Oct15-1999_gg00026t.txt

Testimony
GAO

Before the Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management,
Restructuring, and the District of Columbia Committee on
Governmental Affairs, U.S. Senate



GAO/T-GGD-00-26

Statement



Management Reform: Elements of Successful Improvement
Initiatives
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee:
We are pleased to be here today to contribute to the
Subcommittee's ongoing efforts to identify ways to improve the
management and performance of the federal government. As you know,
last January we issued a new volume of reports, the Performance and
Accountability Series, outlining the major management challenges
confronting our largest federal agencies and the substantial
opportunities for improving their performance.1 Many of the
challenges discussed in that series represent long-standing,
difficult, and complex problems that our work has shown will not be
easily or quickly resolved. In fact, implementing and sustaining
major change initiatives requires a cultural transformation for
many agencies. Therefore, given the magnitude of the problems an
agency may face, and the extensive effort and long period of time
it can take before problems are fully resolved, progress must often
be measured initially in terms of whether the agency has a well
thought out management improvement initiative in place to guide its
reform efforts.
As agreed with the Subcommittee, this morning we will discuss
the elements that our wide-ranging work on federal management
issues suggests are particularly important in implementing and
sustaining management improvement initiatives that genuinely take
root and eventually resolve the problems they are intended to fix.
These elements are (1) a demonstrated leadership commitment and
accountability for change; (2) the integration of management
improvement initiatives into programmatic decisionmaking; (3)
thoughtful and rigorous planning to guide decisions, particularly
to address human capital and information technology issues; (4)
employee involvement to elicit ideas and build commitment and
accountability; (5) organizational alignment to streamline
operations and clarify accountability; and (6) strong and
continuing congressional involvement. Not surprisingly, the
elements of successful management improvement initiatives that we
will discuss today are consistent with the approaches shared by
performance-based management efforts under the Government
Performance and Results Act (Results Act) and quality management
that we discussed in our July 29, 1999, statement for this
Subcommittee.2 Our statement today is based on our broad body of
work and resulting knowledge of management issues, including our
examination of the implementation of the Results Act and related
initiatives, our reviews of selected National Partnership for
Reinventing
1Maj 
or Management Challenges and Program Risks
(GAO/OCG-99-SET, January 1999).
2
Management Reform: Using the Results Act and Quality Management
to Improve Federal Performance ( 
GAO/T-GGD-99-151, July 29, 1999).
Page 1 GAO/T-GGD-00-26

Demonstrated Leadership Commitment and Accountability for
Change
Government (NPR) recommendations, and our ongoing analyses of
agency-specific improvement efforts, such as the Internal Revenue
Service (IRS) modernization.
Perhaps the single most important element of successful
management improvement initiatives is the demonstrated commitment
of top leaders to change. This commitment is most prominently shown
through the personal involvement of top leaders in developing and
directing reform efforts. Organizations that successfully address
their long-standing management weaknesses do not "staff out"
responsibility for leading change. Top leadership involvement and
clear lines of accountability for making management improvements
are critical to overcoming organizations' natural resistance to
change, marshalling the resources needed in many cases to improve
management, and building and maintaining the organizationwide
commitment to new ways to doing business.
Commissioner Rossotti's efforts at IRS provide a clear example
of leadership's commitment to change. The Commissioner has
articulated a new mission for the agency, together with support for
strategic goals that balance customer service and compliance with
tax laws.3 Moreover, the Commissioner has initiated a modernization
effort that touches virtually every aspect of the agency, including
business practices, organizational structure, management roles and
responsibilities, performance measures, and technology.
Commissioner Rossotti has assigned clear executive ownership of
each of IRS' major initiatives and is using executive steering
committees to provide oversight and accountability for driving the
change efforts.
Sustaining top leadership commitment to improvement is
particularly challenging in the federal government because of the
frequent turnover of senior agency political officials. As a
result, sustaining improvement initiatives requires commitment and
leadership by senior career executives, as well as political
leaders. Career executives can help provide the long-term focus
needed to institutionalize reforms that political executives' often
more limited tenure does not permit. In addition, the other
elements of successful management improvement initiatives that we
shall turn to shortly are important for institutionalizing reform
initiatives.
3
IRS' new mission statement reads, "Provide America's taxpayers
top quality service by helping them understand and meet their tax
responsibilities and by applying the tax law with integrity and
fairness to all." IRS' supporting strategic goals are to (1)
provide top quality service to each taxpayer, (2) provide service
to all taxpayers by applying the law with integrity and fairness,
and (3) increase productivity by providing a quality work
environment for its employees.
Page 2 GAO/T-GGD-00-26


