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FY 2003 Annual Performance Plan

1.1 AGENCY MISSION AND LONG TERM GOALS

The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) and its partners--other Federal agencies, State, Territorial, local, and Tribal governments, and the private sector--provide national leadership and create opportunities for low-income, disadvantaged families and individuals to lead economically and socially productive lives, for children to develop into healthy adults, and for communities to become more prosperous and supportive of their members. ACF oversees and finances a broad range of programs for children and families, including Native Americans, persons with developmental disabilities, refugees, and legalized aliens, to help them develop and grow toward a more independent, self-reliant life. These programs carried out by State, Territorial, county, city, and Tribal governments, and public and private local agencies are designed to promote stability, economic security, responsibility and self-sufficiency.

Some ACF programs assist families in financial crisis, emphasizing short-term financial assistance along with assistance in obtaining and maintaining employment. Programs for children and youth focus on those with special problems, including children of low-income families, abused and neglected children, those in institutions or requiring adoption or foster family services, runaway youth, children with disabilities, migrant children, and Native American children. ACF promotes the development of comprehensive, integrated community and home-based service delivery where possible. ACF advises the Secretary on issues pertaining to children and families, including Native Americans, people with developmental disabilities, refugees and legalized aliens.

ACF coordinates development and implementation of family-centered strategies, policies, and linkages among its programs with other programs serving children and families. Our efforts with partners enable families to avoid dependency or move from welfare to work through employment, education, training and quality child care services, coupled with short-term financial aid. ACF enforces child support and provides community development resources and other supports for low income-working families.

Investments in sound growth and development for children, particularly those in low-income families, are basic to productive adulthood and citizenship. Early Head Start, Head Start, and quality child care programs for low-income children are essential to good health, early development and school readiness; before and after-school child care provide high quality programming and support for working families; and youth development programs provide positive growth opportunities for young people.

Communities provide the context within which families may function well or poorly. ACF, along with numerous public and private partners, is committed to economic development, linking community development strategies with comprehensive "people development" strategies to strengthen communities as a positive factor in the lives of residents.

1.2 ORGANIZATION, PROGRAMS, OPERATIONS, STRATEGIES AND RESOURCES

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The Administration for Children and Families is responsible for twenty-two legislative programs (which authorize more than sixty different programs) distributed among thirty-five budget activities. These program and budget activities are consolidated into 14 major program areas to meet the requirements of GPRA, the Government Performance and Results Act. (The consolidation and aggregation scheme and the linkage to the Budget are described in Section A.4 of the Appendix.)

• Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) block grant promotes work, responsibility and self-sufficiency and strengthens families through funding of State and Tribal-designed and administered programs that provide support to needy children and move their parents into work (administered by Office of Family Assistance and Tribal TANF administered by the Office of Community Services).
  
  
• Developmental Disabilities enhances the ability of persons with developmental disabilities to live, work and play in their communities through supporting State and other programs that develop, coordinate and stimulate permanent improvement in service systems, with priority to those whose needs are not otherwise met under other health, education and human services programs (administered by Administration on Developmental Disabilities).
  
  
• Refugee Resettlement assists refugees and entrants who are admitted into the United States to become employed and self-sufficient as quickly as possible, providing grants to States and other grantees for employment-related services, social adjustment, transitional cash and medical assistance, and other services (administered by Office of Refugee Resettlement).
  
  
• Social Services Block Grant (SSBG) supports a variety of social services tailored to supplement State investments in the self-sufficiency and well being of low-income populations. SSBG funds also help improve and integrate services, create community-based partnerships, and stimulate innovations (administered by Office of Community Services).
  
  
• Assets for Independence Demonstration Program establishes demonstration projects to determine the effects of providing an incentive to accumulate assets in individual development accounts to low-income individuals and families to increase their economic self-sufficiency (administered by Office of Community Services).
  
