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entitled 'Social Security Administration: Long-Term Strategy Needed to 
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United States Government Accountability Office: 
GAO: 

Report to the Chairman, Subcommittee on Social Security, Committee on 
Ways and Means, House of Representatives: 

May 2013: 

Social Security Administration: 

Long-Term Strategy Needed to Address Key Management Challenges: 

GAO-13-459: 

GAO Highlights: 

Highlights of GAO-13-459, a report to the Chairman, Subcommittee on 
Social Security, Committee on Ways and Means, House of Representatives. 

Why GAO Did This Study: 

SSA is responsible for providing benefits and services that affect the 
lives of nearly every American. In calendar year 2012, SSA paid over 
62 million people more than $826 billion in Social Security retirement 
and disability benefits and Supplemental Security Income payments. 
However, SSA faces increased workloads and large numbers of potential 
employee retirements in the long term. It is expected that a new 
Commissioner will soon be leading the agency. GAO was asked to 
describe issues confronting SSA. This report examines (1) key 
management challenges SSA faces in meeting its mission-related 
objectives, and (2) the extent to which SSA’s planning efforts address 
these challenges. To do this, GAO reviewed relevant planning documents 
and reports from SSA and others as well as SSA management information 
and data on workload and staffing projections, and applicable federal 
laws and regulations; and interviewed SSA headquarters and regional 
officials, representatives of employee groups, and other experts. 

What GAO Found: 

The Social Security Administration (SSA) will experience management 
challenges in four key areas over the next decade. 

Human capital. SSA has not updated its succession plan since 2006 
although the agency faces an ongoing retirement wave and hiring freeze 
which will make it difficult to respond to growing workload demands. 

Disability program issues. SSA faces ongoing challenges incorporating 
a more modern concept of disability into its programs, while balancing 
competing needs to reduce backlogs of initial and appealed claims and 
ensure program integrity. 

Information technology (IT). SSA has made strides in modernizing its 
IT systems to address growing workload demands, but faces challenges 
with these modernization efforts and correcting internal weaknesses in 
information security. 

Physical infrastructure. SSA is moving toward centralized facilities 
management, but the agency lacks a proactive approach to evaluating 
its office structure that will identify potential efficiencies, such 
as consolidating offices. 

Figure: Long-Term Projected Growth in SSA’s Workload Coincides with 
Large Numbers of Potential Employee Retirements: 

[Refer to PDF for image: line graph and horizontal bar graph] 

Beneficiaries: 

Calendar year: 2002; 
Beneficiaries (actual): 50.8 million. 

Calendar year: 2012; 
Beneficiaries (actual): 62.2 million. 

Calendar year: 2020; 
Beneficiaries (projected): 76.5 million. 

Calendar year: 2025; 
Beneficiaries (projected): 85.4 million. 

Projected SSA retirements: 

SSA employees: 

Fiscal year: 2011; 
Projected to retire: 2,400; 
Eligible to retire: 15,500. 

Fiscal year: 2011-2015; 
Projected to retire: 11,800; 
Eligible to retire: 22,700. 

Fiscal year: 2011-2020; 
Projected to retire: 22,500; 
Eligible to retire: 30,900. 

Source: GAO analysis of SSA beneficiary data from the 2012 Annual 
Report of the Board of Trustees of the Federal Old-Ageand Survivors 
Insurance and Federal Disability Insurance Trust Funds and the 2012 
Annual Report of the Supplemental SecurityIncome Program and 
projected retirement data extracted from the Human Resources 
Operational Data Store. 

[End of figure] 

SSA has ongoing planning efforts, but they do not address the long-
term nature of these management challenges. For example, SSA is 
finalizing a service delivery plan, but it only includes detailed 
plans for the next 5 years and focuses on existing initiatives rather 
than articulating specific long-term strategies for the agency’s 
service delivery model. Its current strategic plan also largely 
describes the continuation, expansion, or enhancement of ongoing 
activities, rather than proposing broad changes to address emerging 
issues. Since 2008, SSA has not had an entity or individual dedicated 
to strategic planning. Various groups have called on SSA to articulate 
a longer-term strategy, which it last did in 2000, motivated by many 
conditions which remain true today-—such as increasing workloads, 
advances in technology, and employee retirements—-and which will need 
to be addressed in the future. Strategic planning literature and 
experts cite key long-term planning practices such as planning for 
different scenarios and aligning interim plans with the long-term 
strategy as necessary for success. 

What GAO Recommends: 

To address SSA’s key management challenges, the agency should (1) 
consider having an entity or individual dedicated to strategic 
planning, (2) develop a long-term strategy for service delivery, (3) 
take steps to update its succession plan, and (4) explore the utility 
and feasibility of realigning its headquarters, regional, and field 
office structure. SSA agreed with our recommendations and outlined 
plans for implementation. 

View [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-13-459]. For more 
information, contact Daniel Bertoni at (202) 512-7215 or 
bertonid@gao.gov. 

[End of section] 

Contents: 

Letter: 

Background: 

SSA Faces Key Management Challenges in Human Capital, Disability 
Program Issues, Information Technology, and Physical Infrastructure: 

SSA's Planning Efforts Are Not Adequate to Address the Long-Term 
Nature of Its Management Challenges: 

Conclusions: 

Recommendations for Executive Action: 

Agency Comments: 

Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and Methodology: 

Appendix II: Key Questions to Consider When Evaluating Consolidation 
Proposals: 

Appendix III: Comments from the Social Security Administration: 

Appendix IV: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments: 

Related GAO Products: 

Table: 

Table 1: Selected Aspects of SSA's Workload and Volume, Fiscal Year 
2012: 

Figures: 

Figure 1: Beneficiaries of Old-Age and Survivors Insurance, Disability 
Insurance, and Supplemental Security Income Programs in Payment Status 
as of the End of the Year: 

Figure 2: Federal Benefit Outlays for Old-Age and Survivors Insurance, 
Disability Insurance, and Supplemental Security Income Programs: 

Figure 3: Administrative Expenses for Old-Age and Survivors Insurance, 
Disability Insurance, and Supplemental Security Income Programs in 
Fiscal Year 2012: 

Figure 4: Actual and Projected Retirements of SSA Staff, Fiscal Years 
2009-2020: 

Figure 5: Percentage of Non-Supervisors and Supervisors at SSA 
Eligible for Retirement, Fiscal Years 2011-2020: 

Figure 6: Average Wait Time for SSA Disability Claim Hearings from 
Request to Decision and Percentage of Offices with Longest Wait Times: 

Figure 7: Weaknesses Identified in SSA's Information Security Program, 
Fiscal Years 2009-2012: 

Figure 8: Number of SSA Facilities by Component and Type (as of Fiscal 
Year 2012): 

Abbreviations: 

CDR: continuing disability reviews: 

CIO: Chief Information Officer: 

COBOL: Common Business Oriented Language: 

DDS: Disability Determination Services: 

DI: Disability Insurance: 

FISMA: Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002: 

GSA: General Services Administration: 

GPRA: Government Performance and Results Act: 

IT: information technology: 

O*NET: Occupational Information Network: 

OASI: Old-Age and Survivors Insurance: 

OFSM: SSA's Office of Facilities and Supply Management: 

OIG: SSA's Office of the Inspector General: 

OMB: Office of Management and Budget: 

RRB: Railroad Retirement Board: 

SNAP: Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program: 

SSA: Social Security Administration: 

SSI: Supplemental Security Income: 

[End of section] 

United States Government Accountability Office: 
GAO: 
441 G St. N.W. 
Washington, DC 20548: 

May 29, 2013: 

The Honorable Sam Johnson: 
Chairman: 
Subcommittee on Social Security: 
Committee on Ways and Means: 
House of Representatives: 

Dear Mr. Chairman: 

The Social Security Administration (SSA) is responsible for providing 
benefits and services that affect the lives of nearly every American. 
In calendar year 2012, SSA paid over 62 million people more than $826 
billion in Social Security retirement and disability benefits and 
Supplemental Security Income payments. As more members of the baby 
boom generation become eligible for retirement benefits and 
individuals under age 62 reach their disability-prone years, a surge 
in benefit applications is expected. Evolving technology will affect 
service delivery expectations, and SSA's own workforce may also change 
and decrease in the coming years. At the same time, SSA's expanded use 
of electronic services will affect how the agency should deploy and 
use its workforce. In addition, the agency will need to operationalize 
any legislative changes that may be made in an effort to avoid the 
projected exhaustion of the Social Security trust funds. As a result 
of these realities, SSA will encounter increased pressure to serve the 
public while still ensuring program integrity. Moreover, SSA will 
likely continue to experience budget constraints. 

A new Commissioner will soon be leading the agency and will face these 
many interrelated issues.[Footnote 1] Decisions made early in the 
Commissioner's term could help set the course for the agency over the 
long term and determine how well-positioned it is to adapt to changing 
realities.[Footnote 2] GAO was asked to describe issues confronting 
SSA. This report addresses (1) key management challenges SSA faces in 
meeting its mission-related objectives and (2) the extent to which 
SSA's planning efforts address these challenges. 

To examine these issues, we obtained SSA management information and 
administrative data related to workload and staffing projections. We 
assessed the reliability of the data by reviewing related 
documentation and interviewing knowledgeable agency officials and 
determined they were sufficiently reliable to describe agency 
projections. We also reviewed key agency planning and other documents, 
such as SSA's strategic plan, strategic human capital plan, strategic 
leadership succession plan, information technology strategic plan, 
facilities standards, and agency-wide draft service delivery plan. We 
conducted in-depth interviews with SSA officials, including regional 
commissioners, and other experts, including representatives of the 
Social Security Advisory Board and others familiar with long-term 
planning. We reviewed GAO internal control standards and relevant GAO, 
SSA Office of the Inspector General (OIG), and Social Security 
Advisory Board reports, as well as applicable federal laws and 
regulations and SSA's policies and procedures.[Footnote 3] See 
appendix I for more on our scope and methodology. 

We conducted this performance audit from September 2012 to May 2013 in 
accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. 
Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain 
sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our 
findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe 
that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our 
findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. 

Background: 

SSA provides financial assistance to eligible individuals through 
three major benefit programs: 

* Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI)--provides retirement benefits 
to older workers and their families and to survivors of deceased 
workers. 

* Disability Insurance (DI)--provides benefits to eligible workers who 
have qualifying disabilities, and their eligible family members. 

* Supplemental Security Income (SSI)--provides income for aged, blind, 
or disabled individuals with limited income and resources. 

SSA projects that the number of beneficiaries and benefit payments for 
the three programs will increase over the next several years (see 
figures 1 and 2). DI and SSI are the nation's largest federal 
disability programs, and applications for benefits have grown 
significantly over the last 5 years, due in part to baby boomers 
reaching their disability-prone years, as well as a sustained economic 
downturn and high unemployment. Retirement claims have also steadily 
increased in recent years. 

Figure 1: Beneficiaries of Old-Age and Survivors Insurance, Disability 
Insurance, and Supplemental Security Income Programs in Payment Status 
as of the End of the Year: 

[Refer to PDF for image: stacked vertical bar graph] 

Calendar year: 2002 (actual); 
OASI: 39.2 million; 
DI: 7.2 million; 
SSI: 6.5 million; 
Total[A]: 50.8 million; 
Concurrent recipients[B, C]: 2.1 million. 

Calendar year: 2012 (actual); 
OASI: 45.9 million; 
DI: 10.9 million; 
SSI: 8 million; 
Total[A]: 62.2 million; 
Concurrent recipients[B, C]: 2.6 million. 

Calendar year: 2020 (projected); 
OASI: 58.8 million; 
DI: 11.9 million; 
SSI: 8.8 million; 
Total[A]: 76.5 million; 
Concurrent recipients[B, C]: 3.0 million. 

Calendar year: 2025 (projected); 
OASI: 66.8 million; 
DI: 12.6 million; 
SSI: 9.2 million; 
Total[A]: 85.4 million; 
Concurrent recipients[B, C]: 3.2 million. 

OASI: Older workers, their families, and their survivors. 
DI: Disabled workers and their families. 
SSI: Recipients of federal benefits[B]. 

Source: GAO analysis of SSA data form the 2012 Annual Report of the 
Board of Trustees of the Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and 
Federal Disability Insurance Trust Funds; and the 2012 Annual Report 
of the Supplemental Security Income Program. 

[A] The total refers to the number of individuals with either an OASI, 
DI, or federal SSI benefit. Concurrent beneficiaries are excluded from 
the total to avoid double-counting. 

