Cross-agency priority goal teams are meeting a number of the requirements of the 2010 GPRA Modernization Act, GAO has said, including identifying contributors, reporting strategies for performance improvement and quarterly results.
That law required OMB to coordinate with agencies to develop four-year outcome-oriented goals covering a number of complex or high-risk management and mission issues. Examples include customer service, open data, job-creating investment and realizing the full potential of the workforce.
GAO said that for the CAP goals covering 2014-2018, OMB and the interagency Performance Improvement Council incorporated lessons learned from the 2012-2014 interim CAP goal period to improve the governance and implementation of cross-cutting goals. For example, it said, they changed the CAP goal governance structure to include agency leaders, they hold regular senior-level reviews on CAP goal progress, and they provide ongoing assistance to CAP goal teams.
GAO found that the selected goal teams are aligning their quarterly milestones with strategies to achieve the desired outcomes. Further, all of the teams GAO examined reported that they are working to develop performance measures; they are at various stages of that process.
However, it said that the teams “were not consistently reporting on their efforts to develop performance measures. Given OMB, the PIC, and CAP goal teams’ emphasis on developing measures that are relevant and well-defined, greater transparency is needed to track goal team’s efforts on a quarterly basis.”
