The Department of Education’s Office of Federal Student Aid
is making solid progress and addressing key management
issues, however, “its plans and reports do not contain all
the required information needed by the Congress and the
public” to assess its progress in achieving its goals and
purposes, a new report from the Government Accountability
Office has said.
It said that FSA is required to prepare an annual performance
plan and have performance agreements with its senior officials,
and that “past reviews revealed serious problems and concerns
about FSA’s management.”
However, FSA received an unqualified, clean audit opinion for
its financial statements for fiscal 2002 and 2003, which found
no material internal control weaknesses, according to
GAO-05-31.
It said FSA has developed a human capital strategy and attempted
to increase the accountability of its senior officials, even as
it found weaknesses in those initiatives.
“FSA has a draft succession plan to prepare for the retirement of
key staff, but the plan shows that the agency will redistribute the
duties of most retiring staff but does not discuss how the agency
will develop the skills of remaining staff to take over new
responsibilities,” according to the report.