[B] According to SSA, some individuals are ineligible for federal SSI 
benefits due to excess income, but are eligible for State 
supplementation. These individuals are not included in these recipient 
counts. 

[C] Concurrent recipients are those receiving federal SSI benefits and 
benefits from either the OASI or DI program. These figures are 
included in the OASI, DI, and SSI counts above. 

[End of figure] 

Figure 2: Federal Benefit Outlays for Old-Age and Survivors Insurance, 
Disability Insurance, and Supplemental Security Income Programs: 

[Refer to PDF for image: stacked vertical bar graph] 

Calendar year: 2002 (actual); 
OASI: $388 billion; 
DI: $56 billion; 
SSI: $32 billion; 
Total[A]: $485 billion. 

Calendar year: $2012 (actual); 
OASI: $638 billion; 
DI: $137 billion; 
SSI: $52 billion; 
Total[A]: $826 billion. 

Calendar year: $2020 (projected); 
OASI: $1.065 trillion; 
DI: $186 billion; 
SSI: $69 billion; 
Total[A]: $1.32 trillion. 

Calendar year: $2025 (projected); 
OASI: $1.475 trillion; 
DI: $240 billion; 
SSI: $83 billion; 
Total[A]: $1.798 trillion. 

OASI: Older workers, their families, and their survivors. 
DI: Disabled workers and their families[B]. 
SSI: Recipients of federal benefits[A]. 

Source: GAO analysis of SSA data form the 2012 Annual Report of the 
Board of Trustees of the Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and 
Federal Disability Insurance Trust Funds; and the 2012 Annual Report 
of the Supplemental Security Income Program. 

[A] This figure includes federal SSI outlays only. It excludes state 
supplementation benefits. Federal SSI outlays reflect actual timing of 
payments. For any calendar year, outlays exclude payments due on 
January 1 of the given year but include payments due on January 1 of 
the following year. 

[B] This figure includes an offset for reimbursements due to un-
negotiated checks and payments to providers of vocational 
rehabilitation services. 

[End of figure] 

Although SSA's disability programs account for only about 23 percent 
of its total benefit outlays, they represent 66 percent of the 
administrative expenses for these 3 programs (see figure 3). Complex 
eligibility rules and many layers of review with multiple handoffs 
from one person to another make the disability programs complicated, 
and therefore costly, to administer. After the field office determines 
that an applicant has met SSA's nonmedical eligibility requirements 
for disability benefits,[Footnote 4] the applicant's claim is sent to 
the state Disability Determination Services (DDS) for a review of the 
claimant's medical eligibility.[Footnote 5] After assembling all 
medical and vocational information for the claim, a DDS examiner in 
consultation with appropriate medical staff determines whether the 
claimant meets the requirements of the law for having a disability. 
Claimants who are dissatisfied with the initial DDS determination have 
up to three levels of appeal, including a "reconsideration" of the 
claim, conducted by DDS personnel who were not involved in the 
original decision; a hearing before an administrative law judge; and a 
review of the claim by the Appeals Council, which is comprised of 
administrative appeals judges and appeals officers. 

Figure 3: Administrative Expenses for Old-Age and Survivors Insurance, 
Disability Insurance, and Supplemental Security Income Programs in 
Fiscal Year 2012: 

[Refer to PDF for image: pie-chart] 

OASI: Older workers, their families, and their survivors: 34% ($3.4 
billion); 
SSI: Recipients of federal benefits: 37% ($3.7 billion); 
DI: Disabled workers and their families: 29% ($2.9 billion). 

The disability programs accounted for 66% of administrative 
expenses[A]. 

Source: GAO analysis of data from SSA's Office of Budget. 

[A] Administrative expenses such as personnel and physical 
infrastructure associated with OASI, DI and SSI programs account for 
approximately 86 percent of the agency's total administrative budget. 
Other administrative expenses not associated with programs include 
research and operations for SSA's Office of the Inspector General. 

[End of figure] 

Both OASI and DI face long-term financial challenges. SSA's Office of 
the Chief Actuary has reported that OASI cannot sustain projected long-
run program costs under currently scheduled financing, and that 
legislative modifications are necessary to avoid disruptive 
consequences for beneficiaries and taxpayers. In 2012, SSA's Office of 
the Chief Actuary projected that the DI and OASI Trust Funds would be 
exhausted in 2016 and 2035, respectively. If the trust funds are 
depleted before legislative changes are made to restore long-term 
solvency, the agency projects that it will be able to pay benefits 
only to the extent that funds are available.[Footnote 6] 

In support of its mission and programs, SSA's basic functions include 
maintaining earnings information, making initial eligibility 
determinations for program payments, making changes to beneficiaries' 
accounts that affect their benefit payments, and issuing Social 
Security numbers.[Footnote 7] SSA also provides administrative support 
to the Medicare program, partners with the Department of Homeland 
Security in verifying employment eligibility for new hires, and 
assists with the administration of other programs, such as the 
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Railroad 
Retirement Board (RRB) benefits program.[Footnote 8] Table 1 includes 
volume data on some key aspects of SSA's workload for fiscal year 2012. 

Table 1: Selected Aspects of SSA's Workload and Volume, Fiscal Year 
2012: 

Maintaining earnings information: 
Earnings items posted to workers' records; 220 million. 

Making initial eligibility determinations for program payments: 
Retirement, survivor, and Medicare applications received; 5 million;
Initial disability applications received; 3.2 million;
Denied disability applications reconsidered; 809,000;
Hearings conducted; 672,000;
Appeals Council reviews completed; 166,000. 

Making changes to beneficiaries' accounts that affect benefit payments: 
Overpayment actions completed; 3.2 million;
SSI non-disability redeterminations completed; 2.6 million;
Continuing disability reviews completed; 443,000. 

Issuing Social Security numbers: 
New and replacement Social Security cards issued; 16 million. 

Other functions: 
Automated Social Security number verifications performed; 1.5 billion;
Transactions completed on National 800 Number; 56 million;
Visitors assisted; 45 million. 

Source: GAO analysis of SSA data from SSA's FY 2012 Performance 
Accountability Report. 

[End of table] 

SSA has over 80,000 state and federal employees[Footnote 9] to 
administer SSA programs in about 1,700 facilities nationwide. These 
facilities include regional offices, field offices, teleservice 
centers, processing centers, hearings offices, the Appeals Council, 
and SSA's headquarters in Baltimore, Maryland. Almost 182,000 people 
visit one of the nearly 1,300 SSA field offices daily, and more than 
445,000 people call the offices daily to file applications, ask 
questions, or update their information. 

SSA is operating in an environment of constrained resources and 
budgetary uncertainty. According to a former SSA commissioner and 
agency budget documents, while SSA's administrative budget increased 
about 32 percent from fiscal year 2001 to 2010,[Footnote 10] much of 
this funding has been used to keep up with increases in expenses such 
as personnel costs, rent, and security. Furthermore, for several years 
Congress has passed continuing resolutions to prevent funding gaps 
when regular appropriations bills have not been enacted by the start 
of a fiscal year. As we have previously reported, operating under a 
continuing resolution may limit agencies' management options and lead 
to incremental planning and repetitive activities, resulting in 
inefficiencies.[Footnote 11] 

SSA Faces Key Management Challenges in Human Capital, Disability 
Program Issues, Information Technology, and Physical Infrastructure: 

Over the next decade, SSA will experience management challenges in 
four key areas: 1) human capital, 2) disability program issues, 3) 
information technology, and 4) physical infrastructure. 

SSA's Strategies to Prevent a Leadership and Skills Shortage May Be 
Insufficient During a Time of Increasing Workloads: 

Over the next decade SSA's ongoing retirement wave, coupled with a 
hiring freeze that has been in place since 2010, will create 
significant management challenges for the agency in meeting its 
projected growth in work demands. Although not all employees will 
necessarily retire when eligible, nearly 7,000 headquarters employees 
and more than 24,000 field employees will become retirement eligible 
between 2011 and 2020. The agency projects that it could lose nearly 
22,500 employees, or nearly one-third of its workforce, during this 
time due to retirement--its primary source of attrition (see figure 
4).[Footnote 12] Officials told us that as a result of the hiring 
freeze, they have been unable to back-fill positions vacated by 
retiring employees. The Commissioner stated in SSA's fiscal year 2012 
budget overview that as a result of attrition, some offices could 
become understaffed, and that without a sufficient number of skilled 
employees, backlogs and wait times could significantly increase and 
improper payments could grow. As SSA's workforce decreases and its 
workload increases, the agency's strategies for preventing a loss of 
leadership and skills may prove insufficient for a variety of reasons. 

Figure 4: Actual and Projected Retirements of SSA Staff, Fiscal Years 
2009-2020: 

[Refer to PDF for image: vertical bar graph] 

Actual: 

Fiscal year: 2009; 
Number of retirements: 1,961. 

Fiscal year: 2010; 
Number of retirements: 2,479. 

Projected: 

Fiscal year: 2011; 
Number of retirements: 2,403. 

Fiscal year: 2012; 
Number of retirements: 2,388. 

Fiscal year: 2013; 
Number of retirements: 2,362. 

Fiscal year: 2014; 
Number of retirements: 2,336. 

Fiscal year: 2015; 
Number of retirements: 2,296. 

Fiscal year: 2016; 
Number of retirements: 2,243. 

Fiscal year: 2017; 
Number of retirements: 2,188. 

Fiscal year: 2018; 
Number of retirements: 2,133. 

Fiscal year: 2019; 
Number of retirements: 2,082. 

Fiscal year: 2020; 
Number of retirements: 2,032. 

Source: GAO analysis of SSA data extracted form the Human Resources 
Operational Data Store. 

Note: Numbers refer to retirements of full-time and part-time 
permanent employees. Data reflect SSA's most recent projections from 
its September 2011 Retirement Wave Report, which only includes actual 
retirement figures through fiscal year 2010. 

[End of figure] 

Retaining institutional knowledge and developing new leaders. SSA 
could face a significant loss of institutional knowledge and expertise 
in the coming years. An estimated 43 percent of SSA's non-supervisory 
employees and 60 percent of its supervisors will be eligible to retire 
by 2020 (see figure 5). The high percentage of supervisors who are 
eligible to retire could leave a gap in terms of certain skills or 
institutional knowledge. For example, regional and district managers 
told us they have lost staff experienced in handling the most complex 
disability cases and providing guidance on policy compliance.[Footnote 
13] SSA officials and DDS managers told us that it typically takes 2 
to 3 years for new employees to become fully proficient and that new 
hires benefit from mentoring by veteran employees. Because of budget 
cutbacks, SSA has also curtailed its leadership development programs, 
which have historically been used to establish a pipeline of future 
leaders. According to SSA officials, the pressure to keep up with 
workload demands in the face of staff losses and the loss of 
leadership development programs will likely negatively affect employee 
morale. Some officials also said low morale and a feeling of being 
stretched too thin are hastening retirement among those who are 
eligible. Employees rated the agency lower on the Office of Personnel 
Management's Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey in 2012 than in 2011 in 
terms of the extent to which they think the agency has the talent 
necessary to achieve organizational goals (59 percent compared to 62 
percent) and the extent to which they are satisfied with their jobs 
(68 percent compared to 72 percent).[Footnote 14] 

Figure 5: Percentage of Non-Supervisors and Supervisors at SSA 
Eligible for Retirement, Fiscal Years 2011-2020: 

[Refer to PDF for image: horizontal bar graph] 

Fiscal year: 2011; 
Non-supervisors: 21.0%; 
Supervisors: 35.3%. 

Fiscal year: 2011-2015 (projected); 
Non-supervisors: 31.3%; 
Supervisors: 48.1%. 

Fiscal year: 2011-2020 (projected); 
Non-supervisors: 43.2%; 
Supervisors: 60.3%. 

Source: GAO analysis of SSA data extracted from the Human Resources 
Operational Data Store. 

Note: Numbers refer to retirements of full-time and part-time 
permanent employees. Eligibility figures are cumulative. 