Integration of Management Improvement Initiatives into
Programmatic Decisionmaking
Traditionally, the danger to any management reform is that it
can become a hollow, paper-driven exercise where management
improvement initiatives are not integrated into the day-to-day
activities of the organization. Thus, successful organizations
recognize-and implement reform efforts on the basis of-the
essential connection between sound management and the programmatic
results those organizations hope to achieve.
The Results Act provides a ready-made statutory mechanism for
making this essential connection, engaging Congress in a discussion
of how and when management problems will be addressed, and helping
to pinpoint additional efforts that may be needed. We have found
that annual performance plans that include precise and measurable
goals for resolving mission-critical management problems are
important to ensuring that agencies have the institutional capacity
to achieve their more resultsoriented programmatic goals. Moreover,
by using annual performance plans to set goals to address
management weaknesses, agencies provide themselves and Congress
with a vehicle-the subsequent agency performance reports-for
tracking progress in addressing management problems and considering
what, if any, additional efforts are needed.
Unfortunately, we found that agencies do not consistently
address major management challenges and program risks in their
fiscal year 2000 performance plans.4 In those cases where
challenges and risks are addressed, agencies use a variety of
approaches, including setting goals and measures directly linked to
the management challenges and program risks, establishing goals and
measures that are indirectly related to the challenges and risks,
or laying out strategies to address them. Figure 1 shows the
distribution of the 24 agencies covered by the Chief Financial
Officers Act and their different approaches to addressing
management challenges and program risks in their annual performance
plans.
4
Managing for Results: Opportunities for Continued Improvements
in Agencies' Performance Plans ( 
GAO/GGD/AIMD-99-215, July 20, 1999).
Page 3 GAO/T-GGD-00-26
Figure 1: Approaches Used to Address Management Challenges and
Program Risks


































Note: Numbers do not add up to 100 percent due to rounding.
Source: GAO analysis based on agencies' fiscal year 2000
performance plans.
IRS has important management reform initiatives underway to
address long-standing management weaknesses, but it missed the
opportunity to demonstrate these actions in its portion of the
Department of the Treasury's fiscal year 2000 performance plan. For
example, the Department of the Treasury's plan has no goals,
measures, or strategies to address several of the high-risk areas5
we have identified at IRS, including


•
internal control weaknesses over unpaid tax assessments
(We found that the lack of a subsidiary ledger impairs IRS' ability
to effectively manage its unpaid assessments. This weakness has
resulted in IRS inappropriately directing collection efforts
against taxpayers after amounts owed have been paid.);


•
the need to assess the impact of various efforts IRS has
under way to reduce filing fraud;


•
the need to improve security controls over information
systems and address weaknesses that place sensitive taxpayer data
at risk to both internal and external threats (Our high-risk update
reported that IRS'


5
These areas are characterized as "high-risk" because of their
greater vulnerability to waste, fraud, abuse, and
mismanagement.
Page 4 GAO/T-GGD-00-26
controls do not adequately reduce vulnerability to inappropriate
disclosure.); and
• weaknesses in internal controls over taxpayer receipts.
Similarly, the General Services Administration's (GSA) fiscal
year 2000 annual performance plan does not address several
long-standing problems identified by the GSA Inspector General.
These problems include top management's lack of emphasis on
ensuring that the internal controls are in place to deter fraud,
waste, and abuse. GSA's plan also does not fully address issues
raised by the Inspector General related to developing new
management information systems and ensuring that automated
information systems have the proper controls and safeguards. These
omissions are significant because GSA's governmentwide oversight
and service-provider role, its extensive interaction with the
private sector, and the billions of taxpayer dollars involved in
carrying out its activities, make it especially important that
GSA's operations be adequately protected.


