Managing for Results; Agencies' Annual Performance Plans Can Help AddressStrategic Planning Challenges

摘要

This report is based on our reviews of 24 major agencies' strategic plans thatwere formally submitted to Congress and OMB by September 30, 1997. To do these reviews, we used the Results Act supplemented by OMB's guidance on developing the plans (Circular A-11, part 2) as criteria to determine whether the plans contained the six elements required by the Act. As agreed, we focused our reviews on the progress of agencies' strategic planning efforts, specifically their efforts to improve their strategic plans, with particular attention to the key planning challenges that are most in need of sustained attention. Agencies included in our analysis are listed in appendix 1, and our observations on individual agencies are summarized in appendixes II through XXV. To gather information on how annual performance planning and measurement could be used to address the critical planning challenges we observed in our reviews of the September plans, we relied on our recent report on critical challenges needing sustained attention, our report on government wide implementation of the Results Act, our guidance for congressional review of Results Act implementation, and our guidance on effectively implementing the Act. On the whole, agencies' September plans appear to provide a workable foundation for Congress to use in helping to fulfill its appropriations, budget, authorization, and oversight responsibilities and for agencies to use in setting a general direction for their efforts. These plans represent a significant improvement over the draft plans we reviewed last summer. For example, we found that all but six of the draft plans were missing at least one element required by the Results Act, and about a third were missing two of the six required elements. In contrast, the September plans we reviewed contained at least some discussion of each element required by the Act.