Agency Performance Plans Did Not Consistently Provide Clear Pictures of Intended Performance

At the most basic level, an annual performance plan is to provide a clear picture of intended performance across the agency. Defining Expected Performance

Almost all of the annual performance plans that we reviewed contained at least some objective, quantifiable, and measurable annual performance goals—a key expectation of Congress in enacting the Results Act. Overall, however, the annual performance goals and accompanying measures in the plans would need significant development to improve the usefulness of the plans to congressional and other decisionmakers. However, the Act envisions that agencies’ plans would contain goals that focus on the results that programs are intended to achieve, which is particularly important for policymakers. A few performance plans were more useful in that they discussed how agencies expected to coordinate efforts with other agencies that have similar responsibilities. Agency Performance Plans Generally Did Not Relate Strategies and Resources to Performance

In general, the annual performance plans did not provide sufficiently complete discussions of the strategies and resources that agencies will use to achieve their performance goals. The performance plans often provided listings of the agencies’ current array of programs and initiatives but provided only limited perspective on how these programs and initiatives were necessary to or helpful for achieving results. Most of the plans provided descriptions of procedures for verifying and validating performance data, but these descriptions were often superficial. Moreover, these plans generally did not discuss whether agencies had coordinated with their IGs to perform this work. The findings of that report are a major concern because a federal environment that focuses on results—where federal efforts are often but one factor among many that determine whether and if goals are achieved—depends on program evaluations to provide vital information about the contribution of federal efforts. Conclusions

We found that on the whole, future annual performance plans would be more useful if they provide clearer pictures of intended performance across an agency, more fully articulate what strategies and resources will be used to achieve goals and how those strategies and resources will lead to improved performance, and provide much greater confidence that performance information will be credible and useful for decisionmaking. To go beyond the formal requirements of the Results Act to issue annual performance plans and performance reports, and to build a base of experience for how the performance-based approach to management envisioned under the Results Act can be used to improve program results and support congressional and executive branch decisionmaking, we also recommend that the Director of OMB work with Congress and the agencies to identify specific program areas that can be used as best practices.
Why GAO Did This Study

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO summarized its reviews of individual federal agency performance plans, focusing on opportunities to improve the usefulness of future performance plans for decisionmakers.

What GAO Found

GAO noted that: (1) the agencies' first annual performance plans showed the potential for doing performance planning and measurement as envisioned by the Government Performance and Results Act to provide decisionmakers with valuable perspective and useful information for improving program performance; (2) however, overall, substantial further development is needed for these plans to be useful in a significant way to congressional and other decisionmakers; (3) most of the plans that GAO reviewed contained major weaknesses that undermined their usefulness in that they: (a) did not consistently provide clear pictures of agencies' intended performance, (b) generally did not relate strategies and resources to performance; and (c) provided limited confidence that agencies' performance data will be sufficiently credible; (4) GAO believes that Congress, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and the agencies need to build on the experiences of the first round of annual performance planning by working together and targeting key performance issues that will help to make future plans more useful; (5) most of the performance plans had at least some objective, quantifiable, and measurable goals, but few plans consistently included a comprehensive set of goals that focused on the results that programs were intended to achieve; (6) the plans generally did not go further to describe how agencies expected to coordinate their efforts with those of other agencies; (7) most agencies' performance plans did not provide clear strategies that described how performance goals would be achieved; (8) the performance plans generally provided listings of the agencies' current array of programs and initiatives but provided limited perspective on how these programs and initiatives were necessary or helpful for achieving results; (9) most of the plans did not adequately describe the resources needed to achieve their agencies' performance goals; (10) most annual performance plans provided only superficial descriptions of procedures that agencies intended to use to verify and validate performance data; and (11) the absence of program evaluation capacity is a major concern, because a federal environment that focuses on results depends on program evaluation to provide vital information about the contribution of the federal effort.