Performance Reporting: Few Agencies Reported on the Completeness and Reliability of Performance Data.

摘要

The Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) seeks to improve the efficiency, effectiveness, and accountability of federal programs by requiring federal agencies to set goals for program performance and to report on their annual progress toward achieving those goals. While no data are perfect, agencies need to have sufficiently credible performance data to provide transparency of government operations so that Congress, program managers, and other decision makers can use the information. However, limited confidence in the credibility of performance data has been one of the major weaknesses in GPRA implementation. To help improve the quality of agencies' performance data, Congress included a requirement in the Reports Consolidation Act of 2000 that agencies assess the completeness and reliability of their performance data. Under the act, agencies were to begin including this assessment in the transmittal letter with their fiscal year 2000 performance reports. Agencies were also required to discuss in their report any material inadequacies in the completeness and reliability of their performance data and discuss actions to address these inadequacies. To assess the initial year's progress in improving performance data under the Reports Consolidation Act, you asked us to determine the 24 Chief Financial Officers (CFO) Act agencies' compliance with the Reports Consolidation Act's requirements and to identify any useful practices for describing the credibility of performance data in agencies' performance reports. As agreed, this report describes (1) whether or not the 24 CFO Act agencies' fiscal year 2000 performance reports contained an assessment of the completeness and reliability of their performance data, (2) the standards and methodologies agencies reported they used to assess their performance data and whether the agencies include information as to how they used them, and (3) useful discussions in agencies' performance reports on the completeness and reliability of their performance data and actions to resolve any inadequacies-discussions that may be useful to other agencies in their future reports.