  
• Child Support locates parents, establishes paternity and support obligations and modifies and enforces those obligations to assure financial support is available to children. This work is done through State agencies that administer the program (administered by Office of Child Support Enforcement).
  
  
• Child Care provides grants to States to assist low-income working families who need child care that is safe, affordable and of high quality (administered by Child Care Bureau).
  
  
• Head Start provides comprehensive child development services to children and families, primarily for preschoolers from low-income families through grants to local public and private nonprofit agencies (administered by Head Start Bureau).
  
  
• Child Welfare funds State programs that assist at-risk children and their families in achieving safety, permanence, and well-being through preventive interventions to strengthen the family unit; foster care and adoption assistance to move children more rapidly from foster care to safe, permanent homes; and reunification services to return the child to the home if in the childs best interest (administered by Children's Bureau).
  
  
• Youth Programs support local agencies, that provide shelter, improve life prospects, and reduce high-risk behavior and sexual abuse of runaway, homeless and street youth, providing alternative activities, safe passages, and the tools needed to move successfully to adulthood. A major focus is on disseminating best practices and building partnerships in all areas of positive youth development (administered by Family and Youth Services Bureau).
  
  
• Community Services Block Grant provides an array of social services and programs through flexible block grant funding at the State and local level to assist low-income individuals and alleviate the causes and conditions of poverty (administered by Office of Community Services).
  
  
• Family Violence Prevention Program supports state and local programs and projects to prevent family violence and provides immediate shelter and assistance for the victims of family violence and their dependents through grants to States and State domestic violence coalitions for Battered Women's Shelters; and funds the Domestic Violence Hotline and national resource centers (administered by Office of Community Services).
  
  
• Low-Income Home Energy Assistance assists low income households meet the costs of heating and cooling their homes, through block grants and emergency contingency funds to States, Indian Tribes, and insular areas which target assistance to low-income households with high energy burdens and vulnerable members (administered by Office of Community Services).
  
  
• Native Americans Programs promote economic and social self-sufficiency of American Indians, Alaskan Natives, Native Hawaiians, and Native Pacific Islanders by supporting programs and encouraging local strategies in economic and social development (administered by Administration for Native Americans).
  

The operations of these programs are carried out through central office headquarters staff and through ten regional offices, organized into five major hubs. Providing nearly $45 billion in grants to governmental jurisdictions and nonprofit organizations and technical assistance and oversight delivered by approximately 1500 FTEs, ACF enables its partners to achieve results in the goals and strategies listed below. (Specific operational activities are discussed under each program's performance planning section, which includes references to budget and other resource management documents.)

ACF's GPRA performance plan addresses four major agency goals with twelve strategic objectives. There has been a concerted effort to focus on program outcomes that have meaning at the State and local level. In many instances, programs have deliberately set performance targets high, encouraging both ACF employees and partners to strive for higher achievements. ACF has purposely moved away from developing a measurement system that includes products, services and processes (inputs and outputs) and has embraced a measurement system that emphasizes results. This shift has been central to creating a dynamic collaboration with our partners, fostering joint accountability and allowing for cross-cutting coordination among programs to improve the lives of families and children.

Adopting a results orientation has allowed ACF to complete a cultural transformation in the way we think about program outcomes. Although ACF does not focus on process measures in the annual performance plan, program managers are encouraged to describe and report on operational strategies, activities, initiatives and management improvement efforts that will be undertaken to accomplish program results. Following is a description of sample strategies and major management improvement efforts that ACF has undertaken to improve overall performance of programs including activities that support the efforts of our partners--States, Tribes, and Territories, and local community organizations -- to achieve these goals and objectives. (Many of these strategies are repeated under the individual program sections.) Because the ability to achieve any and all results identified in this plan depends on the commitment and combined efforts of both ACF and our partners, these activities reflect a true and bold partnership.

Strategic Goal 1: Increase economic independence and productivity for families.

