DOL Annual Report, Fiscal Year 2006
Performance and Accountability Report

Management's Discussion & Analysis

The Program Assessment Rating Tool

The Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART) was developed to assess and improve programs' positive impact on outcomes that matter to the public. A PART review helps identify a program's strengths and weaknesses to inform funding and management decisions aimed at making the program more effective. Federal programs are scored on their purpose and design, strategic and performance planning, management, and results and accountability. Total scores determine ratings: Effective, Moderately Effective, Adequate, Ineffective, or Results Not Demonstrated (RND). The final category can apply to a program with any score if performance goals and measures are not sufficiently outcome (results) oriented and/or the program does not have adequate data. Summaries of each program's assessment and improvement plan are published on ExpectMore.gov, a site created earlier this year to make meaningful information about Federal program performance more accessible to the public.

To date, 28 DOL programs have been assessed through the PART. One is rated Effective, eight Moderately Effective, twelve Adequate, four Ineffective, and three Results Not Demonstrated. The table below lists the programs as they are identified in ExpectMore.gov. For cross-referencing with the performance section of this report, where Departmental performance goal(s) apply, goal number(s) are provided. The list is sorted first by the calendar year in which the review was conducted, then by total score. DOL will publish the scores and ratings for four additional programs reviewed for the President's FY 2008 Budget — the Homeless Veterans' Reintegration Program, Office of Disability Employment Policy, Wage-Hour Programs, and Office of the Solicitor — completing the first five-year cycle of assessments.

PART assessments are useful because they lead to improvement plans intended to improve accountability and performance. Improvements DOL has recently implemented include: Development of new, outcome-oriented performance measures for two DOL programs currently rated Results Not Demonstrated: Job Training Apprenticeship and the Women's Bureau; development and implementation of efficiency measures for each of the DOL programs assessed through the PART; and development and implementation of a union democracy measure and annual reporting of union fraud activity by the Office of Labor Management Standards.