[End of figure] 

Succession planning. SSA's most recent succession plan was issued in 
2006, even though the agency has experienced significant changes since 
that time, including a hiring freeze and greater movement toward 
online services. The most recent succession plan established a target 
of evaluating and updating the plan by the end of 2007. GAO's 
Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government state that 
management should ensure that skill needs are continually assessed and 
that the organization is able to obtain a workforce with those 
required skills to achieve organizational goals.[Footnote 15] GAO's 
internal controls guidance also states that management should consider 
how best to retain valuable employees, plan for their eventual 
succession, and ensure continuity of needed skills and abilities. 
Leading organizations use succession planning to identify, develop, 
and select successors who are the right people, with the right skills, 
at the right time for leadership and other key positions.[Footnote 16] 
Other key principles of strategic workforce planning include 
determining critical skills and competencies that will be needed to 
achieve current and future programmatic results and developing 
strategies to address gaps in these skills and competencies.[Footnote 
17] 

SSA's 2006 succession plan states that without sound succession 
planning, SSA's loss of leadership would result in a drain on 
institutional knowledge and expertise at a time when workloads are 
growing. This loss of knowledge and expertise could result in 
increasing workloads, backlogs, and improper payments. Several SSA 
officials told us the lack of proper succession planning can be 
detrimental to future agency operations. For example, they said 
individuals with less experience and training are beginning to assume 
supervisory roles and some have made poor decisions related to such 
things as employee contract issues and providing reasonable 
accommodations to employees with disabilities. Some officials also 
told us that inexperienced managers are less proficient at supervising 
others, which leads to inefficiencies in managing increasing 
workloads. Moreover, SSA employees' perceptions of agency leaders' 
ability to motivate staff, communicate goals and priorities, and 
demonstrate other leadership behaviors diminished from 2011 to 2012 
among those responding to the Office of Personnel Management's Federal 
Employee Viewpoint Survey.[Footnote 18] 

SSA's Strategic Human Capital Plan does not establish an explicit 
requirement for how frequently the agency will update its succession 
plan, but it identifies the succession plan as one component for 
determining how SSA makes data-driven decisions to continuously 
improve the agency's human capital practices. Senior SSA officials 
told us that the agency's succession plan has not been updated more 
recently because the analyst staff who were responsible for preparing 
it have been reassigned to other duties that the agency considered 
more urgent, such as managing personnel programs. SSA officials also 
noted that in the current budgetary environment, conducting succession 
planning has become a luxury. 

Forecasting workforce needs. Findings from OIG reports raise 
additional concerns about SSA's ability to accurately forecast 
workload demands and workforce needs.[Footnote 19] These reports found 
methodological flaws in the workload and work year data SSA uses to 
formulate and execute its budget. For example, the reports concluded 
that the internal controls and main processes related to work 
sampling--which SSA uses to measure work and assign direct and 
indirect costs to workloads--did not ensure the completeness and 
reliability of data in SSA's Cost Analysis System.[Footnote 20] The 
reports found that work samples were not consistently performed. 
Furthermore, they noted no instances of peer or management review, 
which could improve the accuracy of the workload data collected. 
[Footnote 21] SSA is taking steps to improve data sampling in response 
to these findings. 

SSA Continues to Face Challenges in Modernizing Its Disability 
Programs, While Seeking a Balance Between Reducing Backlogs and 
Ensuring Program Integrity: 

Modernizing disability programs. We designated federal disability 
programs as a high-risk area in 2003, in part because these programs 
emphasize medical conditions in assessing an individual's work 
incapacity without adequate consideration of the work opportunities 
afforded by advances in medicine, technology, and job demands. 
[Footnote 22] Concerns have been raised that the medical listings 
being used lack current and relevant criteria to evaluate disability 
applicants' inability to work, and that by failing to consider the 
role of assistive devices, and workplace accommodations, SSA may be 
missing opportunities to help individuals with disabilities return to 
work. In 2012, we noted that resource constraints have impeded SSA's 
efforts to ensure timely updates to its medical criteria.[Footnote 23] 
However, SSA has recently taken steps toward comprehensively updating 
the medical and labor market information that underlie its disability 
criteria. As of March 2013, SSA had completed comprehensive revisions 
of its medical criteria for 10 of the 14 adult body systems and 
initiated targeted reviews of certain conditions under these systems, 
as appropriate, according to SSA officials.[Footnote 24] 

SSA has also recently made progress toward replacing its outdated 
occupational information system, including signing an interagency 
agreement with the Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics to 
design, develop, and carry out pilot testing to assess the feasibility 
of using an existing survey[Footnote 25] to collect data for an 
updated system.[Footnote 26] SSA previously determined that the 
Department of Labor's existing occupational database, the Occupational 
Information Network (O*NET), was not sufficiently detailed for 
evaluating DI and SSI claims, so it would need to develop its own 
occupational information system. According to SSA officials, the 
agency still needs to determine exactly how many occupations it will 
include in its new system, the extent to which it might leverage 
aspects of O*NET, and the extent to which the new system will include 
cognitive information. In addition, officials told us that while SSA 
is currently developing a research plan for fiscal year 2014 and 
expects that its current approach will cost less and take less time 
than previously expected, the agency has not yet finalized a cost 
estimate. 

SSA has also taken steps to more fully consider individuals' ability 
to function with medical impairments in their work or other 
environments, which is consistent with modern views of disability. For 
example, SSA has incorporated into some of its medical criteria an 
assessment of whether a claimant's impairments result in functional 
limitations that can limit the ability to work and is sponsoring 
research to more broadly consider how to incorporate these types of 
assessments in determining disability. However, SSA disagreed with our 
prior recommendation to conduct limited, focused studies on how to 
more fully consider factors such as assistive devices and workplace 
accommodations in its disability determinations,[Footnote 27] stating 
that such studies would be inconsistent with Congress' intentions. We 
noted that Congress has not explicitly prohibited SSA from considering 
these factors and we believe that conducting these studies would put 
SSA in a better position to thoughtfully weigh the costs and benefits 
of these various policy options before deciding on a course of action. 
After reviewing a draft of our report, the agency said that it would 
explore the possibility of conducting research in the area of 
assistive devices but noted that this research would require the 
involvement of highly specialized medical professionals. 

Managing workloads to reduce disability initial claims and hearings 
backlogs. Although SSA has reported progress with its disability 
hearings backlog reduction plan, the agency still faces challenges 
managing significant and persistent disability workload increases, 
both in terms of initial claims and hearings for appealed claims. SSA 
has generally increased the number of initial disability claims it has 
processed annually--completing over 3 million claims each year since 
fiscal year 2010--but the number of initial claims submitted by 
applicants has outpaced SSA's effort. Thus, the number of claims 
awaiting a decision is also growing. SSA's 707,700 initial claims 
pending in fiscal year 2012 were 27 percent higher than fiscal year 
2008 levels. The number of disability beneficiaries is projected to 
grow about 15 percent between 2012 and 2025. To help manage workloads, 
Disability Determination Services share work nationally by shifting 
resources among DDSs on a weekly basis, and dedicated teams in certain 
states assist by taking claims from states with the highest levels of 
pending claims. SSA also identifies claimants with the most severe 
disabilities and expedites decisions on these cases,[Footnote 28] 
although they represented less than 6 percent of all initial 
determinations in September 2012.[Footnote 29] Most of SSA's regional 
commissioners told us that simplifying disability policy, such as by 
streamlining work incentive and work reporting rules, could also help 
staff better manage disability workloads. Under its regulations, SSA 
has set forth procedures for testing certain streamlining 
modifications to its disability determination process.[Footnote 30] 
One such modification is the "single decisionmaker" approach that 
allows a disability examiner to make an initial disability 
determination in most cases without obtaining the signature of a 
medical or psychological consultant.[Footnote 31] For example, the 
examiner can deny an individual whose physical impairments are not 
expected to meet the duration requirement of 12 months--such as a 26-
year-old accident victim who is recovering normally from a recently 
fractured arm and leg--without the involvement of a medical or 
psychological consultant. Further, in 10 "prototype" states, in 
addition to the "single decisionmaker" approach described above, the 
reconsideration level has been eliminated from the administrative 
review process.[Footnote 32] A claimant who is dissatisfied with the 
initial determination may request a hearing before an administrative 
law judge. Without reconsiderations, claimants' cases move more 
quickly to the appeal stage. 

With regard to the single decisionmaker approach, many SSA officials 
told us that it reduces processing time and administrative costs by 
reserving expensive medical and psychological consultant resources for 
reviews of more complex cases. With regard to the elimination of 
reconsiderations, some officials felt that this approach decreases 
processing time and saves DDS resources, while others feel it 
contributes to the hearings backlog by adding to the administrative 
law judges' workloads. Overall, some officials raised concerns that 
having some states with single decisionmaker authority or no 
reconsiderations leads to a lack of national uniformity. One 
association noted that the practice of sharing workloads between 
states heightens the need for national uniformity. SSA reports that it 
plans to extend these changes until September 2014, but after that 
time, the agency will again need to decide whether to extend--and 
possibly expand--these changes. 

While SSA is processing more initial claims annually, claims denied at 
the initial level can be appealed and often result in a request for a 
hearing before an administrative law judge. To reduce its hearings 
backlog, SSA has used strategies such as hiring additional 
administrative law judges and support staff, opening more hearings 
offices, and conducting more hearings via video conference. Although 
SSA completed more hearing requests in fiscal year 2012 than in 
previous years, the agency fell short of its hearings completion 
target by more than 54,000 hearings and the average wait time for 
hearings exceeded the agency's target of 321 days by 41 days. SSA 
officials attribute this missed target and longer wait times for 
hearings to the increase in claims and delays in the hiring of 
qualified administrative law judges. At the same time, the agency 
eliminated most of its oldest pending hearing requests (see figure 6). 

Figure 6: Average Wait Time for SSA Disability Claim Hearings from 
Request to Decision and Percentage of Offices with Longest Wait Times: 

[Refer to PDF for image: 2 vertical bar graphs] 

National average processing time (APT): 

Year: 2007; 
Number of days: 512. 

Year: 2008; 
Number of days: 514. 

Year: 2000; 
Number of days: 492. 

Year: 2010; 
Number of days: 426. 

Year: 2011; 
Number of days: 360. 

Year: 2012; 
Number of days: 353. 

Hearings offices with an APT of 475 days or more: 

Year: 2008; 
Number of offices: 54; 
Percentage of all hearings offices: 60%. 

Year: 2008; 
Number of offices: 71; 
Percentage of all hearings offices: 50%. 

Year: 2009;
Number of offices: 70; 
Percentage of all hearings offices: 49%. 

Year: 2010; 
Number of offices: 39; 
Percentage of all hearings offices: 26%. 

Year: 2011; 
Number of offices: 6; 
Percentage of all hearings offices: 4%. 

Year: 2012; 
Number of offices: 1; 
Percentage of all hearings offices: 0. 

Source: GAO analysis of hearings data from SSA's Case Processing and 
Management System. 

Note: Processing time data refer to the year in which hearing requests 
were completed. 

[End of figure] 

Ensuring disability program integrity. SSA also faces disability 
program integrity challenges due to budget decisions and the way it 
prioritizes competing workload demands such as processing initial 
claims. Continuing disability reviews (CDR) are periodic reviews that 
the agency is required to perform to verify that certain recipients 
still meet SSA disability rules. SSA performs two types of CDRs: 
medical CDRs to verify that the recipient meets medical criteria and 
work CDRs to determine if an individual's earnings meet financial 
criteria. SSA reported that in fiscal year 2010, the agency did not 
conduct 1.4 million CDRs that were due for review, in part because of 
competing workloads. In June 2012, we also found that more than 
400,000 medical CDRs were overdue for children with mental impairments 
receiving SSI, with some pending by as many as 13 years or 
more.[Footnote 33] Childhood CDRs overall fell from more than 150,000 
in fiscal year 2000 to about 45,000 in fiscal year 2011 (a 70 percent 
decrease). During this time, the number of adult CDRs fell from 
584,000 to 179,000. 

When CDRs are not conducted as scheduled, some recipients may receive 
benefits for which they are no longer eligible, and the agency may 
forgo future program savings. For fiscal year 2010, SSA estimated that 
every $1 spent on CDRs yielded $9.30 in savings, amounting to a total 
future savings to federal programs of $3.5 billion.[Footnote 34] We 
have previously found that medical and work-related overpayments in 
the DI program detected by SSA grew from about $860 million in fiscal 
year 2001 to about $1.4 billion in fiscal year 2010.[Footnote 35] 
Despite an increase in DI debt collections--$340 million to $839 
million from fiscal year 2001 through fiscal year 2010--outstanding DI 
debt grew from $2.5 billion to $5.4 billion during this time, 
including a $225 million increase in fiscal year 2010.[Footnote 36] 
Although CDRs are a cost-effective way to help ensure that only those 
eligible for benefits continue to receive them, SSA officials reported 
that resource constraints have made it more difficult to remain 
current on the millions of CDRs it is required to conduct each year, 
and to balance the competing goals of processing initial claims and 
reducing its backlogs with ensuring program integrity. 