Examples of operational strategies and processes that are critical to reaching this goal include:

• Moving families into work and promoting success at work after families enter the work force (job retention and earnings progress) by ensuring that needed supports (e.g., training, child care, child support, transportation, health care coverage, and supports for special needs including substance abuse and mental health, disabilities, domestic violence, rural and inner city communities) are available;
  
  
• Rewarding success through the High Performance Bonus (HPB), following up with States awarded HPB to identify promising strategies to improve performance;
  
  
• Providing technical assistance through contracts and grants including a Peer Technical Assistance Network that provides support to States and localities to share expertise and proven experiences;
  
  
• Sponsoring rigorous evaluations to determine what strategies are most effective in moving families to work, sustaining them in work and assisting them to advance; and
  
  

Collaborating and providing outreach to key Federal partners for improving program integration, e.g., Department of Labor, Department of Education, and Internal Revenue Service.

Working in partnership with States, ACF provides resources and tools to increase parental responsibility through the Child Support Enforcement program. Examples include:

• Providing Federal match for State administrative expenditures and enhanced match for Statewide automated systems;
  
  
• Incentive funding provided to States based on a combination of cost effectiveness of programs and levels of paternity establishment, order establishment, current support collections, and payment of arrears cases;
  
  
• Providing quality data to enhance the ability of States to pursue cases both within and between States and to report progress more accurately;
  
  
• Expanding the Federal Parent Locator Service including a database of new hires and child support cases to assist States in locating parents and obtaining support through wage withholding; and
  
  
• Implementing the Federal Tax Refund/Administrative Offset program to offset income tax refunds and selected Federal benefits payments to child support obligors.
  

Strategic Goal 2: Improve healthy development, safety and well being of children and youth.

In the area of child care, ACF is focusing on systems development (with particular emphasis on helping States meet requirements for reporting); consumer education; assisting States in developing inclusion initiatives (e.g., for children with disabilities); and providing guidance on building successful linkages between child care programs and programs such as health services, early childhood education and Head Start.

Examples of key strategies include:

• Expanding partnerships in support of early care and education to build capacity both in the field and among Federal staff;
  
  
• Expanding partnerships with States and among early childhood programs to improve quality in early care and education;
  
  
• Expanding the number of infants and toddlers being served by quality early childhood programs; and
  
  
• Conducting research to help improve services and demonstrate the impact of quality early care and education programs.

ACF's improvement efforts for the Head Start program include training and technical assistance to assist local projects in meeting the Head Start program performance standards and in maintaining and improving the quality of local programs; research, demonstration, and evaluation activities to test innovative program models and assess program effectiveness; and the conduct of required monitoring activities.

Examples of key strategies for maintaining and improving the program quality and increasing full-day, full-year Head Start services include:

• Expanding partnerships with State child care programs, other early childhood programs and other State and local social service agencies;
  
  
• Improving information and management systems, e.g., the annual Program Information Report which tracks program participation statistics such as the age of children, the kind of education program they receive, and medical, dental and mental health services the children receive;
  
  
• Improving Head Start training and technical assistance networks and quality improvement centers which provide support for programs enrolling infants, toddlers, pregnant women and foster collaboration between community agencies, governments, academic institutions and Head Start programs; and
  
  
• Improving evaluation efforts to measure the impact of Head Start and Early Head Start on children and families.
  

ACF funds a number of programs that focus on preventing maltreatment of children in troubled families, protecting children from abuse, and finding permanent placements for those who cannot safely return to their homes. Examples of key strategies in support of "increasing safety, permanency, and well being of children and youth" include:

• Implementing the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) and the Multiethnic Placement Act (MEPA) to ensure that children are safe and that foster care is viewed as a temporary arrangement. An important provision of the Adoption and Safe Families Act is the requirement that DHHS, in consultation with States and experts in the field, identify a national set of outcome measures that can be used to gauge State and national progress in reaching these goals, and to report on these outcomes in an annual report to the Congress. The Department published the final list of child welfare outcome measures in the Federal Register on August 20, 1999.
  