Thoughtful and Rigorous Planning to Guide Decisions
The magnitude of the challenges that many agencies face in
addressing their management weaknesses necessitates substantive
planning be done to establish (1) clear goals and objectives for
the improvement initiative,


(2)
the concrete management improvement steps that will be
taken, (3) key milestones that will be used to track the
implementation status, and


(4)
the cost and performance data that will be used to gauge
overall progress in addressing identified weaknesses. Our work
across the federal government has found the effective use of human
capital and information technology-both separately and,
importantly, as they relate to one another-are areas where
thoughtful and rigorous planning is needed if fundamental
management improvements are to be made.


For example, we looked at the efforts of four agencies (the
Departments of Agriculture, Health and Human Services, Interior,
and Veterans Affairs) to both improve services and reduce staffing
levels in their personnel offices through the better application of
information technology.6 The agencies planned to increase operating
efficiencies and improve services by automating paper-based
personnel processes. The agencies expected that new hardware and/or
software technology would reduce paperwork and workload, thereby
permitting sizable staff reductions. However, the agencies made the
staffing reductions before much of the new automation was in place,
and automation efforts had not been fully implemented as of
6

Management Reform: Agencies' Initial Efforts to Restructure
Personnel Operations (GAO/GGD-98-93,July 13, 1998).
Page 5 GAO/T-GGD-00-26
late 1997. As a result, the agencies were struggling to achieve
their efficiency and service improvement objectives.
On a more positive note, we recently reviewed the efforts of
three agencies (the Postal Service, the Department of Veterans
Affairs (VA), and the Park Service) to more strategically manage
their facilities and assets by forming business partnerships with
the private sector.7 In each of the six partnerships that we
reviewed, the agency built the expertise to engage in the
partnership and make it successful. For example, the Department of
Veterans Affairs established a separate organizational unit staffed
with professionals experienced in management, architecture, civil
engineering, and contracting to manage its partnerships.
With regard to planning for major technology projects, IRS has
historically lacked disciplined and structured processes for
developing and managing information technology. We reported in
February 1998 that IRS had not clearly defined system modernization
phases, nor had it adequately specified organizational roles,
making it unclear who was to do what.8 IRS' systems modernization
challenges include completing a modernization blueprint to define,
direct, and control future modernization efforts and establishing
the management and engineering capability to build and acquire
modernized systems. The key to effectively addressing these
challenges is to ensure that long-standing modernization management
and technical weaknesses are corrected before IRS invests large
sums of modernization funds. As we have reported, IRS recently
initiated appropriate first steps to address these weaknesses via
its initial modernization expenditure plan that represents the
first step in a longterm, incremental modernization program.9
The Census Bureau, through its effective use of technology in
expanding the electronic availability of census data, demonstrates
how federal agencies can leverage performance and customer
satisfaction through the better use of technology. Before applying
technology to its data dissemination efforts, the Bureau released
massive amounts of data in printed reports. Now, by using the
Internet as its principal medium for disseminating data, the Bureau
is able to reduce its reliance on printed
7

Public-Private Partnerships: Key Elements of Federal
Buildings and Facility Partnerships (GAO/GGD-99-23, Feb. 3,
1999).
8
Tax Systems Modernization: Blueprint Is a Good Start But Not Yet
Sufficiently Complete to Build or 
Acquire Systems (GAO/AIMD/GGD-98-54, Feb. 24,
1998).
9