SSA Has Taken Steps to Modernize Its IT Systems to Keep Pace with 
Workload Demands, but Concerns Remain: 

IT modernization efforts. SSA has begun to take action on several of 
our prior recommendations to improve the way it modernizes its IT 
systems.[Footnote 37] For example, in May 2012, SSA released its 
Capital Planning and Investment Control guide. The guide describes the 
roles and responsibilities of staff under the agency's realigned IT 
organizational structure[Footnote 38] and requires that the business 
case for each of the agency's major IT program include performance 
measures that will assist the agency in evaluating the program's 
effectiveness in achieving its goals.[Footnote 39] SSA also issued an 
updated IT strategic plan that covers 2012-2016 and supports the 
updated agency-wide strategic plan.[Footnote 40] Furthermore, SSA 
officials told us that they intend to revisit the IT strategic plan 
annually and refresh it as appropriate. Our prior work indicates that 
SSA has not always had an updated IT strategic plan to guide its 
modernization efforts.[Footnote 41] In the absence of regular updates, 
SSA based its IT modernization efforts on program activities that were 
tied to short-term budget cycles and not developed in the context of a 
long-term strategic plan. While we are encouraged that SSA issued an 
updated IT strategic plan, at present, it is too soon to assess the 
extent to which SSA will adhere to the plan and annual reevaluation 
cycle. 

SSA is modernizing its IT systems, in part, to support a shift toward 
offering more online services. As we previously reported, SSA 
officials have noted that the agency faces several challenges in 
successfully carrying out IT modernization efforts, including devoting 
significant resources to the maintenance of existing legacy systems. 
[Footnote 42] The agency's expenditures for operations and maintenance 
increased from $348 million in 2004 to $875 million in 2011.[Footnote 
43] Moreover, SSA's OIG has expressed concerns that the agency is 
continuing to rely on its legacy applications.[Footnote 44] For 
example, many of its programs are written in COBOL,[Footnote 45] which 
is one of the oldest computer programming languages and is difficult 
to modify and update. The OIG noted also that the agency risks losing 
key institutional knowledge related to COBOL programming and 
documentation of SSA's increasingly complex information systems. This 
is of particular concern given the high levels of retirements and 
attrition the agency has recently experienced and will likely continue 
to experience. For example, one regional commissioner told us that 
when an experienced staff person left the region, the remaining staff 
lacked adequate knowledge of COBOL programming. According to the OIG, 
SSA has indicated that modernizing its legacy applications will 
ultimately reduce operating costs and improve service delivery. 
However, agency officials told us they have conducted analyses that 
show the costs of moving away from using COBOL currently outweigh the 
benefits. Accordingly, the OIG found in May 2012 that SSA has 
developed an approach to gradually reduce its reliance on COBOL for 
core processing transactions but has not yet articulated a formal 
strategy for converting its legacy programs to a more modern 
programming language.[Footnote 46] SSA officials disagree that such a 
strategy is needed because they consider this programming language to 
be sufficient for their needs and point out that it is still used by 
other businesses. 

Information security weaknesses. In recent years, SSA has been 
challenged to effectively protect its computer systems and networks, 
particularly with regard to internal security weaknesses. SSA uses and 
stores a great deal of sensitive information, including financial and 
medical information and Social Security numbers. Our prior work states 
that it is essential for agencies to have information security 
controls that ensure sensitive information is adequately protected 
from inadvertent or deliberate misuse, fraudulent use, and improper 
disclosure, modification, or destruction.[Footnote 47] However, in 
fiscal year 2012, SSA's OIG identified weaknesses in some of the 
agency's information security program components that limited SSA's 
overall effectiveness in protecting the agency's information and 
information systems.[Footnote 48] For example, auditors were able to 
gain access to Social Security numbers and other sensitive information 
through an SSA intranet search engine. According to the OIG, these 
weaknesses constituted a significant deficiency in the agency's 
information security program under the Federal Information Security 
Management Act of 2002 (FISMA).[Footnote 49] In addition, in its 
fiscal year 2012 report on SSA's major management challenges, the OIG 
stated that weaknesses in certain elements of the agency's information 
security program may challenge the agency's ability to use its IT 
infrastructure to support current and future workloads. Furthermore, 
in the same year, the agency's independent financial auditor also 
identified a material weakness in information systems controls over 
financial management statements based on several concerns, many of 
which have been longstanding (see figure 7).[Footnote 50] 

Figure 7: Weaknesses Identified in SSA's Information Security Program, 
Fiscal Years 2009-2012: 

[Refer to PDF for image: illustrated table] 

Entity wide security program: 

Lack of monitoring and policy implementation related to the 
configuration and information content of SSA’s Intranet Webpages: 
Weakness identified: 2012. 

Lack of controls related to identifying and monitoring high-risk 
programs operating on the agency’s mainframe: 
Weakness identified: 2010, 2011, 2012. 

Insufficient vulnerability testing conducted by the agency to identify 
critical weaknesses in its IT environment: 
Weakness identified: 2011, 2012. 

Access controls: 

Lack of a comprehensive user profile and access recertification 
program: 
Weakness identified: 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012. 

Lack of appropriate controls to prevent unauthorized access to the 
agency’s production environment for Benefit Payment Applications: 
Weakness identified: 2012. 

Compensating controls: 

Weaknesses over approving and documenting changes to SSA software 
applications: 
Weakness identified: 2010, 2011, 2012. 

Weaknesses over physical access controls: 
Weakness identified: 2010, 2011, 2012. 

Weaknesses over ensuring that system users have appropriate access to 
various system resources: 
Weakness identified: 2010, 2011, 2012. 

Source: GAO analysis of SSA's Financial Statement Audit Reports, 
fiscal years 2009-2012. 

[End of figure] 

SSA is implementing a multi-year plan of corrective actions to address 
many of these weaknesses. For example, while SSA is currently 
reviewing access rights for different types of system users[Footnote 
51] to identify any cases where employees have inappropriate access to 
sensitive information, officials told us the process is very time-
consuming and the agency does not expect to complete its review of the 
highest-risk profiles until 2014.[Footnote 52] In addition to 
reviewing access rights, SSA officials told us the agency purchased 
software in 2011 that monitors the agency's information systems to 
detect potential data breach incidents. Agency officials told us they 
are currently in the process of implementing and fine-tuning the 
software. 

However, the OIG raised concerns about how the agency has previously 
prioritized information security within its larger IT budget. 
Specifically, it stated that one of the underlying causes for these 
weaknesses is that SSA needed to strategically allocate sufficient 
resources to resolve or prevent high-risk security weaknesses in a 
more timely fashion.[Footnote 53] For example, SSA officials told us 
that, in some cases, security employees' time is primarily spent 
performing duties that do not address the IT security weaknesses 
identified by external financial auditors and OIG.[Footnote 54] Though 
SSA officials emphasized that the information security risks 
identified were internal,[Footnote 55] inappropriate internal access 
to or misuse of sensitive information can have a significant impact. 
For example, according to the OIG, in 2012, a former SSA employee was 
found to have used her position to provide personally identifiable 
information to a person outside the agency, who is accused of using 
the information for criminal purposes. 

SSA Is Taking Steps to Centralize Facilities Management but Lacks a 
Proactive Approach to Evaluate Its Office Space: 

Centralizing facilities management. SSA is beginning to centralize its 
facilities management, but officials indicated it may lead to a trade-
off between efficiency and flexibility. The agency administers its 
programs and services through a network of over 1,700 facilities, 
consisting of government-owned and leased buildings, which costs 
approximately $700 million annually, according to SSA.[Footnote 56] As 
shown in Figure 8, these facilities fall into three categories: 
headquarters facilities located predominantly in the Baltimore/ 
Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, an extensive network of field-
based facilities used to process initial claims and post-entitlement 
actions,[Footnote 57] and a network of facilities that carry out the 
agency's disability adjudication and review process. The agency has 
had a more decentralized facilities management process, but officials 
told us they are currently moving all facilities management under 
SSA's Office of Facilities and Supply Management (OFSM). Some 
officials have told us that this centralization can lead to greater 
efficiencies and standardization, but cautioned that there may be a 
trade-off in terms of flexibility and awareness of local circumstances 
at the regional level. For example, some regional commissioners told 
us that facilities decisions made at the headquarters level may not 
take into account the layout of specific buildings or how construction 
seasons vary in different locations. 

Figure 8: Number of SSA Facilities by Component and Type (as of Fiscal 
Year 2012): 

[Refer to PDF for image: illustration] 

Headquarters: 
Office space: 22; 
Support space: 3; 
Data Centers[A]: 2; 
Office space/warehouse: 1; 
Child care center: 1. 

Field operations: 
Regional offices: 10; 
Area offices: 54; 
Field offices: 1,275; 
Social Security Card centers: 12; 
Teleservice centers[B]: 30; 
Program service centers[C]: 6; 
Data operations centers[D]: 1. 

Office of Disability Adjudication and Review (ODAR): 
Headquarters: 1; 
Regional offices: 10; 
National hearing centers[E]: 5; 
Satellite offices[F]: 7; 
Hearing offices: 162; 
Video hearing centers: 6; 
Permanent remote sites[G]: 160. 

Source: GAO analysis of SSA data from its Office of Facilities and 
Supply Management. 

[A] SSA's data center, the National Computer Center, and its backup, 
the Second Support Center, store data and house the backbone of the 
agency's automated systems. SSA is currently constructing a new data 
center to replace the National Computer Center, which was built in 
1979. 

[B] Teleservice centers handle general inquiries from the public, 
simple post-entitlement actions, and referrals from field offices. 

[C] Program service centers handle complex claims and post-entitlement 
actions. 

[D] Among other responsibilities, the data operations center handles 
various customer service workloads, including providing technical and 
benefit information on SSA programs by phone. 

[E] National hearing centers handle workloads from backlogged hearing 
offices. 

[F] Satellite offices provide support to their parent hearing offices. 

[G] At permanent remote sites, hearings are held in person with a 
traveling administrative law judge or by video. Of the 160 permanent 
remote sites, SSA told us that 148 are located within SSA field 
offices. 

[End of figure] 

Limited facilities planning efforts. A contractor hired by the General 
Services Administration is currently working on a long-term plan for 
SSA's headquarters facilities, the Master Housing Plan.[Footnote 58] 
An SSA official told us that the contractor has solicited input and 
feedback from the agency on the draft plan. According to the National 
Research Council, a free exchange of information among the various 
stakeholders can make decision-making for facilities investments more 
accurate and effective.[Footnote 59] However, an SSA official told us 
the agency lacks a comprehensive planning effort that encompasses all 
of the agency's facilities. 

Efforts to reduce office space. SSA officials told us the agency is 
engaged in ongoing efforts to reduce the footprint of its headquarters 
facilities. According to a senior SSA official, vacant space in 
headquarters facilities has increased during the past few years as a 
result of the shrinking workforce.[Footnote 60] Using the agency's 
Large Site Space Standards,[Footnote 61] SSA officials told us that 
OFSM is analyzing the space needs of all offices in the headquarters 
area and will reassign space according to these criteria. A senior 
official told us that SSA's efforts were motivated by several factors, 
including an OMB directive to make more efficient use of federal 
office space;[Footnote 62] the agency's ultimate goal of terminating 
commercial leasing for most office space in the headquarters area; 
and, to a lesser degree, reducing current vacancies in headquarters. 

In addition to these headquarters-focused efforts, SSA is reducing 
office space in the field as opportunities arise, but it lacks a 
proactive plan to assess field facilities for potential space 
reductions. When OFSM reviews a field-based space action (e.g., lease 
renewal, move, renovation), an SSA official told us that the proposed 
action is assessed to identify if there are opportunities to reduce or 
otherwise change the facility's space allocation. For example, after 
such an assessment, the Denver regional office space was reduced by 
one-third. However, OFSM's standards do not call for wholesale 
reductions or reconfigurations of existing space. SSA has established 
a workgroup that is developing guidance to help identify opportunities 
to reduce space by co-locating certain field-based facilities, such as 
field offices and video-based disability hearing offices. Officials 
told us that in January 2013, they endorsed the workgroup's final 
recommendations and proposals as the formal agency policy. 

Considerations for realigning the facilities structure. SSA has been 
advised to consider aligning its facilities structure with its 
changing methods of providing services. For example, SSA's OIG 
reported in 2011 that SSA's long-term planning efforts should assess 
whether the number, size, geographic coverage, and staffing of the 
agency's existing office structure are in line with future methods of 
providing customer service.[Footnote 63] In 2011, the Social Security 
Advisory Board suggested that as SSA continues to increase electronic 
service delivery, the agency should adapt its organizational structure 
to maximize the effectiveness of the agency's transformation. At the 
same time, SSA has long considered face-to-face interaction to be the 
gold standard of customer service, and an official has told us that 
any changes away from that model would represent a major cultural 
shift for the agency. 