  
• Increasing capacity at the State and Federal levels to improve the safety, permanency and well-being of children through outcome-based monitoring, identification of problems and corrective action;
  
  
• Increasing data collection, analysis and reporting to better support policy development and allocation of resources;
  
  
• Implementing the new Chaffee Independent Living Program in a way that moves the youth agenda described in the action plan, A National Blueprint for Youth, forward and assists young people in their transition to successful adulthood; and
  
  
• Publishing a final rule in the Federal Register in January 2000 to establish new approaches to monitoring State child welfare programs that promote increased safety for children who are maltreated; quicker movement to permanent homes and families for children in foster care; and enhanced well-being for families served by State agencies.

Strategic Goal 3: Increase the health and prosperity of communities and Tribes

Agency investments to meet this goal are focused on improving program performance and outcomes at the State, Tribal and local levels. Key resources designated for training, technical assistance, planning, evaluation and data collection will continue to be awarded to States, Tribes, Territories and localities to accomplish this objective.

Examples of strategies include:

• Matching these funds and others from State and local levels to support training at national, State, Tribal and regional association conferences;
  
  
• Development and use of special implementation tools such as manuals and scales for incremental measurement at the individual, family and community levels;
  
  
• Using surveys and survey methodology and electronically-provided economic and demographic mapping data at the neighborhood level; and
  
  
• Providing reporting tools and specific on-site consultative technical assistance efforts.

Strategic Goal 4: Build a results-oriented organization

ACF has added several objectives and measures in response to the President's Management Agenda which calls for "active, but limited" government: one that empowers States, cities, and citizens to make decisions; ensures results through accountability; and promotes innovations through competition. ACF is working closely with DHHS to implement five strategic reforms: strategic management of human capital, competitive sourcing, improved financial performance, expanded electronic government and budget and performance integration. ACF has focused on improving and expanding our capacity to provide high quality, cost-effective and efficient services to meet customer needs and expectations using state-of-the-art information technology to improve management and data systems. Through our workforce analysis planning and Fair Labor Act initiatives, we anticipate becoming increasingly market-based. Initiatives underway to accomplish these strategies include:

• Partnering with other Federal Agencies to support the Government-wide Federal Commons project where potential grantees will be able to apply for grant funds through a single portal on the Internet;
  
  
• Investing in internal systems improvement and technology so that current and potential ACF grantees can apply for grant funds through our On-Line Data Collection Internet access;
  
  
• Investing and expanding initiatives in human resources and skill training to replace staff lost to attrition, hiring the most qualified candidates in key programs areas, and aligning the workforce with our goals and priorities;
  
  
• Providing support to the agency to implement diversity and minority initiatives that help us achieve diversity objectives that reflect all groups including our most under-represented populations;
  
  
• Identifying cross-cutting work processes with needed core and technical competencies for the next three to five years and developing a training strategy to improve the core competency skills through cross-program training and implementation of individual employee training plans; and
  
  
• Investing in systems improvement and technology so that ACF staff have the capacity to move forward in a working environment which increasingly requires that all employees have access to and use of the Internet as an integral part of day-to-day agency operations.

1.3 PARTNERSHIPS AND COORDINATION

ACF's programs are administered in a complex partnership environment in which varying Federal, State, local, non-profit and community-based funding sources and programs develop and carry out programs, deliver services and strive to attain goals. The relationships, funding mechanisms and degrees of autonomy vary from program to program. A primary challenge is to collaborate with partners in crafting effective policies and programs that satisfy mutually agreed-upon objectives. The broad goals of these diverse jurisdictions and organizations are similar to those of ACF, although State and local programs may differ on specific targets and outcomes relevant to the particular needs of the population groups and communities they serve.

