GPRA Modernization Act of 2010

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. ISSA. I thank you.

Madam Speaker, Feliz Navidad, Merry Christmas, but today is Ground Hog Day. I know it is because we're getting the same bill we got last week. It looks the same. Matter of fact, it's so much the same that I recognized it from an earlier document, the President's budget. In his package on performance and management, the President had already determined to do pretty much what we're putting here.

Matter of fact, we're codifying in statute, plus throwing in $75 million of additional cost, what the President already was doing. We're not giving him anything that he doesn't already have authority for and is doing. Really what we're doing is simply allowing the President to say it's okay for me to spend $75 million more on what I already wanted to do; it's okay because I'm under this mandate of Congress. It's okay for this Congress to go sine die really talking about things they were accomplishing when this doesn't accomplish anything.

I will be voting against this because I don't want to spend $75 million doing what the President already put in his own document.

Madam Speaker, I would ask that this excerpt from the President's performance and management review to be placed in the Record.

7. DELIVERING HIGH-PERFORMANCE GOVERNMENT

For too long, Washington has not responsibly managed the tax dollars entrusted it by the American people. Decision-makers opened their doors and ears to those able to afford lobbyists while it became harder and harder for everyone else to learn what Government was doing, what it was accomplishing, and for whom. Programs and practices were allowed to persist out of inertia and not because they were delivering the results expected of them, while others that seemed to work were rarely assessed to confirm their impact and find ways to enhance their value. Over the last two decades, as the private sector was utilizing new management techniques and information technologies to boost productivity, cut costs, and deliver previously unheard of levels of customer service, the public sector lagged conspicuously behind.

The American people deserve better. They deserve a Federal Government that respects their tax dollars, and uses them effectively and efficiently. They deserve a Federal Government that is transparent, fair, and responsive. And they deserve a Government that is constantly looking to streamline what works and to eliminate what does not. The Administration is committed to revolutionizing how the Federal Government runs on behalf of the American people. The President appointed the Nation's first Chief Performance Officer, and the Administration has taken steps to bring more transparency to, for instance, how Federal information technology (IT) dollars are spent to improve customer service for those using citizenship services. At the same time, the Administration has combed the Budget to find programs that are duplicative, outdated, or just not working.

To improve the performance of the Federal Government in the coming fiscal year and in years to come, the Administration will pursue three mutually reinforcing performance management strategies:

1. Use Performance Information to Lead, Learn, and Improve Outcomes. Agency leaders set a few high-priority goals and use constructive data-based reviews to keep their organizations on track to deliver on these objectives.

2. Communicate Performance Coherently and Concisely for Better Results and Transparency. The Federal Government will candidly communicate to the public the priorities, problems, and progress of Government programs, explaining the reasons behind past trends, the impact of past actions, and future plans. In addition, agencies will strengthen their capacity to learn from experience and experiments.

3. Strengthen Problem-Solving Networks. The Federal Government will tap into and encourage practitioner communities, inside and outside Government, to work together to improve outcomes and performance management practices.

USE PERFORMANCE INFORMATION TO LEAD, LEARN, AND IMPROVE OUTCOMES

Government operates more effectively when it focuses on outcomes, when leaders set clear and measurable goals, and when agencies use measurement to reinforce priorities, motivate action, and illuminate a path to improvement. This outcome-focused performance management approach has proved a powerful way to achieve large performance gains in other countries, several States, an increasing number of local governments, and a growing number of Federal programs. For instance, the State of Washington pushed down the re-victimization rate of children harmed in their homes from 13.3 percent to 6.5 percent over the last seven years by monitoring how changes in agency action affected children previously harmed and by adjusting policies accordingly to make improvements for the children.

New York City and, subsequently, the City of Los Angeles saw crime rates plummet after each adopted CompStat meetings. These are frequently scheduled, goal-focused, data-driven meetings at which precinct captains are expected to discuss statistics about outcomes (e.g., crime), cost drivers (e.g., overtime), unwanted side effects (e.g., police abuse complaints), patterns of problems in the precinct, probable causes, apparent effects of prior actions, and future actions planned. Similarly, the U.S. Coast Guard's Marine and Marine Environmental Protection programs work to reduce maritime deaths and injuries, large oil spills, and chemical discharge incidents by regularly analyzing their data to identify contributory causes and by testing different prevention options to identify and then implement those that work best.

