	Background

OPM is the central management agency of the federal government charged with administering and enforcing federal civil service laws, regulations, and rules and aiding the President in carrying out his responsibilities for managing the federal workforce. OPM’s Performance Plan Provides a General Picture of Intended Performance Across the Agency

The plan includes performance goals and measures that address major programs and priorities and provides a general picture of intended performance across the agency. However, the plan only partially discusses its coordination with other agencies on crosscutting activities and could have been more useful if it had contained cost-based performance goals and measures. OPM’s fiscal year 2000 annual performance plan also does not contain cost-based performance goals and measures, where it appears appropriate to do so, to show how efficiently OPM performs certain operations and activities. The fiscal year 2000 annual performance plan indicates moderate progress in addressing the weaknesses that we identified in our assessment of the fiscal year 1999 annual performance plan. OPM’s Performance Plan Provides a General Discussion of the Strategies and Resources the Agency Will Use to Achieve Its Goals

OPM’s plan provides a general discussion of the resources the agency will use to achieve performance goals and identifies strategies for achieving each of its performance goals. OPM’s strategies for achieving this goal include conducting internal and external evaluations of its systems, such as engaging the assistance of the National Security Agency to review its security capabilities, and implementing appropriate recommendations to improve its security. OPM’S Performance Plan Provides Limited Confidence That Agency Performance Information Will Be Credible

OPM’s fiscal year 2000 annual performance plan provides limited confidence that its performance information will be credible. For example, in its overall section on verification and validation, OPM discusses several customer satisfaction surveys that are key elements in OPM’s measurement program, with varied response rates of up to 57 percent. One of these surveys, a nationwide survey of a sample of human resources specialists at all grade levels and geographic locations, received only a 29 percent response rate. Lower response rates generally increase the uncertainty about the reliability and validity of the survey results. OPM’s Fiscal Year 2000 Annual Performance Plan Presents a Moderate Improvement Over the 1999 Plan

In reviewing the fiscal year 1999 annual performance plan, we observed that the plan’s goals typically were activity or output oriented rather than results oriented, and that the plan could also be improved by including more information on how resources would be used to achieve goals. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM), as the federal government’s central personnel agency, has a leading role in many of these areas.
Why GAO Did This Study

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Office of Personnel Management's (OPM) fiscal year (FY) 2000 annual performance plan.

What GAO Found

GAO noted that: (1) past work done by others and GAO has documented poor workforce planning in federal agencies that can hinder their movement toward performance-based management; (2) major human capital challenges are also emerging, such as the aging of the federal workforce, skills imbalances that arose during downsizing, and a highly competitive market for the kinds of talented employees federal agencies need to meet modern demands for efficient and effective services; (3) because OPM is the central management agency responsible for assisting the President and agencies in managing the workforce, OPM's leadership will be critical to addressing the government's human capital challenges; (4) OPM's FY 2000 annual performance plan provides a general picture of intended performance across the agency; (5) GAO found that the plan's performance goals address OPM's major programs and priorities; (6) however, OPM's plan could have been more useful to decisionmakers in some areas, if it contained cost-based performance measures to show how efficiently OPM performs certain operations and activities, such as processing civil service retirement payments; (7) OPM's annual performance plan includes a general discussion of strategies and resources the agency will use to achieve its goals; (8) for each of its goals, the plan discusses a strategy for achieving that goal; (9) for example, the plan discusses OPM's strategy to enhance its information security program by conducting internal and external evaluations of its systems; (10) OPM's FY 2000 annual performance plan provides a fuller discussion of its performance information than its FY 1999 annual performance plan but overall provides limited confidence that agency performance information will be credible; (11) although the plan discusses OPM's verification and validation of its performance measures, the discussion does not always provide assurance that the methods used will be reliable; (12) the plan proposes using survey results of a sample of human resources specialists as a key element in its measurement program, but the survey received only a 29 percent response rate; (13) in general, the lower the response rates the larger the uncertainty about the reliability and validity of the survey results; and (14) overall, OPM's FY 2000 annual performance plan represents a moderate improvement over the FY 1999 plan in that it addresses a number of weaknesses that GAO identified in its assessment of the FY 1999 plan.