States and Local Organizations

ACF programs have worked intensively with their partners and have made substantial progress in recent years towards a measurable results framework with performance measures and outcomes for operating programs. Results-oriented partnership agreements and targets have been negotiated with individual States. Each program has developed an individualized process for engaging partners in goal setting and definition of measures and targets that are meaningful and useful at the State and local community level. For example, ACF undertook a legislatively-mandated, partner-oriented process to develop the measures and funding formula under which we would award TANF high performance bonuses to States. Also, the child support program developed with States a national strategic plan with indicators and targets. The refugee program involved both State refugee programs and community-based service organizations in the development of measures and targets. In some programs, such as child care, which were new but had no mandated requirement for consultation like TANF, a preliminary set of proxy measures was developed for the first GPRA planning years, while the program undertook a consensus-building process with the partnership constituencies.

Collaboration with Federal Partners

Across DHHS, a large number of programs share related objectives. Many DHHS programs also share related goals and responsibilities with other Federal agencies. Therefore, both internal and external coordination is necessary to administer programs effectively. Interagency consultation has taken place across programs within ACF, (e.g., child care and Head Start, child support and TANF) and within DHHS (e.g., between TANF and Medicaid) through seminars and forums convened by the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Budget, Technology and Finance (ASBTF) and the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE).

Special efforts have been directed to assure that children have access to health and child development services. Head Start and the Child Care Bureau work with DHHS health agencies e.g. the Maternal and Child Health Bureau, Community Health Centers, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMSHA) and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to assist with attaining health targets. For example, Child Care and Head Start coordinate with the Health Resources and Services Administration's (HRSA) Maternal and Child Health program to improve health and safety in child care by creating strong links with health communities. Increasing the number of women who receive early and comprehensive prenatal care is among the salient goals of the Early Head Start program, which serves low-income families with infants and toddlers. ACF programs provide outreach for the State Child Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), which is administered by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Head Start and Child Care jointly sponsor the QUILT (Quality in Linking Together) project that helps Head Start and child care grantees form program partnerships to provide high quality full-day, full-year early childhood services.. Such coordination at the implementation and delivery level is producing significant results.

ACF has been an active participant in cross-program efforts to develop broader indicators of child well-being, e.g., Trends in the Well-being of America's Children and Youth; America's Children: Key National Indicators of Well-being; Healthy People 2010 and the Children's Indicators Consortium study. ACF is committed to working collaboratively with its partners in the refinement of these broader performance measures and the identification of annual performance targets.

It has been challenging to identify cross-cutting performance measures within ACF. Program data systems are operated by a diversity of grantee partners serving distinct populations. However, ACF has created networks, workgroups, and collaborative initiatives and events that cut across program boundaries and make major contributions to GPRA planning. For example, ACF has measures that link child care and Head Start, and Head Start with health outcomes. Additionally, ACF's Administration on Developmental Disabilities has GPRA measures that relate to housing, health services, employment and education. The Family Violence Prevention program has measures that focus on Tribes and the National Domestic Violence Hotline.

Given that ACF measures have been developed in collaboration with partners, the consultation process outside of ACF has been extensive, though more so with ACF's program partners, such as States and grantees, than with other Federal agencies. ACF works closely with Federal Departments such as Labor, Treasury, Housing and Urban Development, Education and Transportation in implementing, operating and improving welfare reform, early child development, child care, child support, and other programs. Consultation with Federal agencies outside of DHHS on specific GPRA performance plan issues has not been a formal or rigid process. Program-specific data and measurement issues, as well as differing statutes and populations served, make identical performance measures impractical. However, ACF has found that intensive consultation and coordination on program design and objectives provide a climate for close alignment among programs with similar goals. Performance measurement issues are central to cross-agency discussions, e.g., identifying State unemployment records as a data source for TANF performance measures. There has been extensive programmatic collaboration, including TANF and welfare-to-work grants with the Department of Labor; child care and Head Start with the Department of Education; and child support enforcement with the Departments of Justice, Treasury and Defense. These collaborations have helped develop results-oriented strategies that contribute to the success of performance goals.

