Summary: The challenges to implementing the Government Performance and Results Act are many. Each agency must focus on the results it wants to achieve, not the products it produces and the process used to produce them. Agencies must coordinate crosscutting programs, thereby reducing mission fragmentation and program overlap. For example, eight federal agencies now run 50 programs for the homeless. Agencies are to show relationships between budgetary resources and performance goals. They must also show how daily operations lead to results. Most fiscal year 2000 performance plans do not sufficiently address how to strategically manage their people (human capital). The systematic integration of human capital planning and program planning--a critical component of high-performing organizations--is not being adequately and uniformly addressed across the federal government. Agencies are also to resolve all mission-critical management challenges and program risks, not just some of them. Agencies need reliable information during their planning efforts to set realistic goals and, later, to gauge their progress toward achieving these goals. For example, program evaluation provides vital information about the contributions that programs have made to results. Agencies must accurately record and report financial management data on both a year-end and ongoing basis. It is imperative to continuously improve internal controls and underlying financial management information systems.