Outcome-focused performance management can transform the way government works, but its success is by no means assured. The ultimate test of an effective performance management system is whether it is used, not the number of goals and measures produced. Federal performance management efforts have not fared well on this test. The Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 (GPRA) and the Performance Assessment Rating Tool (PART) reviews increased the production of measurements in many agencies, resulting in the availability of better measures than previously existed; however, these initial successes have not lead to increased use. With a few exceptions, Congress does not use the performance goals and measures agencies produce to conduct oversight, agencies do not use them to evaluate effectiveness or drive improvements, and they have not provided meaningful information for the public.

Studies of past Federal performance management efforts have identified several problematic practices. For example, senior leaders at Federal agencies have historically focused far more attention on new policy development than on managing to improve outcomes. Mechanisms used to motivate change created serious unwanted side effects or linked to the wrong objectives. Central office reviews mandated measurements inappropriate to the situation, and performance reports seldom answered the questions of key audiences. Moreover, the annual reporting requirement of GPRA and the five-year program PART review cycle did not provide agencies the fast feedback needed to assess if delivery efforts were on track or to diagnose why they were or were not. Neither GPRA nor PART precluded more frequent measurement to inform agency action, but only a few agencies opted to supplement their annual measurement cycle with the kinds of data and analysis that fueled the private sector performance revolution.

The Administration is initiating several new performance management actions and is tasking a new generation of performance leaders to implement successful performance management practices.

To encourage senior leaders to deliver results against the most important priorities, the Administration launched the High-Priority Performance Goal initiative in June 2009, asking agency heads to identify and commit to a limited number of priority goals, generally three to eight, with high value to the public. The goals must have ambitious, but realistic, targets to achieve within 18 to 24 months without need for new resources or legislation, and well-defined, outcomes-based measures of progress. These goals are included in this Budget. Some notable examples are:

Assist 3 million homeowners who are at risk of losing their homes due to foreclosure (Secretaries Donovan and Geithner);

Reduce the population of homeless veterans to 59,000 in June, 2012 (Secretaries Donovan and Shinseki); and

Double renewable energy generating capacity (excluding conventional hydropower) by 2012 (Secretary Chu).

In the coming year, the Administration will ask agency leaders to carry out a similar priority-setting exercise with top managers of their bureaus to set bureau-level goals and align those goals, as appropriate, with agency-wide priority goals. These efforts are not distinct from the goal-setting and measurement expectations set forth in the GPRA, but rather reflect an intention to translate GPRA from a reporting exercise to a performance-improving practice across the Federal Government. By making agencies' top leaders responsible for specific goals that they themselves have named as most important, the Administration is dramatically improving accountability and the chances that Government will deliver results on what matters most.

Agency leaders will put in place rigorous, constructive quarterly feedback and review sessions to help agencies reach their targets, building on lessons from successful public sector performance management models in other governments and in some Federal agencies. In addition, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) will initiate quarterly performance updates to help senior Federal Government leaders stay focused on driving to results.

OMB will support the agencies with tools and assistance to help them succeed. In addition, OMB will help coordinate inter-agency efforts in select situations where collaboration is critical to success.

COMMUNICATE PERFORMANCE COHERENTLY AND CONCISELY FOR BETTER RESULTS AND TRANSPARENCY

Transparent, coherent performance information contributes to more effective, efficient, fair, and responsive government. Transparency not only promotes public understanding about the actions that government is working to accomplish, but also supports learning across government agencies, stimulates idea flow, enlists assistance, and motivates performance gain. In addition, transparency can strengthen public confidence in government, especially when government does more than simply herald its successes but also provides candid assessments of problems encountered, their likely causes, and actions being taken to address problems.

The Administration is initiating several new performance communication actions. First, the Administration will identify and eliminate performance measurements and documents that are not useful. Second, what remains will be used. Goals contained in plans and budgets will communicate concisely and coherently what government is trying to accomplish. Agency, cross-agency, and program measures, including those developed under GPRA and PART that proved useful to agencies, the public, and OMB, will candidly convey how well the Government is accomplishing the goals. Combined performance plans and reports will explain why goals were chosen, the size and characteristics of problems Government is tackling, factors affecting outcomes that Government hopes to influence, lessons learned from experience, and future actions planned.