1.4 SUMMARY FY 2001 PERFORMANCE REPORT: ACCOUNTABILITY THROUGH PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT

ACF continues to make improvements in the performance measurement for its programs. For FY 2001, all ACF programs except the Assets for Independence program have performance measures. The number of measures and targets has increased from forty-seven measures in FY 1999 to sixty-five measures in FY 2001. As ACF continues to gain experience in performance measurement, measures are being refined, added, dropped and replaced. (See Appendix A-5 for FY 1999 and 2000 for a summary of newly available performance data).

The table below illustrates ACF GPRA performance progress for FY 1999-2001. In FY 1999 and 2000, the first two years of our performance measurement program, ACF reported a substantial number of differences between targeted and actual performance. As we continue to work with our partners, many of our program measures and targets are being refined or revised.

*Note: Includes performance, which is within 5% of estimated target.
**Youth is unable to report on bracketed number of FY 2001 measures because of changes in data systems and definitions of measures.

As of February 2002, we are able to report on forty-five of the fifty-two FY 2000 targets and fifteen of the sixty-five FY 2001 targets. Most of the measures in our plan rely on State data systems; final data are available nine to twelve months after the end of the fiscal year. Missing FY 2000 - 2001 data will be included in subsequent performance reports, as they become available.

The reader will note that many FY 1999 and FY 2000 measures have been replaced and targets adjusted in subsequent performance plans. The individual program summary sections explain the difference between targets and actual achievements. As more trend data are collected, ACF will be better able to evaluate program strategies and adjust future performance targets.

PERFORMANCE COMMITMENT

GPRA has become an integral part of the everyday operation of the agency. ACF has been managing toward results since the early 1990s. In 1995, it instituted Achieving Success: Trends and Targets," an annual report on a number of critical program measures which included goals for major programs, identified data sources and provided initial baselines and trend data later used with partners at the State and local community level in identifying achievable targets. This report, first released in FY 1996 and updated annually through FY 1998, was part of a continuing commitment to share progress with partners, stakeholders, customers and the general public. Although many of these measures and targets have changed as a result of recent legislation and the creation of new programs, this summary data proved useful in assessing past performance.

ACF's leadership has made a commitment to "stretch goals" to encourage programs towards measurably higher achievement, within realistic bounds. As this effort is still in its early stages across government, continued experience should improve the relationship between planned targets and actual results. Over time, ACF will have more trend data, which will help in setting and adjusting targets. In a few programs, such as TANF and child support, goal achievement is linked by program statute to incentives and sanctions. In these cases, the process has been driven by a concern for realistic measures. Where an incentives system is not a factor, programs have been encouraged to increase targets with the understanding that shortfalls in achievement will be informative for assessing whether the target has been set too aggressively and what corrective actions should be taken.

SUMMARY OF PERFORMANCE SUCCESS

ACF's performance measures include incentives and increased expectations for single parents to gain employment; initiatives that ensure that children receive the support due from an absent parent; incentives to States to provide necessary supports to families to sustain their participation in the workforce and to provide quality child care; and efforts to find adoptive homes for children who need them. As a result, children and families are achieving greater family stability and economic security.

In 1997, seven priority results were selected from the performance plan to serve as a framework for articulating our mission-critical objectives across organizational boundaries and focusing work to achieve outcomes. These priority results included future-oriented, outcome-driven statements that challenged ACF staff to innovate and collaborate in seven areas: welfare reform, child support, child care, infants and toddlers, Head Start, child welfare and increasing our capacity to work with our partners. These priority results provide senior staff with targeted opportunities to collaborate on a number of selected mission-critical cross-cutting activities.

In FY 1999, ACF launched a performance-based work planning system that incorporated the collective and individual responsibilities of ACF's leadership team to track agency-wide results. This work planning system linked each senior executive's performance directly to the seven priority areas accomplished under the work plans. The Priority Work Plans (also called Results Maps) were based on the outcomes identified in the performance plan for each priority area. ACF executives met as a group and with their staffs to refine targets, strategies and activities and identified clear, distinct roles and responsibilities required for effective accomplishment of each priority result. The Priority Work Plans (Results Maps) provided an invaluable tool for linking operational plans more closely with specific strategies, outcomes and results. In October 2000, three additional priority areas (youth, Tribal programs and domestic violence) were identified.

