Agencies, Congress urged to talk about performance

As agencies prepare to deliver their first-ever performance reports in March, detailing whether they have met goals they set for 1999, experts say that the lines of communication between agencies and Capitol Hill about their management reform efforts must be improved.

"This is the year where everything comes together, and we discover whether elected officials will take the process seriously," said Alan Balutis, deputy chief information officer at the Commerce Department, at a forum in Washington last week.

That makes it critical, said Rep. Stephen Horn, R-Calif., for agency officials to establish personal connections not only with Hill staffers, but individual members of Congress. Federal managers, he said at the forum, should "spend an afternoon [with members] saying, 'Let us explain what we want to do and you can tell us what you think needs to be done.' "

The forum, held by the Performance Achievement Association, a coalition of federal contractors (and co-sponsored by Government Executive) looked at barriers to implementation of the 1993 Government Performance and Results Act. The act requires agencies to develop annual performance plans detailing what they intend to accomplish and explaining how they will measure their progress. The first plans were developed for fiscal 1999, and progress reports on those plans are due March 31.

In a report issued late last week, the General Accounting Office said agencies and congressional staffers need to do a better job of communicating about performance information.

GAO used several case studies to determine ways to make agency performance plans more useful to congressional oversight committees. In many cases, miscommunication, not inadequate data, was the real culprit, according to the report, "Managing for Results: Views on Ensuring the Usefulness of Agency Performance Information to Congress (GGD-00-35).

Often, the information staffers sought was available either on an agency's Web site, or available from agency staff, but never made it to the proper hands.

"Foremost, improved communication between congressional staff and agency officials about those needs might help ensure that congressional information needs are understood, and that, where feasible, arrangements are made to meet them," the report said.

Congressional ataffers interviewed by GAO said they wanted certain issues addressed on a recurring basis, such as the quality, quantity and efficiency of program operations, how staff and money were allocated across programs, and how well programs were serving the populations they are intended for.

Staffers were often confused by the presentation of data, GAO said. "Congressional staffs wanted to see more direct linkages among the agencies' resources, strategies and goals," the report said.

For example, performance plans sometimes linked isolated activities to department goals, but failed to give a big picture view of how all agency activities linked to strategic goals, the report said. A better option might be for agencies to develop performance plans for their major programs and include that in the overall department plan, the report said.