In prior work, we have reported that federal agencies may be able to 
increase efficiency and effectiveness by consolidating physical 
infrastructure or management functions, and several agencies have 
already undertaken consolidation efforts.[Footnote 64] For example, in 
2000, the Internal Revenue Service began consolidating its individual 
paper processing centers to reduce overhead and real estate costs and 
improve efficiency in response to increases in electronic filing; the 
agency estimates that the initiative saved $175 million through 2011. 
Over the past 6 years, the U.S. Postal Service has taken several 
actions to reduce the footprint of its retail space, including two 
nationwide initiatives to review its facilities for possible closure. 
The Census Bureau announced plans in 2011 to close 6 of its 12 
regional offices by 2013 to reduce the cost and improve the quality of 
surveys the Census Bureau conducts annually; the Census Bureau 
estimates the initiative will save $15-18 million annually beginning 
in fiscal year 2014. SSA officials told us they have spoken with GSA 
officials about consolidation, but have not consulted with any of 
these agencies to learn about their experiences in considering and 
implementing significant changes to their facilities structures. 

SSA has begun to take advantage of opportunities to consolidate or co-
locate offices in the regions. SSA regional commissioners told us that 
field offices have been consolidated in most of its 10 
regions.[Footnote 65] Regional commissioners told us that 
consolidations reduce such expenses as rent and guard services, and a 
single office consolidation can save as much as $2-3 million dollars 
over a 10-year period. Furthermore, regional commissioners told us 
that several regions have co-located with the Office of Disability 
Adjudication and Review to provide space to hold hearings within field 
offices. A regional commissioner told us that when these co-located 
offices share space, such as waiting areas, SSA saves money on guard 
services and rent. 

Despite these actions, an SSA official told us that the agency has not 
engaged in a systematic analysis of potential approaches for 
consolidating its facilities or realigning its facilities with the 
agency's evolving service delivery model. The National Research 
Council recommends that federal agencies use their organizational 
mission to guide facilities investment decisions and then integrate 
these investments into their strategic planning processes. We 
previously reported that agencies should consider the potential costs 
and benefits of consolidation over the long term.[Footnote 66] For 
example, consolidation is not beneficial in all instances, such as in 
rural areas where people would have to travel a considerable distance 
to reach the nearest office. Therefore, it is important to evaluate 
the goals of the consolidation against the realistic possibility of 
the extent to which those goals would be achieved. Furthermore, our 
previous work suggests that consolidation initiatives can be immensely 
complex, politically charged, and costly; even decisions to 
consolidate individual offices can create challenges. For example, a 
regional commissioner told us that a recent proposal to save money by 
consolidating two nearby offices in a major urban area was met with 
substantial resistance from the community and elected officials. Our 
prior work states that decision makers need to balance the benefits of 
consolidation against the physical, up-front financial, bureaucratic, 
and political costs, while considering alternatives. To assess the 
potential impact and challenges of consolidation, we suggested that 
agencies consider likely costs and benefits of the consolidation, how 
to fund up-front costs associated with consolidation, and the effect 
on various stakeholders. (See appendix II for a list of key questions 
that can be used to assess potential consolidation initiatives.) 

SSA's Planning Efforts Are Not Adequate to Address the Long-Term 
Nature of Its Management Challenges: 

SSA has ongoing planning efforts, but we have identified two major 
areas in which these efforts have fallen short in addressing the long-
term nature of the agency's management challenges: (1) its planning 
efforts are short-term and do not adequately address emerging issues, 
and (2) it lacks continuity in its strategic planning leadership. As 
the prior section discussed, over the next decade, the agency's 
workloads will increase while its workforce will likely decrease, 
raising questions about how SSA can best deploy its human capital and 
information technology resources and best align its disability policy 
and physical infrastructure to meet these demands. Practices such as 
involving stakeholders and planning for different scenarios are 
considered key for successful long-term planning efforts, which SSA's 
current planning efforts do not include. 

Need for longer-term efforts to address emerging issues. SSA's 
planning efforts, from an overall strategic plan to its service 
delivery plan, typically look no more than 5 years out. For example, 
SSA is finalizing a service delivery plan, but the draft document 
primarily contains detailed plans for the next 5 years and focuses on 
existing initiatives rather than articulating specific long-term 
strategies for the agency's service delivery model. The plan was 
developed as a companion to the agency's strategic plan,[Footnote 67] 
which defines the agency's goals for the next 4 years.[Footnote 68] 
While the draft service delivery plan acknowledges the need to assess 
the agency's workforce structure, it stops short of providing a vision 
for how the workforce structure should best make use of expanded 
virtual and automated service delivery channels. The draft raises the 
possibility of developing a more generalized workforce by training 
employees to handle a variety of different workloads or centralizing 
the most complex workloads by assigning them to technical staff 
specifically trained to handle them, but it does not advocate for 
either of these approaches or provide a detailed analysis of their 
relative merits. Similarly, the plan states that the following issues 
will need to be considered over the next 6 to 10 years, but it does 
not provide a specific strategy for how to resolve the need to: 

* strategically develop and place self-service options, such as 
electronic kiosks; 

* determine whether the Internet should be the primary service 
delivery mechanism for certain services; and: 

* standardize fees SSA already charges and determine whether it is 
appropriate for the agency to charge fees for additional services. 
[Footnote 69] 

Further, the plan does not articulate SSA's long-term costs and 
benefits for its investments, such as the specific impact that moving 
to online services is expected to have on backlogs and workforce 
needs. For many years, we have recommended that SSA develop a 
comprehensive service delivery plan that outlines how it will deliver 
quality service while managing growing work demands within a 
constrained budget.[Footnote 70] 

Similarly, SSA's current strategic plan largely describes the 
continuation, expansion, or enhancement of existing activities, rather 
than proposing new initiatives or broad changes to address emerging 
issues. One of the goals of the agency's strategic plan is to increase 
the public's use of online services, but several SSA officials and 
representatives of one SSA management group told us that this shift 
will not be sufficient to address growing service demands. For 
example, as discussed earlier, to meet service challenges, some 
officials said the agency will also need to simplify its disability 
policy. They also told us the agency will need to develop a strategy 
for meeting the needs of vulnerable populations who may not have 
access to computers at home or who may not be computer literate. At 
the same time, however, some SSA officials noted that the agency may 
need to limit the number of days per week that field offices are open 
to the public to contain costs. 

Various groups have called on SSA to acknowledge emerging long-term 
issues by articulating them in a longer-term strategy. In 2011, the 
Social Security Advisory Board called for SSA to develop a strategy 
for service delivery through 2020 that will serve as the cornerstone 
for its IT, human capital, policy review, and organizational 
restructuring plans.[Footnote 71] The SSA OIG also called on SSA to 
prepare a longer-term vision to ensure that it has the programs, 
processes, staff, and infrastructure necessary to provide service in 
the future.[Footnote 72] Regional commissioners and field managers 
said that a long-term service delivery plan could help to clarify 
issues such as what services will be available online in the future, 
how these services will be implemented, how IT modernization will 
support service delivery, which offices will have responsibility for 
different workloads, how the agency will use telework, and how the 
agency will approach workload sharing. In addition, GAO's internal 
controls guidance states that federal agencies should comprehensively 
identify risks, analyze and decide how to manage these risks, and 
establish mechanisms to deal with continual changes in governmental, 
economic, industry, regulatory, and operating conditions.[Footnote 73] 
SSA prepared its last long-term agency vision--which covered a 10-year 
period--in 2000, motivated by many conditions which remain true today, 
such as increasing workloads, advances in technology, and employee 
retirements. A former SSA official knowledgeable about the development 
of the 2010 Vision told us that unlike the agency's strategic plan, 
which addressed incremental changes, the long-term vision addressed 
broader issues and allowed the agency to consider more transformative 
changes. 

Senior agency officials told us that as an agency, SSA generally views 
long-term planning as a secondary responsibility and is more focused 
on addressing short-term, tactical issues. As one official said, 
agency officials are addressing immediate concerns and not thinking, 
for example, about what the agency's field operations should look like 
in 10 years. Several officials also noted that uncertainty about 
budget resources has made it difficult for SSA to engage in multi-year 
planning. One official commented that as a result of its budget 
situation, the agency has been reactive and failed to consider big 
picture issues. 

Need for continuity in strategic planning leadership. Senior officials 
said that SSA should dedicate a position, such as a chief strategic 
officer, that will report directly to the Commissioner and be solely 
responsible for strategic planning in order to bring sustained, 
focused attention to long-term management challenges. The GPRA 
Modernization Act of 2010 charges top agency leadership with improving 
agency management and performance.[Footnote 74] Agency leaders are 
responsible for setting near-term and long-term goals; conducting data-
driven progress reviews; and assuring that decision-makers at all 
levels of the organization have timely, actionable performance 
information. SSA previously had an Office of the Chief Strategic 
Officer, which was responsible for overseeing strategic planning. This 
office worked with all SSA components to prioritize initiatives that 
would help the agency meet its goals and determined how to link these 
initiatives to the agency's budget. However, the office was dissolved 
in May 2008 and since that time, the agency has not had an office 
dedicated to strategic planning. Deputy commissioners with temporary 
responsibility for strategic planning have led the efforts to develop 
SSA's last two strategic plans. One senior official told us that 
efforts to develop component-level plans, such as the strategic human 
capital plan and IT strategic plan, have not been well coordinated 
with the development of the agency-wide strategic plan. Another senior 
official said that a chief strategic officer could think about the 
agency in totality, building connections across organizational silos, 
in part because this individual would not have a stake in a particular 
component. For example, such a leader could consider interconnections 
between the agency's IT capabilities and its human capital structure 
when planning for the future. 

Key long-term planning practices that could be employed. Strategic 
planning literature and experts cite the following as key long-term 
planning practices that could be employed by SSA to successfully 
address these issues: 

* Begin early in a new leader's tenure. Several SSA officials we spoke 
with told us that developing a long-term service delivery plan should 
be the next commissioner's top priority. One former senior SSA 
official familiar with the development of 2010 Vision told us that the 
document was developed during a former commissioner's final year in 
office. Consequently, it was not embraced by the next leadership team, 
who wanted to create their own vision. This official recommended that 
the next commissioner develop a long-term vision early in his or her 
term. 

* Involve stakeholders from across the agency to obtain buy-in. The 
long-term plan should be developed with input from key stakeholders 
and constituents, such as employee unions, who will be affected by the 
plan, and the organization should ensure that communication is open 
and two-way throughout the process. Otherwise, these groups could 
resist the plan's implementation. 

* Develop performance goals and measures. The long-term vision should 
be linked to short-term goals and a system for accountability. 
Performance measures also allow officials to consider the relative 
merits of alternative strategies if the stated objective is not met. 

* Leadership should support the plan. The long-term plan needs backing 
from top agency management. Leadership support is demonstrated by 
allocating appropriate resources. For example, the office leading the 
planning effort should have sufficient standing within the 
organization, as well as staff dedicated to the effort on a day-to-day 
basis. 

* Prepare for different scenarios. Several officials raised concerns 
that variability in the agency's budget and IT developments make it 
difficult to plan for the future. However, strategic planning 
literature touts the success of organizations that are flexible and 
adaptive. These organizations consider plausible future alternatives 
and use them to generate strategic options. 

* Align interim plans to the long-term strategy. Concepts in the long-
term plan should drive the agency's other plans (e.g., human capital, 
information technology, facilities). 

Conclusions: 

The challenges SSA faces will substantially affect its ability to 
address critical concerns in the coming years. SSA's efforts to meet 
many of its management challenges have been complicated by budgetary 
constraints and continued uncertainty about the current and future 
fiscal environment. Despite these constraints, the agency will need to 
balance competing demands for resources--both in terms of managing day-
to-day budget decisions and planning for emerging and long-term budget 
issues. SSA already manages a substantial and diverse workload and the 
demands on SSA from new retirees and individuals with disabilities 
will continue to grow. Without prompt action to address these 
challenges, the agency jeopardizes its ability to provide quality 
service to the public while meeting other critical responsibilities 
such as ensuring program integrity and administering any changes made 
to protect the solvency of the Social Security trust funds. In 
particular, if the agency does not develop specific strategies to 
address attrition, including ongoing retirements, it risks losing 
institutional knowledge and expertise at a time when workloads and 
service demands are increasing. Moreover, while SSA has increased the 
proportion of its services that it delivers electronically, it has not 
conducted an analysis to determine whether realigning its existing and 
future headquarters, region, and field office structure could more 
effectively and efficiently support the agency's mission. 

