Conclusions

OPM’s mission, in part, is to provide strategic human capital management leadership and services to federal agencies. OPM’s fiscal year 2000 performance report and fiscal year 2002 performance plan contain many goals that measure the extent of their activities, but there are few goals and measures that assess the actual state of strategic human capital management in the federal government or the specific contributions that OPM’s programs and initiatives make. Even though OPM does not directly control these outcomes in federal agencies, it needs to measure the results to assess how well its leadership and services are working. OPM has recognized this weakness and is working with federal department and agency human resource directors to develop a series of human capital measures. OPM also needs to make other improvements to its report and plan, including strengthening goals and measures to improve their reliability, linking its internal human capital goals to OPM programs, and establishing a program management performance goal to assess fraud and error in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program.
Why GAO Did This Study

This report reviews the Office of Personnel Management's (OPM) fiscal year 2000 performance report and fiscal year 2002 performance plan.

What GAO Found

OPM's mission, in part, is to provide strategic human capital management leadership and services to federal agencies. OPM's fiscal year 2000 performance report and fiscal year 2002 performance plan contain many goals that measure the extent of their activities, but there are few goals and measures that assess the actual state of strategic human capital management in the federal government or the specific contributions that OPM's programs and initiatives make. Although OPM does not directly control these outcomes in federal agencies, it needs to measure the results to assess how well its leadership services are working. OPM recognizes this weakness and is working with human resource directors at federal agencies to develop a series of human capital measures. In its report and plan, OPM also need to strengthen goals and measures to improve their reliability, link its internal human capital goals to OPM programs, and establishing a program management performance goal to assess fraud and error in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program.