III. GAO'S MISSION AND ROLES A review of GAO's 73 years of history shows that GAO's mission and roles have been largely shaped by legislative history and GAO's place in legislative-executive interactions. In recent years, two internal processes at GAO have been influencing its direction: GAO's strategic planning process and its total quality management (TQM) initiative. In this chapter, the panel presents findings and recommendations on GAO's mission and roles, as well as the contribution of its TQM and strategic planning processes. GAO's Vision, Mission, and Guiding Principles As part of its TQM effort in 1990-91, GAO produced the following definitions of its vision, mission, and guiding principles: The vision: "We aspire to be the world's leading organization engaged in audit, evaluation, and public policy analysis." The mission: "We seek to achieve honest, efficient management and full accountability throughout government. We serve the public interest by providing members of Congress and others who make policy with accurate information, unbiased analysis, and objective recommendations on how to best use public resources in support of the security and well being of the American people." The guiding principles: "Commitment to quality is the single most important principle governing our work. We define quality as work that is objective and independently derived, accurate, timely, and meaningful, and presented in a way that is most useful to responsible officials." "We value our people and the diversity they bring. We are committed to continuing selfexamination to achieve organizational, procedural, and individual improvement. #34 GAO's mission and vision statements draw elements from its legislated mandate (although neither the vision nor mission statement precisely mirrors the functions that the law directs GAO to perform audit, expenditure analysis, program evaluation, legal reviews, and other functions enumerated in Chapter II). However, the vision and mission statements -- depending on interpretation -- suggest roles and functions that reach beyond those the panel finds appropriate or feasible for GAO. "See GAO, Continuous Improvement: The Quality Challenge, "Quality Improvement Plan: Early Implementation" (GAO/QMG-92-1), November 1991, and "Quality Improvement Plan: An Update" (GAO/QMG-93-1), March 1993. GAO's internal mission statement raises key questions about the organization's appropriate role and functions. The critical phrase is "how best to use public resources in support of the security and well being of the American people." As long as GAO is "providing accurate information, unbiased analysis, and objective recommendations," it is filling an essential purpose; however, if GAO moves beyond evaluating processes and systems for implementing laws and national priorities to suggest shifts in allocations among national goals and priorities, it moves into the basic political functions of democratic government. Congress, the President, and other elected officials establish federal goals and priorities. Defining broad new policy directions for the nation and designing new programs are areas in which Congress and the entire political system are supplied with multiple sources of advice. No organization leads the world in all three functions that GAO identifies in its vision statement. To become the world's leading organization in public policy analysis, GAO would need substantially more specialized, technical expertise and staff resources and capacities in substantive areas far beyond its current scope. It would have to perform much more in-depth research and assessments of prospective program and legislative options and their potential effects, with a much greater emphasis on academic sources, mathematical models, and quantitative data than most of GAO's audiences expect or want in its work. Building an emphasis on policy work also would place a strain on GAO's traditional roles in audit and evaluation, and create growing conflicts between weighing values or policy interests (where consensus on objectives, standards, and research methods and objectives is lacking) and maintaining GAO's internal standards for independent audit and evaluation, set out in its Policies/Procedures Manual and also in the "yellow book" that GAO issues presenting standards for auditors in Federal, state, and local government.35 This is not to say that GAO should not make contributions to policy development. Public policy is affected by nearly every type of GAO work, from highly focused financial audits to broad program evaluations.36 The panel recognizes that it is not possible to draw a clear line between policy-related work and audit, evaluation, and other functions. Much of GAO's work touches on programs and organizations in which members of Congress, agencies, and others have a stake. When 35The "yellow book" is formally titled Government Auditing Standards: Standards for Audit of Governmental Organizations, Programs, Activities, and Functions (GAO/OGC-94-4), 1994 Revision, which was issued in June 1994. The "yellow book" does not explicitly apply to GAO but GAO does establish the standards to guide government auditors and does generally reflect the standards in its own internal training and policies. 36GAO's work relates in several ways to the question of how best to use public resources to meet identified goals. First, GAO audits current uses of public resources and evaluates and advises on the effectiveness and efficiency of existing programs and systems. From that work, it has a basis for identifying where programs require more or fewer resources to achieve stated goals, and also for identifying avenues for improving the specific management systems, processes, and institutional structures by which the resources are applied. Second, GAO's evaluations of existing programs and organizations provide information from which to compare current or potential options for achieving a policy goal and to develop conclusions on which ones might be more or less costly, efficient, and effective in the future. GAO assesses the economy, efficiency, or effectiveness of a program or organization, its assessment likely will affect policy and political interests. If evaluations reveal that a program is not achieving intended goals, the evaluators need to consider whether the management and administration are functioning properly or whether the initial design, goals, and policy itself are flawed. But all of its policy-related reports should have a firm foundation in factual evidence and explicit evaluation criteria. The more GAO is involved in recommending new policies, the more it is pulled into conflicts among policy positions on which there is no consensus about goals or how to weigh them. The further GAO moves into debates over values-based policy matters, the more frequently it will encounter controversy and possible opposition in Congress, springing from differences in policy priorities, political and constituent interests. This can erode GAO's reputation for objectivity. Interviews conducted for this study provide evidence of this problem, even among congressional staffs who most strongly support GAO. GAO cannot avoid all controversy, even when its work is well-grounded in balanced sources and reliable data and GAO should not try to avoid controversy. GAO can and should provide