From the U.S. Government Accountability Office, www.gao.gov

Transcript for: Federal Efforts to Improve Government Efficiency

Audio interview by GAO staff with Chris Mihm, Managing Director,
Strategic Issues

Related GAO Work: GAO-11-908: Streamlining Government: Key Practices
from Select Efficiency Initiatives Should Be Shared Governmentwide

Released on: September 30, 2011

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[ Narrator: ] Welcome to GAO's Watchdog Report, your source for news and
information from the Government Accountability Office. It's September
30th, 2011. Improving the efficiency of federal programs and operations
could significantly reduce costs for the government and taxpayers. A
group led by Chris Mihm, Managing Director of GAO's Strategic Issues
Team, recently reviewed selected initiatives that federal departments
are implementing to achieve efficiencies and considered their
implications for the government more broadly. GAO's Jeremy Cluchey sat
down with Chris to learn more.

[ Jeremy Cluchey: ] Tell us a little bit about the sorts of federal
efficiency initiatives that your team reviewed for this report?

[ Chris Mihm: ] We looked at two broad categories of initiatives. First
is a set of efforts that are underway to really fundamentally
restructure and reexamine the base of many programs and I think that
kind of the poster child for that is what's happening over at DOD with
the Gates Initiatives. And then we also looked at a second set of
initiatives that were more narrowly focused, designed to streamline
existing operations. And so it's really those two broad categories:
first, to fundamentally reexamine the base of certain programs and
second, to streamline administrative improvements in individual
programs. One of the things we looked at was the Gates Initiative and as
you know, or as you may know, that was designed to save $178 billion
over a 5-year period beginning in 2012. And what that did is looked
across all of DOD, looked for low-performing programs that could be
eliminated, reorganizations; things of that nature. A second kind of
category or an example of the programs from the second category that we
looked at was a project at VA called the "PMAS" which is their Project
Management Accountability System. Essentially what that looks to do is
bring a disciplined VA-wide approach to examining IT projects and how
those projects will be managed, and having a "dashboard" approach where
they will constantly be looking at information to see how things are
going in terms of schedule, cost, and performance. Still, all of these
are still very much works in progress, but it appears that we're
beginning to get some promising results from them.

[ Jeremy Cluchey: ] You also looked at a few state programs as well.
What did you find there?

[ Chris Mihm: ] The state programs are very interesting as well. Those
also broke into those two big buckets that I mentioned of reexamination
and then efficiencies. In terms of the reexamination areas, one of the
things that we were impressed with was what the state of Virginia has
been doing, and it's been doing this since the early 2000s, 2003.
Something called the "Council on Virginia's Future" and what this does
is, it was established by legislation to develop a vision and long-term
goals for the state of, for the commonwealth of Virginia. And then to be
looking at opportunities to get performance measures for those long-term
goals and then align state programs with those goals. Again to be
identifying those programs that contribute to the goals; they should be
supported. Those that contribute less in tough budgetary times might be
on the chopping block.

[ Jeremy Cluchey: ] Based on what you found in these reviews, what's GAO
recommending to help the broader government realize greater efficiencies
and benefit from some of the more promising practices you witnessed?

[ Chris Mihm: ] There's a couple of areas that are particularly
important. Well the first thing to keep in mind is that there's an awful
lot going on at the state level and at the federal level that people
that are beginning to start efficiency improvement efforts can really
learn from these efforts and really you know leverage an awful lot of
the good practice that's taking place. So one of the things we saw was
obviously the importance of top leadership, attention ... and not just
attention, but support and actually making sure that these initiatives
take place. Also very important was employee buy-in and ownership for
the process. Much more than just being around while these things are
going on, but the basic breakthrough insight from the quality movement
was that the people who are doing a job know it best and so if we want
to improve the efficiency of an operation, we need to start with the
employees in the operation, get their buy-in, get their ideas, get their
energy for how we can improve the operations. Those are two big things
that we saw. What we've recommended was that OMB leverage these and
communicate these ideas across the entire federal government. OMB has an
awful lot going on in terms of efficiency improvements in the executive
branch. The practices that we identified can help agencies be successful
in implementing and getting real results from those projects.

[ Jeremy Cluchey: ] And for taxpayers who are concerned about the
efficiency of government programs and operations today, what's the
takeaway from this report?

[ Chris Mihm: ] I think the big takeaway from this report is that in
terms of efficiency improvements in government we need to think big and
think small. In terms of thinking big is that there are initiatives
underway that seek to make dramatic cost savings through restructuring,
through getting out of programs that aren't giving us a return on
investment. And we need to think small, that in terms of individual
initiatives ... or individual administrative areas within agencies,
there are opportunities for streamlining inefficiency improvements. Both
of those are going to be absolutely key to improving the efficiency of
agencies.

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[ Narrator: ] To learn more, visit GAO's website at gao.gov and be sure
to tune in to the next edition of GAO's Watchdog Report for more from
the congressional watchdog, the Government Accountability Office.