In FY 2002, ACF leadership identified a number of key priorities to provide targeted opportunities for all programs to collaborate on selected mission-critical cross-cutting activities. Many of these priorities are included in the President's FY 2003 budget.

• Fatherhood: Helping men become responsible, committed, involved fathers.
  
  
• Healthy Marriage: Helping couples who choose marriage for themselves to develop the skills and knowledge to form and sustain healthy marriages.
  
  
• Faith-based/Community Initiatives: Removing barriers to the full participation of faith-based and other community services in the delivery of social services.
  
  
• Positive Youth Development: Promoting ongoing relationships with adult role models; safe places with structured activities, healthy life styles; opportunities to acquire marketable skills and opportunities for commuity service and civic participation.
  
  
• Next Phase of Welfare Reform: Expanding welfare reform efforts to meet all four goals of the original legislation; identifying gaps and changes required to move the welfare reform agenda forward.
  
  
• Enhancing Early Literacy of Children: Improving the pre-reading and numeracy skills of young children to improve school readiness.
  
  
• Rural Initiative: Strengthening rural families and communities.
  
  
• Prevention: Dedicating resources to prevent the need for intervention services.
  
  
• One Department: Unifying systems, improving management of financial and physical assets, consolidating resources, eliminating duplication and restructuring the workforce to streamline and provide enhanced, citizen-centered services.

The Assistant Secretary for ACF entered into a results-oriented performance agreement with the Secretary of DHHS for FY 2002. Thirty-three measures in the performance agreement are based on the FY 2002 performance plan. The Assistant Secretary will be entering into similar agreements with political and career senior leaders as a way of setting clear expectations and rewarding good performance.

Our focus on cross-cutting program strategies with increased emphasis on performance has produced measurable improvements, such as:

• The number of TANF recipients who have become newly employed has increased; wages have increased (measures 1.1c-e) and child care supports have been developed to enable parents to carry out the dual responsibilities of raising their children and providing economically for their families.
  
  
• The Child Care and Development Fund served an additional 360,000 children since FY 1998 (measures 4.1a);
  
  
• Forty-one States reported significant improvement in wages for refugees and in percentage of full-time job placements with health benefits (measure 1.4b);
  
  
• Child support collections have more than doubled between 1992 and 2001; (measure 3.1c);
  
  
• There has been a substantial increase in the number of adoptions since 1996 (measure 7.1f); the proportion of the children being reunified in less than one year is increasing (measure 7.1c); and the FY 2000 target for adoptions by relatives was reached (measure 7.1k); and
  
  
• Head Start children are better prepared to enter school (measures 5.2a-e).

Rewarding Performance: The recent legislative environment has supported a focus on results, in part through enactment of statutory bonus provisions based on performance. For example, the Child Support Performance and Incentive Act of 1998 put in place a performance-based incentive system that rewards States for their performance on five measures: paternity establishment, orders obtained, collection of current support, collection of past-due support and cost effectiveness. In addition, the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) created the Adoption Incentive program, under which States receive incentive funds tied to their success in increasing the number of children adopted from the foster care system. The TANF statute contains a High Performance Bonus (HPB) provision which rewards States that are most successful in achieving the purposes of the TANF program. Further, the TANF statute rewards up to five States with the largest decrease in their ratio of non-marital births to total births, provided that these States also show a decrease in their abortion rate relative to 1995.

