Office of the Assistant Secretary
for Planning and Evaluation

Brief History

By Gerald Britten, formerly Deputy Assistant Secretary for Program Systems

For more than a third of a century, the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) has provided policy advice and analysis for the Secretary of Health and Human Services (Health, Education, and Welfare — HEW — until 1979). It has focused on issues of importance particularly to the Secretary, the administration, and the Congress. The office strives to maintain a reputation for high quality and objective analysis concerning a wide range of health and human service issues, and for having an experienced and first rate analytic staff. Many ASPE staff have moved on to senior positions in government, academia, and industry.

The office was established in 1965 in the Office of the Secretary of HEW as the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Program Coordination. It was based on the "systems analysis" model of the Department of Defense following President Johnson's call for a government-wide introduction this model, which emphasized a central planning staff independent of program functions, objective analysis based on research, and the utilization of various systems analysis tools, such as multi-year plans and budgets. The new office in HEW had approximately 20 analysts — for health, education, and welfare issues, and an office to help administer a program planning and budgeting system. In the words of Alice Rivlin, an early Assistant Secretary, the creation of ASPE brought into the Secretary's office a group of people who were trained to think analytically and whose job it was to improve the process of decision making.

In 1967, the office was renamed the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, and an evaluation office was added to focus resources on assessing program performance, using the tools of social science to add knowledge about HEW's programs.

Between 1967 and 1972, ASPE staff developed numerous policy analyses including those on child health and welfare reform. For example, as a result of ASPE recommendations, Congress enacted a major preventive health program for children within Medicaid, and a mechanism to fund evaluations of many HHS programs. Several minor organizational changes were made in ASPE, such as creating an office to help plan research and evaluation, and an office to address social services policy.

In 1972, ASPE established — in cooperation with what was then the Office of the Comptroller of HEW — a strategic planning and policy development system for HEW. It also prepared a major program review and realignment plan for then Secretary Richardson. That plan called for special revenue sharing in health, education and social services; welfare reform; education assistance to students; and health insurance reform.

In 1973, ASPE was augmented by a significant research and technical support staff and funding transferred from the disbanded Office of Economic Opportunity. This substantially increased ASPE's analytical and research capabilities, with a further expansion of staff and responsibility between 1977 and 1980. For example, ASPE developed President Carter's major welfare and health insurance reform proposals, managed major health insurance and income maintenance experiments, initiated long-term care demonstrations, and developed a significant econometric modeling capability to assess the fiscal impact of policy options. The results of these experiments and the added modeling capability continue to inform current policy debates.

In the late 1970's, there were slightly more than 300 people staffing the office, although this number declined somewhat with the creation of the Department of Education and the relocation of some ASPE staff to this organization.

After 1981, staffing levels continued to decline, and by the mid-1980's ASPE had roughly 100 staff. It continued to focus on many significant policy research and analysis activities across HHS programs. For example, ASPE developed and worked closely with the Congress on block grant programs for health and human services, developed competition-based health care reform proposals, worked on regulatory reform, assisted in welfare reform focused on state experimentation, designed service delivery experiments, and established an outcome-focused strategic planning system.

Beginning in 1993, as the U.S. focused on domestic issues, ASPE provided leadership and analysis for many major major initiatives. In particular, ASPE provided leadership and analytic staff for the President's health care and welfare reform proposals. The number of staff has increased, and two offices were established: one focusing on aging and long-term care policy, and a new office for science policy. ASPE also played a major role in "reinventing government", including leadership to help form the independent Social Security Administration, and in proposals to implement "performance partnerships", consolidating programs, and providing greater flexibility to states together with accountability for outcomes.

Former Assistant Secretaries:

The following individuals served as Assistant Secretaries:

William Gorham, Dec. 1965 - April 1968

Alice M. Rivlin, June 1968 - Feb. 1969

Lewis H. Butler, Apr. 1969 - July 1971

Laurence E. Lynn, Jr., July 1971 - Apr. 1973

William A. Morrill, June 1973 - Jan. 1977

Henry J. Aaron, Apr. 1977 - Nov. 1978

Benjamin W. Heineman, May 1979 - Oct. 1979

John L. Palmer, Mar. 1980 - Jan. 1981

Robert J. Rubin, June 1981 - Apr. 1984

Robert B. Helms, Apr. 1984 - March 1989

Arnold Tompkins, Mar. 1989 - Jan. 1990

Martin Gerry, Jan. 1990 - Jan. 1993

David T. Ellwood, May 1993 - Jul. 1995

Peter B. Edelman, Aug. 1995 - Sept. 1996

Margaret A. Hamburg, Nov. 1997 - Jan. 2001

Piyush (Bobby) Jindal, July 2001 - Feb. 2003