Making A Difference

The theory at the outset of the project was that rigorous independent assessment of important agencies could benefit them and help achieve a better-managed government. To be sure, agencies were subjected to oversight by congressional committees, the General Accounting Office, and the Office of Management and Budget, but not in a fashion that ever produced consolidated, public assessments of how well or badly they were performing. Our project paired academic experts in the theory and practice of public administration-first from Syracuse University's Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs and for the past two years from The George Washington University's public administration department-with journalists from Government Executive. Together, we devised and refined a grading system that required more depth of analysis than is typically done either by academic researchers or journalists.

This year's grades indicate improvement by some agencies and backsliding by others. The much-reviled Immigration and Naturalization Service, which received the lowest grade awarded in 1999 (a C-), this year received a D, only the second agency to have earned such a low grade over the FPP's four-year history. (The other was the Bureau of Indian Affairs, whose lax information security practices-exposed in last year's grading exercise-were responsible for a federal judge's order that closed down the Interior Department's Internet operations for months.) The Internal Revenue Service, the Federal Aviation Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency all earned higher grades than in 1999-in part because the grading system (and these institutions' leaders) now place more emphasis on managing for results. Two agencies with critical social policy portfolios received lower grades: the Social Security Administration and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

So now the project has graded 27 important agencies-six of them twice. Has it made a difference?

For some agencies, the grades have helped. The Coast Guard, one of three agencies to receive an A, has used the grade-and the excellent performance measurement system behind it-to make an effective case for added resources. The National Weather Service, which received an A last year, likewise has used performance standards to gain larger budgets. More generally, one observes a greater emphasis on performance at high levels of the executive branch. OMB's red-yellow-green light system for assessing agencies' progress against key management goals is an important example, as is OMB's first-time rating of the effectiveness of some 130 programs in the budget this year.

Who knows whether outside pressure from the FPP and other sources can assume any of the credit for this? I do know that a few key people can take credit for making the rating system as interesting and credible as it has become. They include, on our own staff, Deputy Editor Anne Laurent, whose insistence on depth of research and quality of presentation has made our four special FPP issues as good as they are. Our key academic partner, associate professor Philip Joyce, has provided the theoretical underpinnings for FPP, first at Syracuse and now at GWU. We owe a great debt of thanks to The Pew Charitable Trusts-to Elaine Casey, Michael Delli Carpini and Rebecca Rimel-for their support of a project that has never been easy but will be seen, I hope, as making a difference in our society's ability to evaluate the quality of public services.