Treasury’s Performance Plan Provides a Partial Picture of Intended Performance Across the Department

As the Results Act requires, the annual performance plan is to provide a basis for an agency to compare actual results with performance goals. While output measures are expected to be in the plan, Treasury could better convey its expected results and show how goals are to be achieved by developing additional outcome measures and better explaining how the outputs that are measured relate to the goals. Connecting Mission, Goals, and Program Activities

For the most part, the performance goals of the Department’s bureaus and offices are connected to their missions, strategic goals, and program activities in the budget request. However, the linkages between the program-level measures and performance goals are not consistently clear. However, the plan does not clearly indicate that ATF coordinated with the other agencies in setting its fiscal year 1999 annual goals or targets. Treasury’s Performance Plan Does Not Completely Discuss How the Department’s Strategies and Sources Will Help it Achieve its Goals

The Results Act requires that annual performance plans briefly describe the strategies and resources the agency intends to use to achieve its performance goals. We found that Treasury’s performance plan adequately discusses, with some exceptions, the resources to support the achievement of its performance goals. The usefulness of the plan, which includes the budget justification, would be enhanced with a fuller description of how its strategies relate to achieving the goals. We found that the information in Treasury’s plan on how strategies were connected to results did not always list strategies and, in other cases, did not adequately describe the strategies. Treasury’s Performance Plan Does Not Provide Sufficient Confidence That the Department’s Performance Information Will Be Credible

Treasury’s performance plan does not provide sufficient confidence that its performance information will be credible because it does not adequately describe procedures for verifying and validating performance data or sufficiently discuss the ramifications of known data limitations. These are challenges that Treasury faces as it strives to better meet the criteria set forth in the Results Act and related guidance. We believe that Treasury’s plan could be improved by including performance goals to address the significant management challenges and high-risk areas the Department faces. We found that the Treasury plan does not have performance goals that adequately address the eight high-risk areas we previously identified that affect Treasury operations. Some of the other major management challenges that Treasury faces are briefly acknowledged in the bureaus’ and offices’ plans. Developing a plan that fully meets all the criteria of the Act and related guidance will be a challenge because developing measures and collecting reliable data for some important areas of Treasury’s performance, such as taxpayer burden, are very difficult to do. Treasury’s plan could be enhanced by explicitly discussing the Department’s strategy to improve its performance measurement systems and data and by describing Treasury’s interim plans to measure performance in critical areas.
Why GAO Did This Study

GAO reviewed the Department of the Treasury's fiscal year (FY) 1999 annual performance plan, focusing on: (1) the extent to which Treasury's performance plan provides a clear picture of intended performance across the agency; (2) how well Treasury's performance plan discusses the strategies and resources it will use to achieve its performance goals; and (3) the extent to which the Treasury's performance plan provides confidence that its performance information will be credible.

What GAO Found

GAO noted that: (1) Treasury's FY 1999 annual performance plan partially meets the criteria set forth in the Government Performance and Results Act and related guidance; (2) one of the strengths of the plan is that the annual performance goals and measures are linked to the strategic goals in the bureaus' and offices' strategic plans; (3) moreover, the plan generally provides a clear connection between its performance goals and the program activities in Treasury's budget request; (4) with a few exceptions, the plan covers each of Treasury's program activities as required by the Results Act; (5) the plan could be improved to better meet the criteria set forth in the Results Act and related guidance by presenting information on performance goals and measures in a manner that would better reflect intended or expected performance and achievements; (6) while GAO recognizes that some output measures are necessary, it also believes the plan could define Treasury's expected performance better if it had more outcome goals and measures; (7) also, the plan does not consistently include information across Treasury's bureaus and offices on how the Department plans to coordinate its activities that share a common purpose with activities in other agencies; (8) the plan, which includes the budget justification, describes the resources for carrying out the strategies to meet the criteria set forth in the Results Act and related guidance; (9) however, the information in the plan on how the strategies relate to achieving the goals did not always list strategies or adequately describe them; (10) additional details on how Treasury plans to verify and validate performance data, along with some discussion of how the effects of data limitations are to be handled, would better assure Congress and other stakeholders that the intended performance or results, if achieved, are credible; (11) GAO realizes that developing measures and collecting reliable data for some important areas of Treasury's performance are very difficult to do; (12) however, Treasury's plan could be enhanced by explicitly discussing the Department's strategy to improve its performance measurement systems and data and by describing Treasury's interim plans to measure performance in critical areas; (13) Treasury's plan would be more useful to Congress and other stakeholders if it included performance goals to address the significant management challenges and high-risk areas it faces; and (14) the plan briefly acknowledges some of the major management challenges and high-risk areas, but it does not have performance goals that adequately address all of them.