General Quality of Federal Agencies' Annual Performance Reports Disappointing, Unimproved, According to Mercatus Center

5/16/2002

From: Jennifer Berkowitz of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, 703-726-9167

ARLINGTON, Va., May 16 -- All but a few of the Annual Performance Reports of the 24 most significant federal agencies showed no improvement in quality in FY2001, according to the Mercatus Center at George Mason University's 3rd Annual Performance Report Scorecard.

The Mercatus Center, in order to encourage improvement in the quality of reporting of results achieved by government agencies, evaluated annual performance reports submitted by federal agencies under the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 (GPRA) and produced a Scorecard rating the reports. The research team, in collaboration with a distinguished nine-member advisory panel, rated the reports on how well they made transparent the agency's accomplishments and failures; documented the tangible benefits an agency produced; and, used forward-looking leadership in devising strategies for improvement.

"While most federal agencies' reports met our rising standard in FY2000, nearly all of the agencies did not in FY2001," said Dr. Jay Cochran, III, a study co-author and research fellow at the Mercatus Center.

The federal agencies' Annual Performance Reports that scored highest and lowest in the rankings were:

-- Highest rankings: Department of Transportation, Department of Veterans Affairs, and Department of Labor.

-- Lowest rankings: Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Personnel Management, and Department of State. (Note: The Departments of Defense and Education ranked lower but did not score because they did not submit reports.)

According to the Scorecard's authors, while the status quo was the order of the day, some agencies' reports either improved dramatically or dropped drastically in quality.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) made huge strides in improving the quality of its report and jumped from 21st place to fourth place in the overall rankings. The agency's use of plain rather than technical language and its recognition of the need to document how agency activities positively influence safety contributed to its leap in the rankings.

"NRC's dramatic improvement shows that at least some agencies understand the importance of creating high quality annual reports that supply the information that Congress and the public need to make informed decisions," said Cochran.

On the other hand, the quality of the annual performance report of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) plummeted this year.

"USAID literally fell off the scoring cliff as its performance dropped from third last year to 18th this year," noted Cochran.

Maurice McTigue, a former cabinet minister in New Zealand and the director of the Mercatus Center's Government Accountability Project, pointed out that the generalized failure to improve the quality of the reports is disappointing and troubling because: "The American people are entitled to know what benefits they have received from their government's activities, and annual performance reports are an important avenue for agencies to communicate this information to citizens and policymakers."

McTigue said he expects compensatory improvements in the quality of reporting next year.

"Agencies will likely pay a lot more attention to producing informative annual reports next year, since the Bush Administration announced in its Management Agenda that it intends to link budgets with agency performance," said McTigue.

For a complete copy of the report, log on to the Mercatus Center's Web site at http://www.mercatus.org or call Jennifer Berkowitz at 703-726-9167.

The Mercatus Center is an education, research, and outreach program at George Mason University that works with scholars, policy experts, and government officials to bridge academic theory and real-world practice.