Summary

GAO provided information on the Small Business Administration's (SBA) performance plan for fiscal year (FY) 1999.

GAO noted that: (1) SBA's FY 1999 performance plan provides an incomplete picture of intended performance across the agency, does not fully portray how SBA's strategies and resources will help it achieve the plan's performance goals, and partially provides confidence that the information SBA will use to assess performance will be accurate, complete, and credible; and (2) among its strengths, SBA's performance plan: (a) reflects the mission statement and strategic goals in its strategic plan; (b) has performance goals that are objective, reasonably free of bias, and measurable; (c) has performance measures that generally are objective, quantified, and useful for assessing progress toward the plan's performance goals; (d) recognizes that SBA's success in achieving its performance goals depends on coordinating with federal agencies and others whose mission and activities complement those of SBA; and (e) recognizes that external factors could affect SBA's ability to achieve its performance goals and mentions actions that SBA can take to mitigate the effects of some of these factors.