Going forward, agencies will take greater ownership in communicating performance plans and results to key audiences to inform their decisions. Making performance data useful to all audiences--congressional, public, and agency leaders--improves both program performance and reporting accuracy.

To that end, the Administration will redesign public access to Federal performance information.

The Administration will create a Federal performance portal that provides a clear, concise picture of Federal goals and measures by theme, by agency, by program, and by program type. It will be designed to increase transparency and coherence for the public, motivate improvements, support collaboration, and enhance the ability of the Federal Government and its service delivery partners to learn from others' experiences and from research experiments. The performance portal will also provide easy links to mission-support management dashboards, such as the IT dashboard (http://it.usaspending.gov/) launched in the summer of 2009, and similar dashboards planned for other common Government functions including procurement, improper payments, and hiring.

While performance information is critical to improving Government effectiveness and efficiency, it can answer only so many questions. More sophisticated evaluation methods are required to answer fundamental questions about the social, economic, or environmental impact of programs and practices, isolating the effect of Government action from other possible influencing factors. OMB recently launched an Evaluation Initiative to promote rigorous impact evaluations, build agency evaluation capacity, and improve transparency of evaluation findings. These evaluations are a powerful complement to agency performance improvement efforts and often benefit from the availability of performance data. OMB will make information about all Federal evaluations focused on the impacts of programs and program practices available online through the performance portal. The Evaluation Initiative is explained in more detail in Chapter 8, ``Program Evaluation,'' in this volume.

STRENGTHEN PROBLEM-SOLVING NETWORKS

The third strategy the Administration will pursue to improve performance management involves the extensive use of existing and new practitioner networks. Federal agencies do not work in isolation to improve outcomes. Every Federal agency and employee depends on and is supported by others--other Federal offices, other levels of government, for-profit and not-for-profit organizations, and individuals with expertise or a passion about specific problems. New information technologies are transforming our ability to tap vast reservoirs of capacity beyond the office. At the same time, low-technology networks such as professional associations and communities of practice are also able to solve problems, spur innovation, and diffuse knowledge. The Administration will create cross-agency teams to tackle shared problems and reach out to existing networks, both inside and outside Government, to find and develop smarter performance management methods and to assist others in their application. It will tap their intelligence, ingenuity, and commitment, as well as their dissemination and delivery capacity.

The Performance Improvement Council (PIC), made up of Performance Improvement Officers from every Federal agency, will function as the hub of the performance management network. OMB will work with the PIC to create and advance a new set of Federal performance management principles, refine a Government-wide performance management implementation plan, and identify and tackle specific problems as they arise. The PIC will also serve as a home for Federal communities of practice, some new and some old. Some communities of practice will be organized by problems, some by program type such as regulatory programs, and some by methods such as quality management. These communities will develop tools and provide expert advice and assistance to their Federal colleagues. In addition, the PIC will address the governance challenge of advancing progress on high-priority problems that require action by multiple agencies. The Administration will also turn to existing external networks--including State and local government associations, schools of public policy and management, think tanks, and professional associations--to enlist their assistance on specific problems and in spreading effective performance management practices.

Mr. Cuellar did a good job last week in the first of these two appearances on the same bill. He said it was something he really wanted to pass. He said it was his bill. I don't think the fact that it is amended would make it less his bill, but it isn't his bill really. It's written by the administration, codified by the Senate, and sent over to us in the 11th hour when, in fact, it could, in the next Congress, actually go through a review process to see if we could actually mandate something more than what the President's doing, if we should mandate what the President is already doing, or, quite frankly, if we should tie the hands of the next President by simply codifying the elective actions of this President.

Now, there was a letter that came purportedly, and I am sure it did, from somebody in the Bush administration. And I will be interested to see when it was written because this President has systematically chosen to make changes in how the last President did performance. I am not going to say that President Bush was the best or that what President Obama is doing is different; but there are differences, and these differences are the elective right of the President to try to do these.

So with all due respect, Madam Speaker, I will still be voting ``no'' on this second Groundhog Day on this bill. I will still believe that if we had had a chance in the next Congress we could have done better and would have done better.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

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