Association of Government Accountants

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Association of Government Accountants

• Atlanta, GeorgiaJuly 29th 2008

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Accountability Transparency A Public Good?

• Presentation by
• Hon. Maurice McTigue
• Mercatus Center
• George Mason University

3
What is Accountability?

• Taking responsibility for the consequences of
  ones actions
• Transparency is a component of accountability
• Without transparency there is no accountability

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What is Transparency?

• Transparency a process that requires us to
  disclose fully and truthfully our performance to
  those who are entitled to know.

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Open Government - Gains Made

• GPRA Strategic Plans
• GPRA Performance Reports
• Accountability Reports
• PART details and results
• USAspending . Gov
• Congressional Budget Justifications

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Examining Disclosure through GPRA

• Transparency
• Can you find it?
• Can you read it?
• Is it reliable?
• What progress has been made?
• Public Benefits
• What is the agency trying to achieve?
• Do they measure results?
• Did their actions cause the change?
• What does it cost per unit of success?
• Leadership the Future
• What are the benefits to the nation?
• How will poor results be rectified?
• Is there improvement in management challenges?
• What are the new exciting strategies?

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A caveat

• This Scorecard evaluates only the quality of
  agency reports, not the quality of the results
  they produced for the public. Actual agency
  performance may or may not be correlated with
  report rankings in this Scorecard.

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Fiscal 2007 pilot format

• Financial report (November)
• Performance information published with
  congressional budget justification (Feb. 1)
• Highlights document (Feb. 1)

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What did the research team examine?

• Pilot format
• Required highlights document
• Other materials clearly identified by the
  highlights document (e.g. Performance Reports,
  Financial Reports)
• Traditional format
• Performance and Accountability Report
• Optional highlights document (for effect on
  readability criterion)

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Big Movers
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Lower overall scores
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Substantial room for improvement
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Anybody can do it!
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Pilots vs. PARs, fiscal 2007
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Pilot vs. PAR scores, fiscal 2007
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The Pilot and Public Disclosure

• Performance information released in February
  rather than November.
• Once released, the information was harder to find
  and use.
• Little additional information that was not
  available last November.
• Well-done highlights documents (mainly those done
  voluntarily by non-pilot agencies) add
  significant value for lay readers.

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Availability of Performance Information

• Highlights for all 9 agencies (2 not timely
  posted on line).
• Highlights, performance report, and financial
  report found for only 2 of 9 pilot agencies.
• 3 of 9 performance reports useable.
• 3 could not be found by due date
• 3 embedded in budget justifications

18
Observations

• Highlights and links to other documents must
  improve substantially in order for the public to
  get any value from performance reporting under
  the pilot format.
• Highlights should be improved and expanded
  whether or not the pilot continues.
• Scorecard offers Top Ten suggestions for
  improving the highlights documents.

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Interim Recommendations

• Make the highlights document user friendly by
  making it a self-contained overview of agency
  performance
• Include in the highlights user-friendly links to
  relevant supporting evidence in other documents
• Ensure that all relevant GPRA performance
  information is located in an easily accessible
  document usable by the general public

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Brought to you by the Mercatus Center's
Government Accountability Project
www.mercatus.org