Focus on Results: In FY 2000, ACF announced a number of awards to programs and partners, which exemplify ACF's focus on results, and pursuit of excellence. In February 2000, the Office of Child Support Enforcement received the Hammer Award (given to government agencies that demonstrate innovation) for its success in collecting delinquent child support payments through the National Directory of New Hires. Federal and State child support enforcement programs set new records in nationwide collections in fiscal year 2000, reaching $17.9 billion, more than doubling the amount collected in 1992. DHHS announced the third annual Adoption 2002 Excellence awards to individuals and organizations for giving abandoned, neglected, or abused children a loving family and a safe and nurturing home. These awards included unprecedented financial incentives to States to increase adoptions, put the safety of children first in placement decisions and set swifter time frames for permanent placement decisions. In December 2000, ACF awarded $200 million in TANF high performance bonuses to the 28 States with the best records in moving parents on welfare into jobs and in sustaining their success in the workforce. This was the second year in which these bonuses were awarded.

ACF selected four core measures as High Impact Agency goals to be achieved by FY 2000, part of a government-wide effort to focus on results. The establishment of these goals focused our efforts with partners and provided an incentive for improving State management and administrative data systems. These four measures included the following target information in the final status report:

• Increase self-sufficiency for low-income families by moving one million welfare recipients into new employment by FY 2000.
  
  For FY 1998, 46 states reported 1.3 million job entries, substantially exceeding the goal in only one year; and in FY 1999, 48 States and the District of Columbia reported 1.2 million job entries. (completed)
  
  
• Increase parents' financial support for their children by increasing the amount of total child support collections to $20.8 billion by October 2000, an increase of 75% over FY 1996 and 160% over FY 1992.
  
  $17.9 billion in collections were received in total child support for FY 2000. (completed)
  
  
• By 2000, consistent with the adoption goal for 2002, increase the number of children who are adopted from the public foster care system to 46,000.
  
  Adoptions increased from 28,000 in FY 1996 to 46,000 in FY 1999. (completed)
  
  
• Streamline more than 30 separate grant programs into a single comprehensive system of electronic processing and transfers to benefit grantees by more timely and efficient grants processing, more accurate data, less down time and enabling quicker start-up. This improvement corrected the Year 2000 programming flaw embedded in current grant programs.
  
  Thirty-seven systems were replaced by a single comprehensive system of electronic processing. (completed)

SUMMARY OF PERFORMANCE CHALLENGES

The diversity of programs, target populations, levels of government, and range of partners make efforts to establish and achieve goals and outcome measures extremely challenging. Over the past several years, ACF changed the way it measures the success of programs and implemented a major shift in the way it does business with partners. A changing role with States and grantees allowed ACF to re-examine the culture of the agency in ways that accelerated major reforms in many programs. In order to focus on results, ACF continues to update performance measures, targets and information and strengthen partnerships with States and grantees. Creating a mature set of performance goals and data collection strategies is a high priority. It takes considerable time to bring partners to the table, develop shared priorities and goals, address weaknesses in data collection and determine an optimum set of measures.

Data Issues: ACF relies on State administrative data systems for performance reporting because States and local community organizations administer most of our programs. For many programs, final reports are due ninety to 120 days after the fiscal year ends. In some cases, for example, in TANF where earnings gains are measured over a 9-month period after an individual obtains a job, the period is even longer. This time lag in receiving and validating data reports on actual achievements makes it difficult to provide a comprehensive summary of FY 2001 performance until late in FY 2002. The lack of readily available information and the restrictions on data collection inhibit performance measurement. Additionally, many of our programs rely on voluntary data reports, e.g., LIHEAP, Child Care, TANF, CSBG, and ADD. Fluctuations in the number of States and grantees reporting and the flexibility allowed in selecting measures continue to make the collection of consistent, reliable and verifiable data extremely challenging. Detailed information on program-specific data issues and requirements for data validation and verification are addressed in each of the fourteen program sections. Appendix A.7 has detailed information on availability of State and grantee administrative data. ACF is currently working with the DHHS Data Council to assess unmet data needs for our major programs. ACF is committed to making additional investments in data collection and information systems

 

 

 

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