their rationale for adding it? Typically, we think of the GAO focusing on territory familiar to auditors, which is what most of the high risk list does:Read… Read more »