October 31, 2000
Thompson Unveils Agency
Performance Report Grades
Says Most Annual Performance Reports
"Don’t Tell Us What
Agencies Are Doing or How Well They’re Doing It"
Washington, DC - Senate Governmental Affairs
Committee Chairman Fred Thompson (R-TN) today released grades
for the Fiscal Year 1999 Performance Reports submitted by the 24
largest federal agencies under the Government Performance and
Results Act (the Results Act).
"These Performance Reports are supposed
to inform Congress and the public about what agencies are doing
and how well they’re doing it. Most of them don’t do
that," Senator Thompson said. "Unfortunately, in many
cases, agencies didn’t have goals for things that we assumed
were in their primary mission. For example, reducing the
availability of illegal drugs was clearly a part of the mission
of seven different agencies, yet none of them had a
specific performance target for actually doing that."
The grades issued by Thompson are based on
analysis of the 24 FY ‘99 Performance Reports conducted for
the Committee by the General Accounting Office, the
Congressional Research Service, and agency IGs of the 24 largest
agencies. The Mercatus Center, at George Mason University, also
conducted an analysis of the Performance Reports for the same 24
agencies.
"Overall, the grades and underlying
assessments show how far we still need to go to get results from
the Results Act," Thompson said. "We graded the
reports on a curve. Even so, we could only grade four of the 24
agencies above a ‘C.’ On the other hand, seven agencies got
‘D’s or ‘F’s."
Of the agencies, Thompson said Transportation,
Social Security Administration, and Veterans Administration
clearly demonstrate a commitment to results-oriented performance
and accountability. Other agencies--such as Energy and
Justice--offer no evidence of taking performance-based
accountability seriously. Thompson pointed to GAO’s analysis
of Energy’s Report, which stated, "[W]e could not
determine what the Department was trying to accomplish or how it
planned to get there." With respect to Justice, GAO said,
"Overall, DOJ’s progress in achieving desirable program
outcomes cannot be readily determined since the agency has yet
to develop performance goals and measures that can objectively
capture and describe performance results."
The grades focus on three criteria. (1) Performance:
What do the reports tell us about how well agencies deliver key
performance results our citizens expect of them? (2) Management:
What do they tell us about progress in resolving major
management problems that waste billions of tax dollars and
impede performance? (3) Usefulness: How useful are the
Reports in understanding what agencies are accomplishing?
To review an agency’s performance, the
Committee identified key goals that related to the primary
mission of the agency and had GAO review whether the reports
demonstrated progress toward achieving them. There were 97 key
goals in all for the 24 agencies. The reports demonstrated
definite progress toward achieving only 13 of these key results,
and some progress toward achieving another 26. The reports
demonstrated a clear lack of progress for another four.
But for 54 key goals, GAO was unable to determine whether or not
an agency was making progress.
According to the Governmental Affairs
Committee analysis, agency performance reports demonstrate few
results in areas of direct and primary federal responsibility
such as: fairly and effectively administering federal tax and
immigration laws; preventing fraud and waste in the use of
taxpayer dollars; and providing timely and accurate services to
the public.
Agency
Performance Report Grades
# # #
|