Thompson Letter on GPRA - DOE
August 17, 1999
The Honorable Bill Richardson
Secretary
Department of Energy
1000 Independence Avenue, SW
Washington, DC 20585
Dear Secretary Richardson:
As you know, the Congress is focused on ensuring that the federal government delivers better results to its citizens and taxpayers. The Congress has enacted a statutory framework to achieve these results. This statutory framework includes the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA); financial management statutes, such as the Chief Financial Officers Act; and information resources management statutes, such as the Clinger-Cohen Act. Each of these reforms aims at achieving more efficient and effective performance throughout the federal government.
As part of our oversight agenda, the Committee has developed information on how effectively the Department of Energy (DOE) is using the above statutory tools to improve its performance in several key areas such as becoming more results-oriented and resolving long-standing problems of fraud, waste, and mismanagement. The purpose of this letter is to share with you the information we have developed and obtain your response to certain questions pertaining to it. With this dialog as a start, we hope to work with you on a continuing basis to ensure that DOE delivers the best possible results for the American people.
Performance plan assessment
The Congress continues to look closely at how well departments and agencies are implementing GPRA. At the request of this Committee and others, GAO recently completed an assessment of the Department’s annual performance plan for fiscal year (FY) 2000. According to GAO, the DOE plan for FY 2000 indicates "moderate improvement" over its FY 1999 plan.
GAO identified as the FY 2000 plan’s major strengths that it links annual performance to the Department’s strategic plan and relates budgetary resources to performance goals.
GAO found that the plan had two key weaknesses. One is that it provides insufficient context to determine the reasonableness of goals and to assess performance under them. Many goals and measures are stated in quantifiable and measurable terms, such as "stabilize and safely store approximately 53 metric tons of heavy metal of spend nuclear fuel." However, without an overall context defining the total work to be done, it is impossible to determine how much progress DOE is making. This problem is exacerbated by the way the plan describes past performance. The Department uses four categories to report on its FY 1998 performance–fully successful, successful, partially successful, and unsuccessful. However, "successful" equates to meeting 80 to 100 percent of the goal. Thus, performance can be reported as "successful" when falls short of the goal by up to 20 percent.
The second key weakness is that the plan provides little confidence that performance information will be credible. Specifically, the plan does not describe credible procedures to verify and validate performance measures; nor does it identify significant data limitations or their implications for assessing progress toward performance goals.
Need to implement audit recommendations on major management problems
One area where there have been too few results is solving major management challenges that seem to persist year after year at most agencies, including DOE.
Contract management at DOE has been on GAO’s high-risk list since the inception of the list in 1990–almost a decade ago. DOE relies on contractors to perform about 90 percent of its work. Recently, the Department has significantly increased its use of competition in selecting contractors to manage and operate its major facilities, but it should do more. In addition, DOE is still not competitively awarding contracts for environmental restoration work at its national laboratories, even though it does so at other facilities. Although DOE originally planned to shift risk from the federal government to private contractors as a means of enhancing their performance, it now considers risk-sharing more appropriate. At its Hanford site in Washington State, for example, DOE assumed much of the risk that it initially planned to shift to the contractor.
As described in an enclosure to this letter, GAO has made 11 recommendations to DOE to improve its contract management that the Department has yet to fully implement. Four of these recommendations date back to 1994. According to information provided to the Committee by your Inspector General (IG) and GAO, there are a number of open audit recommendations addressing other major management problems at DOE as well. An enclosure describes over 30 such unresolved recommendations by the IG. Another enclosure describes an additional 17 open GAO recommendations.
Need for specific performance goals to address major management problems
It is essential that agency heads and other managers commit themselves to tangible steps that will lead to solutions and that agency heads accept accountability for following through on these commitments. One obvious way to do this is to establish specific and measurable goals in your annual GPRA performance plans. Indeed, Office of Management and Budget (OMB) guidance implementing GPRA states:
Performance goals for management problems should be included in the annual plan, particularly for problems whose resolution is mission-critical, or which could potentially impede achievement of program goals . . .
GAO recently evaluated the extent to which DOE’s FY 2000 performance plan contains specific performance goals to address the 14 high-risk and other most serious management problems confronting the Department that GAO and your IG have identified. According to the GAO evaluation, which is detailed in an enclosure, DOE’s plan contains such performance goals for 9 of these 14 problem areas. This is a good start, and some of the specific goals appear to address some of the Department’s most serious problems in quantifiable and measurable ways. However, as noted previously, insufficient context is provided in some cases to permit assessment of how meaningful the goal is in relation to the problem.
Furthermore, I am concerned over the absence of any specific and measurable goals for the other five major problem areas. Without specific and measurable performance goals, it is difficult if not impossible to assess progress in addressing major management problems and to hold agencies accountable. I am particularly concerned that the plan contains no goals whatsoever dealing with information security and access to sensitive materials, areas, and information.
Congressional follow-up
With so many tax dollars being wasted, this Committee expects agencies to take every opportunity to use the many tools available to them, such as GPRA plans, to resolve major management problems. Furthermore, the GAO and your own IG exist to work in partnership with you to solve longstanding issues of waste, fraud, and abuse.
I hope that the information provided with this letter will stimulate you to make greater use of these tools and resources. In this regard, I ask that you review the enclosed information and respond to the following questions:
- Do you disagree with any of the GAO or IG recommendations described in the enclosures? If so, what is the basis for your disagreement?
- Where you agree with the recommendations, what specific actions are you taking to implement each one and how long will it take to complete them?
- Do you disagree with any of the GAO or IG designations of management problems facing DOE? If so, which ones and why?
- Where you agree with the problem designations, are you prepared to establish specific and measurable commitments to address each one of them in your next performance plan?
- If so, could you outline preliminarily what approach you plan to take for each problem?
- If you believe that any of these problems do not lend themselves to specific and measurable performance plan goals, please explain why. Please also explain what alternative steps you are taking to solve the problem and to ensure accountability for doing so.
I would appreciate your early attention to this letter. After receiving your response, I will ask Committee staff to arrange a meeting with your representatives to discuss it. My Governmental Affairs Committee staff contact is Robert Shea.
Sincerely,
Fred Thompson
Chairman
FT:rs
Enclosures
