GOVERNING WITH

ACCOUNTABILITY

GOVERNING WITH ACCOUNTABILITY

Just as the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 asks each local
school to measure the education of our children, we must

measure performance and demand results in federal government
programs.

Overview

President George W. Bush

The President has called for a government that focuses on priorities and executes them well. Securing the homeland, waging war on terrorism abroad and revitalizing the economy are the most important priorities but even they will not be addressed by simply devoting money to them.

This budget tells the American people how the President proposes to spend their taxes in 2003. People are often most interested in how much the President proposes to spend on particular issues compared to the previous year. Increases in spending are assumed to reflect high priorities and reductions to reflect low priorities. This is because everyone takes for granted that more government spending will translate into more and better government services. For example, the premise frequently is that more spending on a housing program translates into more houses for more people or more spending on a science program will provide more and better science.

The assumption that more government spending gets more results is not generally true and is seldom tested. It is potentially wrong for two reasons. First, the program may not actually achieve the results everyone expects. Second, it ignores the fact that improvements in the management of programs can result in greater results for less money by realizing the same productivity gains commonly expected in the private sector. By focusing on performance we can achieve the desired results at limited additional cost or, in some cases, a reduction in spending. We can and should get more for less.

Rather than pursue an endless and disconnected array of initiatives, the Administration has elected to identify the government's most glaring problems-and solve them. The President has ordered the pursuit of five government-wide initiatives that together will help government achieve better results.

The first initiative aims to attract talented and imaginative people to the federal government in order to improve the service provided to our citizens. A second exposes parts of the government to competition so that they may better focus on what customers want while controlling cost. A third project improves how the government manages its money-reducing, for instance, the billions in erroneous payments the government makes every year. A fourth project harnesses the power of the

Internet to make the government more productive. The fifth starts the process of linking resource decisions with results-the underlying information needed to hold government accountable.

This chapter describes the five initiatives in greater detail. It then discusses a scorecard that we are using to hold ourselves accountable for progress on these initiatives. Next, the Administration lays out proposals to remove barriers and give the executive branch the tools and flexibility it needs to get the job done. Finally, this chapter explains how all these matters are shared responsibilities that must involve Congress, and introduces readers to the department and agency chapters that follow.

The President's Management Agenda

Released in August 2001, the President's Management Agenda was designed to "address the most apparent deficiencies where the opportunity to improve performance is the greatest." The President's vision is guided by the principles that government should be: results-oriented, not process oriented; citizen-centered, not bureaucracy-centered; and market-based, promoting competition rather than stifling innovation.

immediate, concrete, and measurable results in the near term. It not only focuses on remedies to problems generally agreed to be serious, but, more importantly, commits to implement them fully. The five government-wide goals are described below.

Strategic Management of Human Capital

Fifty percent of the federal workforce is projected to retire over the next 10 years. In addition, federal employee skills are increasingly out of balance with the needs of the public. Federal personnel policies exacerbate these problems. Compensation tends to follow a "one-size-fits-all" approach; excellence often goes unrewarded; and mediocre and poor performance rarely carries any consequences.