Congress told to focus on agencies' performance reports

Congress should scrutinize federal agencies' first-ever annual performance reports this month to determine whether the government is getting the results Americans want, experts told a House subcommittee Wednesday.

"The performance reports offer the first opportunity to systematically assess the agencies' actual performance on a governmentwide basis and to consider the specific steps that can be taken to improve performance and reduce costs," Comptroller General David Walker said at a hearing of the House Rules Subcommittee on Rules and Organization. "These annual reports on program performance can also help congressional committees monitor and select programs for more detailed reviews."

Walker urged each oversight committee to use the annual reports in hearings examining agencies' operations. Under the 1993 Government Performance and Results Act, agencies are required to send Congress the reports on their performance in fiscal 1999 by the end of this month.

Some committees are already planning to analyze the reports. The Senate Appropriations Committee is planning to release a review of the reports later this year, and the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee is also going to scrutinize them with the help of the General Accounting Office. Rep. Steve Horn, R-Calif., told the Rules Committee that he strongly supports congressional use of the reports to gauge performance. Horn heads up the House Government Reform Subcommittee on Government Management, Information and Technology.

But so far, Congress' use of the Results Act has not impressed observers.

"Congress has enacted a number of statutory tools to help scrutinize programs to see if they are working-most notably GPRA-but, with few exceptions, has done little to use these tools to inform its own legislative and oversight activities," said Virginia Thomas, a senior fellow with the Heritage Foundation, in a written statement.

Horn echoed Thomas's sentiments. "Without strong, broad-based leadership, compliance with the Results Act will remain a goal rather than an achievement. Widespread, enthusiastic leadership is still missing at all levels of government, from Congress to the Office of Management and Budget and each federal department and agency," he said.

Maurice McTigue, a visiting scholar at George Mason University's Mercatus Center in Arlington, Va., suggested that Congress view its relationship with agencies and taxpayers in a similar way to how stock exchanges work with publicly traded companies and their stockholders.

"Congress establishes the rules, the agency is the corporation and the public is the shareholder," McTigue said. "The standard for annual reporting by publicly owned companies is extremely high and requires the utmost integrity and transparency. Why, then, should government not be required to meet the same standard, given the compulsory nature of taxation?"

McTigue also proposed that Congress establish stronger standards for the annual reports under the Results Act. He suggested for example, that lawmakers mandate that reports:

• Be readily available to all interested groups.
• Be published in a format that makes it possible for readers to make a quick and accurate assessment of the performance of the agency.
• Identify outcomes and describe progress towards those outcomes.
• Predict progress in the future, identify barriers to progress and say how those barriers might be removed.