GAO has recommended that the 110th Congress review the impact and effectiveness of various management reforms enacted in recent years.
Sustained congressional attention has been and will continue to be a critical factor to ensuring achievement of various management reforms, such as the goals and objectives of key legislative reforms including results-oriented management reforms such as the Government Performance and Results Act, financial management reforms such as the Chief Financial Officers Act and the Federal Financial Management Improvement Act, and IT reforms such as the Clinger-Cohen Act, according to GAO-07-235R.
It said that the reforms have led to substantial progress in establishing the basic infrastructure needed to create high-performing organizations across the federal government, but that agencies are still in the early stages of using the statutory framework to transform their organizational cultures, inform their decision making, improve their performance, and strengthen their accountability.
GAO called on Congress to examine the progress federal agencies are making integrating these reforms to drive a broader transformation of their cultures to be more results-oriented, high performing organizations.
It also called for oversight of federal agency efforts to implement modern financial management systems that routinely produce information that is timely, useful, and reliable for decision-making, as well as review of agencies’ delivery of IT to improve mission performance by determining whether major provisions of the Clinger-Cohen Act are being effectively addressed.