SSA's new commissioner will face wide-ranging challenges that will 
require a comprehensive, long-range strategy that current planning 
efforts do not adequately address. The interrelated nature of SSA's 
challenges reinforces the need for a long-term and integrated strategy 
to help ensure that future actions are coordinated and efficient. 
Also, without a dedicated entity to provide sustained leadership, 
SSA's planning efforts will likely remain decentralized and short-
term. In the absence of a long-term strategy for service delivery, the 
agency will be poorly positioned to make needed well-informed 
decisions about its critical functions, including how many and what 
type of employees SSA will need for its future workforce, how the 
agency will address disability claims backlogs while ensuring program 
integrity, and how the agency will more strategically use its 
information technology and physical infrastructure to best deliver 
services. Given its budget constraints, SSA needs a solid, long-term 
strategy to guide decisions about how to best leverage its limited 
resources. 

Recommendations for Executive Action: 

We recommend that the incoming Commissioner of Social Security: 

1. Elevate the agency's strategic planning efforts by considering 
having an entity or individual dedicated to ensuring that these 
activities are coordinated agency-wide. 

2. Prepare for wide-ranging management challenges by developing a long-
term strategy for service delivery. 

3. Mitigate the potential loss of institutional knowledge and 
expertise and help ensure leadership continuity by directing the 
Deputy Commissioner of Human Resources to update the agency's 
succession plan. 

4. Determine if realigning the agency's headquarters, regional, or 
field office structure could yield increases in the agency's 
effectiveness and efficiency by launching an exploratory effort to 
assess the utility and feasibility of such a realignment or 
consolidation. These efforts could include holding discussions with 
other federal agencies, such as the Census Bureau and the Internal 
Revenue Service, to learn about their experiences undergoing similar 
transformations and studying the likely costs and benefits of 
consolidation, as well as other potential impacts. 

Agency Comments: 

We provided a draft of this report to SSA for review and comment. In 
its written comments, reproduced in appendix III, SSA agreed with our 
4 recommendations. In responding to a copy of our draft report, SSA 
noted that the agency recently appointed a Chief Strategic Officer who 
reports directly to the Commissioner and will be responsible for 
coordinating agency-wide strategic planning efforts. SSA told us that 
this official will also lead an agency-wide effort to develop a long-
range strategic plan that will integrate information technology, 
service delivery, and human capital plans. They told us they will seek 
input from various stakeholders, including employees, advocates, and 
Congress, and expect to complete the long-range plan by February 2015 
and to release it with the President's Budget for fiscal year 2016. In 
addition, SSA told us that they re-implemented their national 
Leadership Development Program in spring 2013 and plan to update their 
succession plan in calendar year 2013. Finally, the agency has agreed 
to begin exploring its field, regional, and headquarters 
organizational structures to find ways to increase efficiency and 
effectiveness and to initiate discussions with other federal agencies 
to learn about their experiences with similar efforts. SSA also 
provided technical comments that we have incorporated, as appropriate. 

We are sending copies of this report to the Commissioner of Social 
Security, appropriate congressional committees, and other interested 
parties. In addition, the report is available at no charge on the GAO 
website at [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov]. 

If you or your staff have any questions about this report, please 
contact me at (202) 512-7215 or bertonid@gao.gov. Contact points for 
our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found 
on the last page of this report. GAO staff who made major 
contributions to this report are listed in appendix IV. 

Sincerely yours, 

Signed by: 

Daniel Bertoni: 
Director: 
Education, Workforce, and Income Security Issues: 

[End of section] 

Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and Methodology: 

The objectives of this review focused on (1) key management challenges 
SSA faces in meeting its mission-related objectives and (2) the extent 
to which SSA's planning efforts address these challenges. 

To identify SSA's key management challenges, we conducted in-depth 
interviews with the SSA Office of the Inspector General (OIG) and the 
Social Security Advisory Board. We also reviewed SSA OIG's "Statement 
on SSA's Major Management and Performance Challenges" reports from 
fiscal years 2001-2012. In addition, we reviewed relevant reports from 
GAO, SSA OIG, and the Social Security Advisory Board. We also reviewed 
the SSA's agency-wide strategic plan. 

To learn about SSA's key management challenges and the extent to which 
SSA's planning efforts address these challenges, we conducted in-depth 
interviews with SSA officials from headquarters and in the field. At 
SSA headquarters, we interviewed officials from the Office of the 
Chief Actuary; the Office of Budget, Finance, and Management; the 
Office of Disability Adjudication and Review; the Office of Human 
Resources; the Office of Operations; the Office of Quality 
Performance; the Office of Retirement and Disability Policy; the 
Office of Systems; and the Office of the Commissioner. We also 
conducted semi-structured interviews with SSA's regional commissioners 
and officials from groups that represent state and federal SSA 
employees, including the National Council of Social Security 
Administration Field Operations Locals (American Federation of 
Government Employees), the National Council of Social Security 
Management Associations, the National Council of Disability 
Determination Directors, and the National Association of Disability 
Examiners. During these semi-structured interviews, we asked each 
interviewee the same series of questions addressing each of the 
agency's major long-term management challenges (human capital, 
disability programs, information technology, and physical 
infrastructure) and service delivery. We also reviewed applicable 
federal laws and regulations. 

To learn about the extent to which SSA's planning efforts address 
management challenges, we reviewed key agency planning and other 
documents, such as SSA's current strategic plan, strategic human 
capital plan, most recent Retirement Wave report, strategic leadership 
succession plan, IT strategic plan, IT capital investment process 
guide, facilities standards, and the agency-wide draft service 
delivery plan. We also reviewed GAO's internal control standards; 
Executive Order 13,327, entitled "Federal Real Property Asset 
Management;" the GPRA Modernization Act of 2010; and relevant GAO, SSA 
OIG, and Social Security Advisory Board reports. 

To better understand the key management challenges facing the agency, 
we obtained SSA data from a number of administrative and management 
information systems. We obtained background data about the actual and 
projected number of benefit outlays, beneficiaries, and claimants from 
the Office of the Chief Actuary. We also obtained data about actual 
and projected retirements and retirement eligibility of headquarters 
and field managers, supervisors, and staff from SSA's Human Resources 
Operational Data Store. To learn about the agency's disability claims 
backlog and hearings wait time, we obtained agency data from the 
agency's fiscal year 2012 Performance and Accountability Report and 
Case Processing and Management System. We also obtained data about the 
SSA's administrative expenditures for its major benefit programs from 
the Office of Budget. In addition, we obtained data on SSA's 
facilities by type from the Office of Facilities and Supply 
Management. To learn about SSA employee morale, we also obtained data 
from the Office of Personnel Management's Federal Employee Viewpoint 
Survey. We assessed the reliability of these data by reviewing related 
documentation and interviewing knowledgeable agency officials, and we 
determined these data were sufficiently reliable for our needs. 

To identify key long-term planning practices, we conducted a 
literature search. We sought documents that describe the benefits of 
long-term planning, the elements of a long-term vision, and the 
process for developing such a plan. To identify relevant literature, 
we searched bibliographic databases covering scholarly and peer-
reviewed material; trade and industry articles; and publications from 
associations and nonprofit and think tank organizations, such as 
ProQuest, WorldCat, ECO/ArticleFirst/PapersFirst, and Dialog. We 
restricted our search to U.S.-based materials published between 2002 
and 2012. The search identified over 900 articles, of which 28 were 
deemed to be relevant to our work. We also consulted with long-term 
planning experts. 

We conducted this performance audit from September 2012 to May 2013 in 
accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. 
Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain 
sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our 
findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe 
that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our 
findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. 

[End of section] 

Appendix II: Key Questions to Consider When Evaluating Consolidation 
Proposals: 

In 2012, we reported a list of key questions for federal agencies to 
consider when evaluating proposals to consolidate physical 
infrastructure and management functions.[Footnote 75] The key 
questions and additional sub-questions listed below address the ideas, 
strategies, and leading practices that may facilitate consolidations. 
However, the list is not exhaustive, nor is it necessary for an agency 
to consider every listed question. 

What are the goals of the consolidation? What opportunities will be 
addressed through the consolidation and what problems will be solved? 
What problems, if any, will be created? 

* Have agency leaders identified specific goals to be achieved through 
consolidation? 

* Have agency leaders assessed how consolidation can help an agency 
incorporate changes in technology, business processes, or the needs of 
customers or clients? 

* How have agency leaders weighed the importance of achieving the 
goals against a realistic assessment of the effort that will be 
required to achieve them? 

* How have agency leaders considered the risks to consolidation that 
could prevent the achievement of goals and planned for ways to manage 
them? 

* Are agency leaders defining the benefits associated with 
consolidation and describing how the future will be both different 
from and better than the past? 

* Are agency leaders providing a clear and compelling picture of what 
will constitute success? 

What will be the likely costs and benefits of the consolidation? Are 
sufficiently reliable data available to support a business-case 
analysis or cost-benefit analysis? 

* What data on the likely costs and benefits of a consolidation are 
available? 

* Are the data sufficiently accurate and reliable? What data on the 
likely costs and benefits of a consolidation are unavailable, and has 
a plan been developed to mitigate the unavailability or unreliability 
of certain data? 

* On the basis of the data available, can a reasonable expectation of 
a consolidation's costs and benefits be drawn? 

* Have the likely costs and benefits been subjected to a sensitivity 
analysis? How sensitive are the estimated costs and benefits to 
variation in less reliable data or other key assumptions? 

How can the up-front costs associated with the consolidation be funded? 

* Can immediate efficiencies or uncommitted funds in other areas be 
redirected to pay for the up-front costs of a consolidation? 

* Has the agency considered how it will assess return on investment 
for any funding for up-front costs? 

* Can a working capital fund or other funds be drawn on as a funding 
mechanism? 

* Is Congress amenable to establishing a funding mechanism for a 
consolidation and appropriating funds for it? 

Who are the consolidation stakeholders, and how will they be affected? 
How have the stakeholders been involved in the decision, and how have 
their views been considered? On balance, do stakeholders understand 
the rationale for consolidation? 

* Have agency leaders identified affected stakeholders? 

* Have agency leaders determined the necessary frequency and timing of 
communication about the consolidation to internal and external 
stakeholders? 

* Does the communication strategy allow for a two-way exchange of 
information between management and stakeholders? 

* How is the agency planning to involve employees to obtain their 
ideas and get their support? Have union representatives been 
consulted? Are there employee task teams responsible for developing 
and proposing common solutions to particular issues related to the 
consolidation? 

* How does the agency plan to provide information to employees about 
how their jobs might be affected, what their rights and protections 
might be, or how their responsibilities might change with the new 
organization? 

* Is the agency planning to communicate information through different 
channels such as e-mail, face-to-face meetings, large and small group 
meetings, intranet websites, and town hall meetings? 

To what extent do plans show that change management practices[Footnote 
76] will be used to implement the consolidation? 

Will top leadership be engaged in driving the consolidation plan? 

* Do agency leaders have plans to move deliberately to demonstrate 
their conviction and commitment to making the needed changes? 

* Do agency leaders have plans to provide clear guidance to employees 
about how to conduct business during a potentially turbulent period? 

Will a dedicated implementation team lead the consolidation? 

* Will the implementation team have strong program management skills 
and a proven record of successfully working through or overseeing 
major transformations? 

* Are there networks such as senior executive councils, functional 
teams, or cross-cutting teams that can ensure that changes are 
thoroughly implemented and sustained over time? 

Will the implementation plan include metrics to measure progress 
toward the consolidation's goals? 

* Will there be an action plan with goals and milestones to track 
progress and identify any needed mid-course adjustments? 

* Will an action plan identify critical phases and the essential 
activities that need to be completed by and on any given date? Are 
there plans to publicize and report progress on specific goals for 
each phase of the initiative? 

* Is there a strategy for tracking employee attitudes toward the 
consolidation and identifying any morale or productivity issues? 

* Will the implementation plan include a strategy for attracting and 
retaining key talent? 

Will the implementation plan include a strategy for assessing and 
mitigating risk? 

* Will the implementation plan be informed by a risk assessment that 
includes the following five steps? 