Tax Systems Modernization: Results of IRS' Initial
Expenditure Plan (GAO/AIMD/GGD-99-206, June 15,1999).
Page 6 GAO/T-GGD-00-26


Employee Involvement to Elicit Ideas and Build Commitment and
Accountability
materials, reach a wider audience, and provide its clients with
information in a format that better meets their needs. The Bureau
reports that its customers are responding positively to the shift,
with significant growth in the number of customer hits on the
Census Internet site, from about 10,000 per day in 1994 to more
than 850,000 per day in 1999. The Bureau plans to use the Internet
as its principal medium for releasing data from the 2000
Census.
Successful management improvement efforts require the active
involvement of managers and staff throughout the organization to
provide ideas for improvements and supply the energy and expertise
needed to implement changes. Employees at all levels of
high-performing organizations participate in--and have a stake
in--improving operational and program performance to achieve
results. Our work has shown that high-performing organizations use
a number of strategies and techniques to effectively involve
employees, including (1) fostering a performanceoriented culture,
(2) working to develop a consensus with unions on goals and
strategies, (3) providing the training that staff need to work
effectively, and (4) devolving authority while focusing
accountability on results.
Fostering a performance-oriented culture requires agency
management to communicate with staff throughout the organization to
involve them in the process of designing and implementing change.
Setting improvement goals is an important step in getting
organizations across the government to engage seriously in the
difficult task of change. The central features of the Results
Act-strategic planning, performance measurement, and public
reporting and accountability-can serve as powerful tools to help
change the basic culture of government. Involving employees in
developing and implementing these goals and measures can help
direct a diverse array of actions to improve performance and
achieve results. However, our survey of federal managers, conducted
in late 1996 and 1997, indicates there is substantial room for
improvement in this area. This survey found that only one-third of
non-SES managers (as opposed to nearly three-fourths of the SES
managers) reported they had been involved in establishing long-term
strategic goals for their agencies.10
Employees in high-performing organizations understand the
importance of and the connection between their performance and the
organization's
10
The Government Performance and Results Act: 1997 Governmentwide
Implementation Will Be 
Uneven (GAO/GGD-97-109, June 2, 1997).
Page 7 GAO/T-GGD-00-26
11
success. The failure to constructively involve staff in an
organization's improvement efforts means running the risk that the
changes will be more difficult and protracted than necessary. For
example, in the fall of 1997, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's
(NRC) Office of Inspector General surveyed NRC staff to obtain
their views on the agency's safety culture. In its June 1998
report, the Inspector General noted that the staff had a strong
commitment to protecting public health and safety but expressed
high levels of uncertainty and confusion about the new directions
in regulatory practices and challenges facing the agency. Employees
who are confused about the direction their agency is taking will
not be able to effectively focus on results or make as full a
contribution as they might otherwise.
One way high-performing organizations can enhance employee
involvement and gain agreement on an organization's goals and
strategies is by developing partnerships with employee unions. The
U.S. Postal Service's long-standing challenges in labor-management
relations illustrate the importance of having a shared set of
long-term goals and strategies agreed upon by managers, employees,
and unions. As we have reported, labor-management relations at the
Postal Service have been characterized by disagreements that have,
among other things, hampered efforts to automate some postal
systems that could have resulted in savings and helped the Service
reach its performance goals.12 Although there has been some
progress, problems persist and continue to contribute to higher
mail processing and delivery costs. To help the Postal Service
resolve its problems, we have long recommended that the Service and
its unions and management associations establish a framework
agreement to outline common goals. We have also noted that the
Results Act can provide an effective framework for union and
management representatives to discuss and agree upon goals and
strategies.
Employees' capabilities also play an important role in achieving
