Transcript No Slide Title

Recent Developments in the United
States at the National and SubNational Level
5th Meeting of the INTOSAI Working Group on
Key National Indicators, Riga, Latvia
April 3-4, 2012
J. Christopher Mihm
Managing Director, Strategic Issues
U.S. Government Accountability Office
What Does 21st Century Governance Look Like?
• The types of issues that government confronts are growing more
complex and boundary-less (wicked issues).
• The approaches (policy tools) that government uses to address these
issues are wide ranging and increasingly indirect (hollow government).
• Citizen confidence in the federal government is at historic lows and
citizens are rightly demanding increased transparency and opportunities
for active engagement.
• All of this must take place in an environment where agencies are
stressed to develop and maintain the basic capacities they need
(austerity budgets).
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KNI, Transparency, and Open Government
•
Key indicator systems are by definition “above” the government
level in that they seek to measure not government performance, but
governance performance.
•
Boundary-less issues require a higher level of performance
measurement effort to fully capture all of the initiatives (tools) that are
(or should be) aligned to contribute to outcomes.
•
KNI systems provide ways to make information available to the public at
varying levels of detail and in formats where the data can be
downloaded and manipulated by users.
•
KNI is thus related to open government in that is seeks to provide
greater transparency into how government works and facilitate
opportunities for greater citizen participation in government decision
making.
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Status of U.S. National Efforts
• State of the USA (SUSA)
• Underway since about 2006
• Health care reform law set up governance structure
• GAO had recommended a public private partnership to
leverage public and private funds. SUSA received $13M in
private money in first few years.
• Law authorized $70M over 9 years; but none has been
appropriated.
• The site does to appear to have been updated for many
months.
• As GAO reported, launching and sustaining key indicators efforts is
very difficult.
• http://www.stateoftheusa.org/
Sub-national and Local initiatives
• Regional: Baystat:
• Created by Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley in
2007 to “ assess, coordinate and target Maryland’s
Chesapeake Bay restoration programs…”
• Baystat is to cut across disciplines and agencies.
http://www.baystat.maryland.gov/
• State of Virginia: http://vaperforms.virginia.gov/
• City of Baltimore: http://data.baltimorecity.gov/
Performance.gov
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Manage for Results: More Frequent, Reliable and
Transparent Information
• The Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA)
Modernization Act of 2010 requires reporting for governmentwide
and agency priority goals on a quarterly basis.
• By also requiring information to be posted on a governmentwide
performance website, the Act is to make performance information
more accessible and easy to use by the public, thus fostering
transparency and civic engagement.
• Agencies are to disclose more information about the accuracy and
reliability of their performance information in their performance
plans and reports, including the sources for their data and actions
to address limitations to the data.
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WWW.recovery.gov
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Recovery.gov
•
Created in 2009 as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
•
Recovery.gov is managed by the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board.
•
It is intended to foster greater accountability and transparency in the use of
Recovery Act funds.
•
The site has information on available funding, distribution of funds, and major
recipients. The website is required to include plans from federal agencies;
information on federal awards of formula grants and awards of competitive grants;
and information on federal allocations for mandatory and other entitlement programs
by state, county, or other appropriate geographical unit.
•
Prime recipients of Recovery Act funding are to provide information on how they are
using their federal funds.
•
Potential next steps: The proposed Digital Transparency and Accountability Act of
2011(DATA)
USAspending.gov
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Data.gov
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Data.gov
• As of November 2011, it had over 390T federal data
sets posted.
• Data.gov reports over 1100 government apps (and over
230 citizen apps) have been developed. These range,
for example, from Food and Drug Administration and
child-related Consumer Product Safety Commission
recalls, to airline wait times, to State Department travel
warnings.
Manage for Results: Governmentwide and Agency Priority
Goals Under the GPRA Modernization Act
• The Act requires the Office of Management and Budget
(OMB), in coordination with agencies, to develop—every 4
years—long-term Federal Government priority goals covering
• a limited number of crosscutting policy areas, and
• management improvements needed across the
government.
• At the agency level, the head of each major department and
agency (or as otherwise selected by OMB) is to identify
agency priority goals that
• reflect the agency’s priorities; and
• have ambitious targets that can be achieved within 2
years.
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Manage for Results: Cross Agency Priority (CAP)
Policy Goals
• Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) Education
• Veterans Career Readiness
• Broadband
• Entrepreneurship and Small Businesses
• Energy Efficiency
• Exports
• Job Training
• Cybersecurity
• Sustainability
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Manage for Results: Quarterly Priority Progress
Reviews; the “Stat” Model
• GPRAMA requires top leadership and program officials to be
involved in quarterly reviews of priority goals.
• During these sessions, they are expected to
• review the progress toward the goals;
• assess the contributions of underlying federal
organizations, programs, and activities;
• categorize goals by their risk of not being achieved; and
• develop strategies to improve performance.
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Contact: Chris Mihm, [email protected] (202)-512-3236
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