* Set strategic goals and objectives, and determine constraints: 

* Assess risks: 

* Evaluate alternatives for addressing these risks: 

* Select the appropriate alternatives: 

* Implement the alternatives and monitor progress made and results 
achieved: 

Is there a strategy for using the consolidation experiences of other 
organizations and lessons learned? 

* Have agency officials involved with the consolidation initiative 
identified and consulted with other agencies or organizations that 
planned for or implemented a similar consolidation effort? 

* Is there a process for capturing lessons learned after each phase of 
the consolidation and using the information to improve the management 
of subsequent phases? 

[End of section] 

Appendix III: Comments from the Social Security Administration: 

Social Security: 
Office of the Commissioner: 
Social Security Administration: 
Baltimore, MD 21235-0001: 

May 7, 2013: 

Mr. Daniel Bertoni, Director: 
Education, Workforce, and Income Security Issues: 
United States Government Accountability Office: 
441 G. Street, NW: 
Washington, DC 20548: 

Dear Mr. Bertoni, 

Thank you for the opportunity to review the draft report, "Social 
Security Administration: Long-Term Strategy Needed to Address 
Challenges" (GAO-13-459). Our response to the recommendations is 
enclosed. We also provided technical comments directly to your staff. 

If you have any questions, please contact me at (410) 965-0520. Your 
staff may contact Gary S. Hatcher, Senior Advisor for Records 
Management and Audit Liaison Staff, at (410) 965-0680. 

Sincerely, 

Signed by: 

Katherine Thornton: 
Deputy Chief of Staff: 

Enclosure: 

[This space intentionally left blank. Pages 2-3 included technical 
comments that have been incorporated throughout the report, as 
appropriate]. 

Responses To The Recommendations: 

Recommendation 1: 

Elevate the agency's strategic planning efforts by considering having 
an entity or individual dedicated to ensuring that these activities 
are coordinated agency-wide. 

Response: 

We agree. We recently appointed an agency Chief Strategic Officer who 
reports directly to the Commissioner and is responsible for strategic 
planning in order to bring sustained, focused attention to long-term 
management challenges. The Chief Strategic Officer will ensure that 
the agency's strategic planning efforts are coordinated agency-wide 
and will keep stakeholder input at the core of our efforts. 

Recommendation 2: 

Prepare for wide-ranging management Challenges by developing a long-
term strategy for service delivery. 

Response: 

We agree. While our most recent service delivery plan provides 
detailed plans for the next 5 years and identifies service delivery 
options over a 6-10 year period, we recognize the need to develop a 
more forward looking strategy that will guide our planning and 
transform our service delivery to meet the needs of future customers 
and employees. 

Our Chief Strategic Officer will lead the agency-wide effort to 
develop a long-range strategic plan that will integrate information 
technology, service delivery, and human capital plans. With the 
support of our leaders at the agency, we plan to build a culture that 
encourages and fosters strategic thinking. We expect to complete the 
long-range plan by February 2015 and to release it with the 
President's Budget for Fiscal ear 2016. We will engage with employees, 
advocates, Congress, and other stakeholders in the process. 

In addition to embarking on a new long-range planning initiative, we 
are currently updating our existing Agency Strategic Plan, which spans 
2013-2016. As required by the Government Performance and Results 
Modernization Act of 2010, our updated plan will cover the period 2014-
2018. We currently have a substantial amount of engagement within our 
agency and with our external stakeholders. We established an Executive 
Steering Committee to oversee the process and have a dedicated group 
of skilled employees working to gather input from the public and our 
employees. We have asked for suggestions for innovative and efficient 
ways to accomplish our core mission in this environment of constrained 
budgets and increasing service demands. We expect to update this plan 
by February 2014 and to release it with the President's Budget for 
Fiscal Year 2015. 

Recommendation 3: 

Mitigate the potential loss of institutional knowledge and expertise 
and help ensure leadership continuity by directing the Deputy 
Commissioner of Human Resources to update the agency's succession plan. 

Response: 

We agree. An update of our succession plan is in the Office of 
Personnel work plan for calendar year 2013. In addition, in the spring 
of 2013, we re-implemented the national Leadership Development Program 
for grades GS-9 through GS-12. We plan to begin program assignments in 
early June 2013. 

Recommendation 4: 

Determine if realigning the agency's headquarter, regional, or field 
office structure could yield increases in the agency's effectiveness 
and efficiency by launching an exploratory effort to assess the 
utility and feasibility of such a realignment or consolidation. These 
efforts could include holding discussions with other federal agencies, 
such as the Census Bureau and the Internal Revenue Service, to learn 
about their experiences undergoing similar transformations and 
studying the likely costs and benefits of consolidation, as well as 
other potential impacts. 

Response: 

We agree. For many years, there was no alternative to face-to-face 
service. The Internet and the National 800 Number Network did not 
exist. Times have changed. The public has embraced online services. In 
addition to providing better service to the public, our online 
services save our employees time, allowing them to handle other 
workloads. We recognize not everyone is comfortable or able to 
interact with us in an automated fashion, and we will continue to work 
to improve this channel of public service, particularly for our most 
vulnerable citizens. 

With workloads at an all-time high and a constrained budget 
environment, we will capitalize on new technologies and business 
concepts to cut costs, operate more efficiently, and provide the 
service Americans deserve. We must continue to respond to the fiscal 
realities, which means that we cannot do business as we always have. 
We have consolidated offices where it makes business sense. We know 
that consolidation of facilities reduces rent and overhead costs. We 
will begin exploring our field, regional and headquarters 
organizational structures to find ways to increase our efficiency and 
effectiveness. 

We will also initiate discussions with other Federal agencies, as 
suggested, to learn about their experiences with similar efforts. 

[End of section] 

Appendix IV: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments: 

GAO Contact: 

Daniel Bertoni, Director, (202) 512-7215 or bertonid@gao.gov: 

Staff Acknowledgments: 

In addition to the individual named above, key contributions to this 
report were made by Jeremy Cox, Assistant Director; Isabella Johnson; 
Kristen Jones; and Jill Yost. Michael Alexander, James Bennett, Larry 
Crosland, Elizabeth Curda, Alex Galuten, Anjalique Lawrence, Steven 
Lozano, Elizabeth Martinez, Sheila McCoy, Adam Miles, Christie Motley, 
Philip Reiff, Kathleen Van Gelder, and Walter Vance also contributed 
to this report. 

[End of section] 

Related GAO Products: 

Human Capital: 

Social Security Administration: Service Delivery Plan Needed to 
Address Baby Boom Retirement Challenges. [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-09-24]. Washington, D.C.: January 9, 
2009. 

Human Capital: Selected Agencies Have Opportunities to Enhance 
Existing Succession Planning and Management Efforts. [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-05-585]. Washington, D.C.: June 30, 
2005. 

Human Capital: Key Principles for Effective Strategic Workforce 
Planning. [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-04-39]. 
Washington, D.C.: December 11, 2003. 

Disability Program Issues: 

High-Risk Series: An Update. [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-13-283]. Washington, D.C.: February 
14, 2013. 

Modernizing SSA Disability Programs: Progress Made, but Key Efforts 
Warrant More Management Focus. [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-12-420]. Washington, D.C.: June 19, 
2012. 

Supplemental Security Income: Better Management Oversight Needed for 
Children's Benefits. [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-12-497]. Washington, D.C.: June 26, 
2012. 

Social Security Disability: Management of Disability Claims Workload 
Will Require Comprehensive Planning. [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-10-667T]. Washington, D.C.: April 27, 
2010. 

Disability Insurance: SSA Can Improve Efforts to Detect, Prevent, and 
Recover Overpayments. [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-724]. Washington, D.C.: July 27, 
2011. 

Information Technology: 

Social Security Administration: Improved Planning and Performance 
Measures Are Needed to Help Ensure Successful Technology 
Modernization. [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-12-495]. 
Washington, D.C.: April 26, 2012. 

Physical Infrastructure: 

Streamlining Government: Questions to Consider When Evaluating 
Proposals to Consolidate Physical Infrastructure and Management 
Functions. [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-12-542]. 
Washington, D.C.: May 23, 2012. 

Management Challenges: 

SSA's Management Challenges: Strong Leadership Needed to Turn Plans 
Into Timely, Meaningful Action. [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO/T-HEHS-98-113]. Washington, D.C.: 
March 12, 1998. 

Social Security Administration: Status of Achieving Key Outcomes and 
Addressing Major Management Challenges. [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-01-778]. Washington, D.C.: June 15, 
2001. 

Major Management Challenges and Program Risks: Social Security 
Administration. [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-03-117]. 
Washington, D.C.: January 1, 2003. 

[End of section] 

Footnotes: 

[1] The SSA Commissioner is appointed for a 6-year term. 42 U.S.C. § 
902(a)(3). The last Commissioner's term expired on January 19, 2013, 
and an acting commissioner is currently leading the agency. As of May 
2013, a new Commissioner had not yet been appointed. 

[2] In this report, when referring to short-term, we generally mean up 
to 5 years out and by long-term we mean more than 5 years. 

[3] For relevant prior GAO work on this topic, see the Related GAO 
Products list. 

[4] For example, SSA will ensure that an SSI applicant meets income 
requirements and determine if a DI applicant has a sufficient work 
history. 

[5] SSA generally considers individuals disabled if they cannot do 
work that they did before; they cannot adjust to other work because of 
their medical condition(s); and their disability has lasted or is 
expected to last for at least 1 year or to result in death. See 42 
U.S.C. § 423(d). Although SSA is responsible for the program, the law 
generally calls for initial determinations of disability to be made by 
state DDS agencies. See 42 U.S.C. § 421(a)(1).The work performed at 
DDS offices is federally financed and carried out under SSA disability 
program regulations, policies, and guidelines. 

[6] While money would still be coming in from the Social Security 
taxes paid by current workers, the agency projects that it would not 
be sufficient for beneficiaries to receive their full benefit. 

[7] Social Security numbers have become the universal identifier of 
choice for government agencies and are currently used for many non-
Social Security purposes. 

[8] SSA offices take applications for SNAP and certify Social Security 
benefits for the RRB. 

[9] SSA funds DDSs, which are state agencies, to process disability 
applications and conduct continuing disability reviews in accordance 
with SSA policies and procedures. 

[10] This figure has been adjusted for inflation. The nominal increase 
between fiscal years 2001 and 2010 was about 61 percent. 

[11] GAO, Continuing Resolutions: Uncertainty Limited Management 
Options and Increased Workload in Selected Agencies, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-09-879] (Washington, D.C.: September 
24, 2009). 

[12] Data reflect SSA's most recent projections from its September 
2011 Retirement Wave Report, which only includes actual retirement 
figures through fiscal year 2010. Officials told us that they 
previously produced this report annually but currently produce it 
every other year. 

[13] According to SSA, DDS staff are state employees and are subject 
to state furloughs. 

[14] The Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey is a tool that measures 
employees' perceptions of whether, and to what extent, conditions that 
characterize successful organizations are present in their agencies. 
Agency results have a margin of error of less than plus or minus 1 
percentage point. Data collected from survey respondents were weighted 
to produce estimates that represent the agency population. Office of 
Personnel Management, 2012 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey Results: 
Employees Influencing Change, Governmentwide Management Report. 
(Washington, D.C.). 

[15] GAO, Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government, 
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO/AIMD-00-21.3.1] 
(Washington, D.C.: November 1, 1999). 

[16] See GAO, Human Capital: Succession Planning and Management Is 
Critical Driver of Organizational Transformation, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-04-127T] (Washington, D.C.: October 1, 
2003) and GAO, Human Capital: Selected Agencies Have Opportunities to 
Enhance Existing Succession Planning and Management Efforts, 
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-05-585] (Washington, D.C.: 
June 30, 2005). 

[17] Strategic workforce planning addresses two critical needs: (1) 
aligning an organization's human capital program with its current and 
emerging mission and programmatic goals and (2) developing long-term 
strategies for acquiring, developing, and retaining staff to achieve 
programmatic goals. GAO, Human Capital: Key Principles for Effective 
Strategic Workforce Planning, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-04-39] (Washington, D.C.: December 11, 
2003). 

[18] In response to a combination of questions designed to assess 
employee's perceptions of the integrity of leadership, as well as 
leadership behaviors such as communication and workforce motivation, 
66 percent of SSA employees had a favorable view of agency leadership 
in 2011, compared to 62 percent of employees in 2012. 