performance improvements, and training is a key factor enabling
employee involvement. Agencies that expect their employees to take
greater responsibility and be held accountable for results must
ensure that the employees have the training and tools they need to
fulfill these expectations. In that regard, IRS is beginning to
implement significant changes that will require training for
frontline employees and their supervisors. For example, in lieu of
hiring a large number of seasonal
11
Major Management Challenges and Program Risks: A Governmentwide
Perspective ( 
GAO/OCG-99-1,January 1999).
12
Major Management Challenges and Program Risks: 
U.S. Postal Service (GAO/OCG-99-21, January1999).
Page 8 GAO/T-GGD-00-26
employees to handle return processing workload during the annual
filing season, IRS plans to increase the number of permanent
employees and expand their job responsibilities to include
compliance work that they can do after the filing season. Those
employees will have to be cross-trained so that they can handle
both their return processing and compliance responsibilities.
Training is expected to be a key factor in IRS' efforts to provide
top-quality customer service. Further, given the dynamic
environment agencies face, employees need incentives, training, and
support to help them continually learn and adapt. Our 1996/97
survey found that about 60 percent or more of the supervisors and
managers reported that their agencies had not provided them with
the training necessary to accomplish critical, results-oriented
management tasks.
High-performing organizations also seek to involve and engage
employees by devolving authority to lower levels of the
organization. Employees are more likely to support changes when
they have the necessary amount of authority and flexibility--along
with commensurate accountability and incentives--to advance the
agency's goals and improve performance. Allowing employees to bring
their expertise and judgement to bear in meeting their
responsibilities can help agencies capitalize on their employees'
talents, leading to more effective and efficient operations and
improved customer service.13 Some federal agencies, such as the
Social Security Administration (SSA), are exploring new ways to
involve employees by devolving decisionmaking authority. Although
the efficacy of this initiative has not been fully assessed, SSA
has been implementing a pilot program to establish a "single
decision maker" position. This program expands the authority of
disability examiners, who currently make initial disability
determinations jointly with physicians, and allows the single
decision maker to make the initial disability determination and
consult with physicians only as needed.14
Our work has shown that agencies can improve the extent to which
they devolve authority for employees to make decisions and the
extent to which they hold employees accountable for results. Our
1996/97 survey of federal managers found that less than one-third
of non-SES managers felt that to a great or very great extent they
had the decisionmaking authority needed to accomplish strategic
goals. Likewise, only about half of the managers we
13 Executive Guide: Effectively Implementing the Government
Performance and Results Act ( 
GAO/GGD-96-118, June 1996).
SSA Disability Redesign: Actions Needed To Enhance Future
Progress 
(GAO/HEHS-99-25, Mar. 12,1999).
Page 9 GAO/T-GGD-00-26
surveyed reported that they were being held accountable for
program results.
Our work has also shown that agencies can do a better job of
providing incentives to encourage employees to improve performance
and achieve results. Only one-fourth of non-SES managers reported
that to a great or very great extent employees received positive
recognition from their agencies for efforts to help accomplish
strategic goals. At the request of this Subcommittee, we are
surveying federal managers again to follow up on whether there have
been improvements in these critical areas.
Some agencies have explored new ways of devolving decisionmaking
authority in exchange for operational flexibility and
accountability for results. For example, in fiscal year 1996, the
Veterans Health Administration (VHA) management structure was
decentralized to form 22 Veterans Integrated Service Networks.15 VA
gave these networks substantial operational autonomy and the
ability to perform basic decisionmaking and budgetary duties. VA
made the networks accountable for results such as improving patient
access, efficiency, and reducing costs. VA also established
performance measures, such as increasing the number of outpatient
surgeries, reducing the use of inpatient care, and increasing the
number of high-priority veterans served to hold network and medical
center directors accountable for results.