fact-based findings and recommendations that Congress and other decisionmakers can consider in formulating policy. However, GAO should avoid work that will erode its reputation for objectivity and professional competence. GAO has its greatest impact with policy makers when it works from a foundation of sound research, audit, evaluation, and analysis, to fill data gaps in crucial policy and program areas. GAO is uniquely positioned to perform cross-cutting assessments of programs that span agencies and activities in which government participates, comparing their relative outcomes and contributions to achieving similar goals. GAO must carefully guard against engaging in work that involves purely policy recommendations, removed from a factual base in research and evaluation. GAO's vision and mission statements are so ambitious that pursuing them poses two significant problems. First, to meet them would require staff skills and resources far beyond those GAO now possesses or what is appropriate or necessary for an independent audit and evaluation organization to fulfill its intended role. Second, it would threaten to take GAO beyond its base and its strengths into a much more active role in value-laden policy analysis and policy formulation that is inappropriate for GAO and would jeopardize its credibility in its essential functions of auditing and fact-based evaluation. To maintain its reputation and its value as an institution, GAO must serve a clear mission, perform the functions that match its capacities and appointed roles, and satisfy the legitimate needs of Congress and the government for research, audit, and evaluation of systems and performance of government programs and organizations. GAO best serves Congress and the public interest when it provides information, fact-based analysis, and objective recommendations -- particularly focused on questions related to efficiency and effectiveness in using public funds, design and performance of government programs, and the adequacy of systems for managing and administering programs and finances. RECOMMENDATION: GAO should revise its vision and mission statements to reflect a more focused and realistic set of goals and functions, building on its guiding principles, along the following lines: GAO's principal mission is to produce quality research and analysis GAO Strategic Plans and Priorities In pursuing its vision, mission, and guiding principles, GAO relies on a series of management strategies and processes, beginning with internal strategic planning. GAO has conducted strategic planning for years and the process continues to evolve. The process affects how GAO managers and leaders view their work, choose among projects, allocate resources, and plan for the future. GAO's strategic planning links the internal mission statement, the comptroller general's priorities, interests that congressional committees and staffs raise, and GAO's ongoing work programs. The process begins with guidelines to the issue areas. In the current planning cycle, the guidelines for fiscal year 1994 plans not only include functional objectives but also call for a five percent reduction from current staff-year allocations. GAO's division directors and issue area directors then develop two- to three-year strategic plans and associated one-year work plans, identifying likely priority issues and subject areas and outlining near-term products that fit those areas. The key actors in this process are the issue area directors. During 1993 and early 1994, each of them developed a new strategic planning memorandum to submit to the comptroller general and OPP, in response to the guidelines. GAO first gathered the issue area plans into a single volume in 1990; the January 1993 update, Strategic Plans: Issue Area Plan Surnmaries, covered activities for fiscal years 1993-1995. GAO does not share its strategic plan or related documents outside the organization; the strategic plan summaries are not available for distribution and are not circulated to congressional members or staffs or executive branch agencies. The panel studied GAO's strategic planning guidance and the January 1993 document, Strategic Plans: Issue Area Summaries. Project staff also analyzed 33 plan update memos that were prepared and submitted to OPP from the issue areas in 1993 and 1994. These documents and discussions with GAO personnel indicate an emphasis on playing major roles in policy formulation. For fiscal year 1993, the guidance to issue area directors for developing work plans and priorities stressed that GAO's work should "contribute to the dialogue on our nation's ability to compete in the global market. "37 "Memorandum of November 21, 1991, from Donald J. Horan to the Program Planning Committee and the Heads of Divisions and Offices, "Issue Area Planning Guidance for Fiscal Year 1993," p. 2. GAO's guidelines on its objectives and work priorities, first established in 1990 and reiterated in many forms by the comptroller general, indicate that GAO's work should focus on assignments with the potential to: 1. Contribute to congressional decision-making on significant public policy issues; 2. Fulfill statutory and legislative requirements and commitments; 3. Identify and eliminate serious mismanagement, fraud, and abuse; 4. Realize large dollar savings for the government and the taxpayers; 5. Change policies, procedures, and management structures of major government programs to better achieve desired program results and/or achieve objectives at lower cost; 6. See that major government programs comply with applicable laws and regulations and funds are spent legally; 7. Ensure that funds of major government programs are accounted for accurately; and 8. Enhance GAO's methodological and technical skills.38 As discussed with vision and mission, GAO seems to be exceeding its appropriate role in this delineation of its guidelines. GAO's work could "contribute" to all of these goals, but GAO cannot reach them on its own. This is not a matter of semantics. GAO cannot "realize" savings, "change" policies, or even "ensure" that funds are accurately accounted for; it does contribute by providing information, evaluating program results, assisting with development of financial systems, and advising on the adequacy of other management systems and processes. GAO needs to acknowledge and focus on what it can actually accomplish and recognize its appropriate role in relation to Congress and the executive branch - both of which play direct roles in making dollar savings, changing polices, procedures, and management structures, seeing that major programs account for funds and comply with laws and regulations. - Issue area planning documents describe progress under the prior plan, priority policy and management issues that should be addressed by Congress and/or GAO during the period of the plan, and linkages to high-risk areas in government and to the comptroller general's priorities. Each issue area plan includes a set of narrative tables. Table 3, a prototype for the Transportation Issue Area, illustrates the primary planning chart, as shown in GAO's Policies/Procedures Manual, pp 5.1-10 and 5.1-11. 38 Congressional Oversight: The General Accounting Office, Statement of Charles A. Bowsher before the House Committee on Government Operations, October 26, 1993, GAO/T-OPP-94-1, p. 9. |