[19] SSA's OIG contracted with Grant Thornton LLP to conduct the 
following reviews of SSA's Cost Analysis System and cost allocation 
methodology: SSA OIG, Cost Analysis System Background Report and 
Viability Assessment, A-15-10-20149 (April 20, 2011); SSA OIG, Office 
of Disability Adjudication and Review Cost Allocation Process, A-15-10-
20150 (May 5, 2011); SSA OIG, The Social Security Administration Cost 
Allocation Process, A-15-10-20151 (Dec. 7, 2011); and SSA OIG, The 
Social Security Administration Cost Allocation Methodology, A-15-10-
20152 (June 18, 2012). 

[20] SSA's Cost Analysis System is used to allocate (1) administrative 
costs to Trust Fund and general fund programs administered by SSA and 
(2) reimbursable work performed by SSA for outside organizations. 

[21] SSA officials told us that these data are statistically reliable 
at a national level and are combined with other data sources to 
forecast workloads. However, SSA has not yet assessed enough work 
sampling data to produce a refined estimate of the statistical 
reliability of workload calculations based on work sampling data. 

[22] GAO, High-Risk Series: An Update, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-13-283] (Washington, D.C.: February 
14, 2013). 

[23] GAO, Modernizing SSA Disability Programs: Progress Made, but Key 
Efforts Warrant More Management Focus, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-12-420] (Washington, D.C.: June 19, 
2012). 

[24] To determine an applicant's eligibility for disability benefits, 
SSA examiners assess the applicant's medical impairments against the 
Listings of Impairments, also known as the medical listings, which are 
organized into 14 major body systems for adults and reflect medical 
conditions that have been determined by the agency to be severe enough 
to qualify an applicant for benefits. According to SSA officials, 
there are almost 300 medical impairments organized in 119 listings 
under the 14 major body systems for adults. 

[25] Specifically, the Bureau of Labor Statistics is assessing the 
feasibility of using the National Compensation Survey. 

[26] SSA evaluates claimants' ability to work in the national economy 
as part of its disability decision-making process. See 42 U.S.C. §§ 
423(d), 1382c(a).The occupational information system provides 
information on jobs in the national economy. 

[27] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-12-420]. 

[28] SSA has two initiatives to expedite cases for the most severely 
disabled individuals: Quick Disability Determination and Compassionate 
Allowances. Using predictive modeling and computer-based screening 
tools to screen initial applicants, the Quick Disability Determination 
identifies cases where a favorable disability determination is highly 
likely and medical evidence is readily available, such as with certain 
cancers and end-stage renal disease. With Compassionate Allowances, 
SSA targets the most obviously disabled applicants based on available 
medical information and generally awards benefits if there is 
objective medical evidence to confirm the diagnosis and the applicant 
also meets SSA's non-disability criteria. 

[29] SSA derives this percentage by dividing the total number of 
initial disability claims identified as Quick Disability 
Determinations, Compassionate Allowances, or both, by the total number 
of electronic initial disability claims filed in September, the last 
month of the fiscal year. 

[30] 20 C.F.R. §§ 404.906, 416.1406. 

[31] Medical consultants generally certify all SSI childhood 
disability claims and all less than fully favorable decisions on DI 
and SSI claims involving an indication of a mental impairment. 

[32] The prototype states also have single decisionmaker authority. 

[33] GAO, Supplemental Security Income: Better Management Oversight 
Needed for Children's Benefits, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-12-497] (Washington, D.C.: June 26, 
2012). 

[34] This figure represents the present value of future benefits saved 
for OASDI, SSI, Medicare, and Medicaid. The estimate includes savings 
to Medicare and Medicaid because in some cases eligibility for SSI and 
DI confers eligibility for certain Medicare or Medicaid benefits. 

[35] GAO, Disability Insurance: SSA Can Improve Efforts to Detect, 
Prevent, and Recover Overpayments, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-724] (Washington, D.C.: July 27, 
2011). 

[36] When a DI work-related overpayment is identified, the beneficiary 
is notified of the overpayment and may request reconsideration or 
waiver of that overpayment. If SSA denies a reconsideration or waiver 
request, full repayment is requested. If the beneficiary is receiving 
DI or certain other SSA benefits, SSA may withhold partial payment of 
these benefits to recover the debt. However, if no SSA benefits are 
being received, or if the beneficiary asserts that the proposed 
withholding amount is too large, the agency generally requests 
repayment over 12 to 36 months. SSA policy requires a minimum monthly 
payment of $10. SSA may also attempt to recover payments due from the 
individual's estate or subsequent survivor's benefits. 

[37] GAO, Social Security Administration: Improved Planning and 
Performance Measures Are Needed to Help Ensure Successful Technology 
Modernization, [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-12-495]. 
(Washington, D.C.: April 26, 2012). 

[38] In 2011, SSA significantly realigned its IT organizational 
structure--consolidating its Chief Information Officer (CIO) office 
with its Systems office--but did not conduct an analysis of the 
realigned functions and how the newly assigned roles and 
responsibilities would carry out the former Office of CIO functions. 
Prior to the reorganization, the Office of the CIO's responsibilities 
included some oversight activities, while the Office of Systems' 
responsibilities focused more on developing and implementing SSA's 
systems and enterprise architecture. We previously recommended that 
SSA define the roles and responsibilities of realigned staff. See 
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-12-495]. 

[39] We recommended that, for each ongoing modernization initiative, 
SSA establish performance measures in each of the Office of Management 
and Budget's (OMB) measurement areas that identify and measure how the 
investment contributes to meeting goals of the project and of overall 
modernization efforts. 

[40] An in-depth analysis of the plan's technical content was beyond 
the scope of our review. 

[41] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-12-495]. 

[42] GAO, Social Security Administration: Technology Modernization 
Needs Improved Planning and Performance Measures, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-12-723T]. (Washington, DC: May 9, 
2012). 

[43] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-12-495]. 

[44] SSA OIG, The Social Security Administration's Software 
Modernization and Use of Common Business Oriented Language, A-14-11-
11132. (Baltimore, MD: May 17, 2012). 

[45] SSA relies on legacy applications programmed with Common Business 
Oriented Language, or COBOL. COBOL was introduced in 1959 and became 
the first widely used, high-level programming language for business 
applications. 

[46] SSA OIG, A-14-11-11132. 

[47] GAO, Transportation: Key Issues and Management Challenges, 
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-12-581T]. (Washington, 
D.C., March 29, 2012). 

[48] These weaknesses were identified in the areas of continuous 
monitoring, configuration management, identity and access management, 
risk management, and contractor systems oversight. See SSA OIG, The 
Social Security Administration's Compliance with the Federal 
Information Security Management Act of 2002 for Fiscal Year 2012, A-14-
12-12120. (Baltimore, MD: November 15, 2012). 

[49] FISMA was enacted as title III of the E-Government Act of 2002, 
Pub. L. No. 107-347, 116 Stat. 2899, 2946. According to OMB, a 
significant deficiency is a weakness in an agency's overall 
information systems security program or management control structure, 
or within one or more information systems, that significantly 
restricts the capability of the agency to carry out its mission or 
compromises the security of its information, information systems, 
personnel, or other resources, operations, or assets. In this context, 
the risk is great enough that the agency head and outside agencies 
must be notified and immediate or near-immediate corrective action 
must be taken. See OMB, "Memorandum for Heads of Executive Departments 
and Agencies: FY 2012 Reporting Instructions for the Federal 
Information Security Management Act and Agency Privacy Management," 
(September 27, 2012). 

[50] In this context, the external auditors, Grant Thornton, LLP, 
defined a material weakness as one or more deficiencies in internal 
controls such that there is a reasonable possibility that a material 
misstatement of the entity's financial statements will not be 
prevented or detected and corrected on a timely basis. A deficiency in 
internal control exists when the design or operation of a control does 
not allow management or employees, in the normal course of performing 
their assigned functions, to prevent, or detect and correct 
misstatements on a timely basis. 

[51] SSA employees are granted access to different aspects of SSA's 
system depending on the nature of the work they do. 

[52] There are 702 profiles which are considered to be the highest-
risk. The highest-risk profiles are those for users of applications 
that support the agency's financial management systems. 

[53] SSA OIG, A-14-12-12120. 

[54] Such tasks include establishing a formalized process to test 
transactions associated with access profiles. 

[55] The OIG and external auditors did not perform external 
penetration tests during their audits. 

[56] SSA leases all of its space, approximately 30 million square feet 
as of the end of fiscal year 2012, from the General Services 
Administration (GSA). Approximately one-third of that space is in 
government-owned buildings and the remaining two-thirds in government-
leased buildings. 

[57] Post-entitlement actions include such things as address changes 
and updating beneficiary earnings. 

[58] Earlier drafts of the Master Housing Plan were developed by GSA 
and OFSM. For the current stage, GSA engaged a contractor to carry out 
the study, according to SSA officials. 

[59] The National Research Council is part of the National Academy of 
Sciences. See National Research Council. Investments in Federal 
Facilities: Asset Management Strategies for the 21st Century. 
(Washington, D.C.: 2004). 

[60] This official estimated that, as of February 28, 2013, there were 
approximately 800-1,000 vacant workspaces in SSA headquarters 
facilities. 

[61] SSA's Large Site Space Standards lay out the criteria for 
allocating space according to staffing levels and other factors. 

[62] In May 2012, OMB's Acting Director released a memo, which calls 
for agencies to make more efficient use of the government's real 
estate assets and generally prohibits agencies from increasing their 
real estate inventory, or footprint. See OMB, "Memorandum to the Heads 
of Executive Agencies and Departments: Promoting Efficient Spending to 
Support Agency Operations," (May 11, 2012). 

[63] SSA OIG, The Social Security Administration's Customer Service 
Delivery Plan, A-07-11-01125. (Baltimore, MD: July 2011). 

[64] GAO, Streamlining Government: Questions to Consider When 
Evaluating Proposals to Consolidate Physical Infrastructure and 
Management Functions, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-12-542]. (Washington, D.C.: May 23, 
2012). 

[65] SSA officials told us that offices are consolidated by closing an 
office and moving its staff into another office. Consolidations often 
occur by merging two offices that are located very close together, or 
when staffing in one office has fallen below levels needed to sustain 
the office. In cases where offices are closed because of prohibitively 
low staffing levels, the remaining staff are generally absorbed into 
nearby offices. 

[66] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-12-542]. 

[67] SSA addresses core IT updates separately in a 5-year IT strategic 
plan. 

[68] OMB guidance directs agencies to have strategic plans covering a 
period of no less than 4 years. Agencies may set strategic plan goals 
for longer periods of time. 

[69] Examples of services for which SSA may charge a standard fee 
include copying folders, forwarding letters, manually performing a 
Social Security number verification for a third party, and responding 
to requests for a W-2 or W-3 for Social Security benefits received. 

[70] See GAO, Social Security Administration: Service Delivery Plan 
Needed to Address Baby Boom Retirement Challenges, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-09-24] (Washington, D.C.: Jan. 9, 
2009); Social Security: Sustained Effort Needed to Improve Management 
and Prepare for the Future, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO/HRD-94-22] (Washington, D.C.: Oct. 27, 
1993); SSA's Management Challenges: Strong Leadership Needed to Turn 
Plans Into Timely Meaningful Action, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO/T-HEHS-98-113] (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 
12, 1998); and Social Security Administration: Effective Leadership 
Needed to Meet Daunting Challenges, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO/HEHS-96-196] (Washington, D.C.: 
Sept.12, 1996). 

[71] Social Security Advisory Board. A Vision of the Future for the 
Social Security Administration, (Washington, D.C.: March 2011). 

[72] SSA OIG. Fiscal Year 2012 Inspector General Statement on the 
Social Security Administration's Major Management and Performance 
Challenges, A-02-13-13041 (Nov. 8, 2012). 

[73] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO/AIMD-00-21.3.1]. 

[74] Pub. L. No. 111-352, § 8, 124 Stat. 3866, 3878 (2011). 

[75] See GAO, Streamlining Government: Questions to Consider When 
Evaluating Proposals to Consolidate Physical Infrastructure and 
Management Functions, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-12-542]. (Washington, D.C.: May 23, 
2012). These questions were identified based on GAO's extensive body 
of work on government reform, a literature review on public sector 
consolidations, and interviews with practitioners and academic experts 
in public management and government reform. 

[76] Change management practices can be used to minimize the duration 
and significance of any reduced productivity and effectiveness that 
might occur during organizational transformations. These practices 
include active engaged leadership of executives at the highest 
possible levels; a dedicated implementation team that can be held 
accountable for change; and a strategy for capturing best practices, 
measuring progress toward the established goals of the consolidation, 
retaining key talent, and assessing and mitigating risk. 

[End of section] 

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