GPRA Mod Act Explained: Part 7

The new law codifies an existing governance framework for performance across government by designating chief operating officers in each major agency and requiring the designation of program improvement officers in each agency. It also authorizes a governmentwide performance improvement council and requires a governmentwide performance website.

Governance of Overall Performance System. After the original GPRA was adopted in 1993, President Clinton designated the deputy secretaries as their department’s “chief operating officers” responsible for overall management and performance issues, and this was continued by subsequent administrations. President George W. Bush in 2007 issued an executive order requiring major agencies to designate a “performance improvement officer.” These PIOs meet regularly under the auspices of OMB as the Performance Improvement Council (PIC). This new law formalizes these positions and designations.

The new law also defines some specific duties for the Council, including:

• “work to resolve specific Governmentwide or crosscutting performance issues, as necessary;

• facilitate the exchange among agencies of practices that have led to performance improvements within specific programs, agencies, or across agencies;

• coordinate with other interagency management councils;

• consider the performance improvement experiences of corporations, nonprofit organizations, foreign, State, and local governments, Government employees, public sector unions, and customers of Government services.”

The law also allows the Council to develop an interagency staff:

“The heads of agencies with Performance Improvement Officers serving on the Council shall, as appropriate and to the extent permitted by law, provide at the request of the chairperson of the Performance Improvement Council up to 2 personnel authorizations to serve at the direction of the chairperson.’’

Governmentwide Performance Website. The Senate committee report states that the new law:

“requires OMB to develop a single governmentwide performance website by [October 1,] 2012 that will feature performance information outlined in the bill and provided by the agency. The bill further requires that OMB issue guidance to agencies on providing performance information for publication on this website. In addition, agencies are required to produce all strategic plans, performance plans, and performance reports in searchable, machine-readable formats beginning in fiscal year 2012.”

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If you are just joining this series, here’s a link back to the first blog post. . . .and there’s only one more post to go!