The next presidential administration will need a “fresh approach to collaboration across boundaries” including those between agencies as well as those between different levels of government, according to the National Academy of Public Administration.
“There are many examples of how effective collaboration can improve policy implementation and government performance. The upside of more collaboration is better use of resources and better results. The downside? Missed opportunities,” said a report.
Recommendations included:
* making more use of the experience of career federal employees, who “have spent decades learning how to make a large bureaucracy work and how to further the mission of their particular agency, department, division, or cause”;
* having OPM build cross-unit collaboration into criteria for annual bonuses for all high-grade employees and build cross-sector, cross-division, and cross-department collabo-ration into the qualification criteria for the SES;
* having OMB create a pool of funds to provide resources to cross-agency collaborations on significant national issues involving three or more federal agencies or single federal agencies with other levels of government;
* making fuller use of the Government Performance and Results Modernization Act of 2010 provisions that foster collaboration, including the Cross Agency Priority Goals and the Performance Improvement Council; and
* having multiple agencies or sectors contribute resources to a cause, creating more of an incentive to assure success.