Organizational Alignment to Streamline Operations and Clarify
Accountability
Successful management improvement efforts often entail
organizational realignment to better achieve results and clarify
accountability. For example, GSA has sought to improve its
efficiency and effectiveness by changing its organizational
structure to separate its policymaking functions from its
operations that provide services. GSA recognized that it suffered
from conflicting policymaking and service-providing roles and
needed to replace its outmoded methods of delivering service. To
address this issue, GSA established the Office of Policy, Planning,
and Evaluation in 1995, which it later renamed the Office of
Governmentwide Policy, to handle policy decisions separately from
functions that deliver supplies or services. GSA believes that this
realignment has improved efficiency and reduced the perception of
conflict of interest that existed prior to the separation of its
policymaking and service-delivery roles.
While GSA's efforts thus far are an important reform, additional
opportunities for organizational realignment appear to exist. For
example,
15
VA Health Care: More Veterans Are Being Served, But Better
Oversight Is Needed 
(GAO/HEHS-98-226, Aug. 28, 1998).
Page 10 GAO/T-GGD-00-26
the GSA Inspector General has expressed concerns that GSA's
organization and management structure has not kept pace with GSA's
downsizing, streamlining, and reform efforts. In addition, the
Inspector General has said that GSA's organizational structure does
not seem to match the responsibility for managing programs with the
authority to do so. As a result, for example, GSA has faced
situations where regions (which operate independently) have taken
divergent positions on similar issues, according to the Inspector
General.
IRS' ongoing efforts provide another example of the importance
of aligning organizational structures. As Commissioner Rossotti has
stated, IRS' current cumbersome organizational structure and
inadequate technology are the principal obstacles to delivering
dramatic improvements in customer service and productivity. The
Commissioner is reorganizing IRS with the aim of building an
organization designed around taxpayer groups and creating
management roles with clear responsibilities. One of the first
organizational realignments taking place is in the Office of the
Taxpayer Advocate. This office is intended to, among other things,
help taxpayers who cannot get their problems resolved through
normal IRS channels. Formerly, the Advocate's Office had to rely on
functional groups within IRS, like examination and collection, to
provide most of its program resources-including staff, space, and
equipment.16 When functional needs conflicted with Advocate Office
needs, there was no assurance that advocate needs would be met. In
the new organization, all advocate program resources will be
controlled and managed by the Taxpayer Advocate. By organizing this
way, IRS hopes to improve both program efficiency and service to
taxpayers.
The organizational realignments at GSA and IRS are consistent
with a more general exploration under way to use streamlined and
clarified organizational arrangements to help enhance
accountability and improve performance. For example, building on
reform efforts in the United Kingdom and other countries, the
Administration has proposed creating Performance-Based
Organizations (PBOs) in which selected agencies that deliver
measurable services receive greater organizational autonomy in
exchange for heightened accountability for results on the part of
top and senior leadership. Last year, in an attempt to address
significant management and accountability problems with federal
student financial aid programs, Congress enacted the first PBO, the
Office of Student Financial Assistance, within the Department of
Education. We have
IRS Management: IRS Faces Challenges as it Restructures the
Office of the Taxpayer Advocate ( 
GAO/GGD-99-124, July 15, 1999).
Page 11 GAO/T-GGD-00-26
identified the management of student financial aid programs,
with more than $150 billion in outstanding student loans, as being
at high-risk to waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement.
The PBO structure exemplifies new directions in accountability
for the federal government because the PBO's Chief Operating
Officer, who reports to the Secretary of Education, is held
directly and personally accountable, through an employment
contract, for achieving measurable organizational and individual
goals. The Chief Operating Officer is appointed by the Secretary of
Education to a minimum 3-year and a maximum 5-year term, and may
receive a bonus for meeting the performance goals or be removed for
failing to meet them.
The Office of Student Financial Assistance was provided with
increased flexibility for procurement and personnel management, and
key managers are to be held directly accountable for performance
objectives that include
(1) improving customer satisfaction; (2) providing high quality
costeffective services; and (3) providing complete, accurate, and
timely data to ensure program integrity. The Chief Operating
Officer is to enter into annual performance agreements containing
measurable organization and individual goals with key managers, who
can receive a bonus or can also be removed.
An additional accountability mechanism is that the Chief
Operating Officer and the Secretary of Education are required to
agree on, and make public, a 5-year performance plan that
establishes the Office's goals and objectives. To further
underscore accountability issues, the PBO's Chief Operating Officer
is to annually prepare and submit to Congress, through the
Secretary, a report on the performance of the PBO. The report is to
include an evaluation of the extent to which the Office met the
goals and objectives contained in the 5-year performance plan. In
addition, the annual report is to include (1) an independent
financial audit, (2) applicable financial and performance
requirements under the Chief Financial Officers Act and the Results
Act, (3) the results achieved by the Office relative to its goals,
(4) an evaluation of the Chief Operating Officer's performance, (5)
recommendations for legislative and regulatory changes to improve
service and program integrity, and (6) other information as
detailed by the Director of the Office of Management and
Budget.
Page 12 GAO/T-GGD-00-26


Strong and Continuing Congressional Involvement
Finally, Congress plays a crucial role in management improvement
efforts throughout the executive branch through its legislative and
oversight capacities. On a governmentwide basis, Congress, under
the bi-partisan leadership of this Committee and the House
Government Reform Committee, has established a statutory framework
consisting of requirements for goal-setting and performance
measurement, financial management, and information technology
management, all aimed at improving the performance, management, and
accountability of the federal government. Through the enactment of
the framework and its efforts to foster the framework's
implementation, Congress has, in effect, served as an institutional
champion for improving the management of the federal government,
providing a consistent focus for oversight and reinforcement of
important policies. On an agency-specific basis as well, support
from the Congress has proven to be critical in instituting and
sustaining management reforms, such as those taking place at IRS,
GSA, and elsewhere across the federal government.
Congress, in its oversight role, can monitor management
improvement initiatives and provide the continuing attention
necessary for reform initiatives to be carried through to their
successful completion. Information in agencies' plans and reports
produced under the Results Act, high quality financial and program
cost data, and other related information, can help Congress in
targeting its oversight efforts and identifying opportunities for
additional improvements in agencies' management. In this regard, we
have long advocated that congressional committees of jurisdiction
hold augmented oversight hearings on each of the major agencies at
least once each Congress. Congress could examine, for example, the
degree to which agencies are building the elements of successful
management improvement initiatives that we have discussed today
into their respective management reform efforts. Such hearings will
further underscore for agencies the importance that Congress places
on creating high-performing government organizations. Also, through
the appointment and confirmation process, the Senate has an added
opportunity to make clear its commitment to sound federal
management and explore what prospective nominees plan to do to
ensure that their agencies are well-managed and striving to be
high-performing organizations.
In summary Mr. Chairman, serious and disciplined efforts are
needed to attack the management problems confronting some of our
largest agencies. Successful management improvement efforts often
contain a number of common critical elements, including top
leadership commitment and accountability, the integration of
management
Page 13 GAO/T-GGD-00-26
improvement initiatives into programmatic decisions, planning to
chart the direction the improvements will take, employee
involvement in the change efforts, organizational realignment to
streamline operations and clarify accountability, and congressional
involvement and oversight. Experience has shown that when these
elements are in place, lasting management reforms are more likely
to be implemented that ultimately lead to improvements in the
performance and cost-efficiency of government.
Mr. Chairman, this concludes our prepared statement. We would be
pleased to respond to any questions that you or other Members of
the Subcommittee may have.

Contacts and Acknowledgement
For further contacts regarding this testimony, please contact J.
Christopher Mihm at [phone]. For information regarding GAO's
work on IRS modernization, please contact James R. White at (202)
512-9110, and for information regarding GAO's work on GSA, please
contact Bernard L. Ungar at [phone]. Individuals making key
contributions to this testimony included Kelsey Bright, Deborah
Junod, Susan Ragland, and William Reinsberg.
Page 14 GAO/T-GGD-00-26 Page 15 GAO/T-GGD-00-26


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