SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL FOR GAO-17-775: 2017 Survey of Federal Managers on Organizational Performance and Management Issues
Fast Facts
This is a supplement to our report, Managing for Results: Further Progress Made in Implementing the GPRA Modernization Act, but Additional Actions Needed to Address Pressing Governance Challenges, GAO-17-775. It provides information from our web-based survey of federal managers on certain management topics—such as performance measures that track progress toward an agency's goals, quarterly performance reviews, and program evaluations.
This survey was administered to 4,395 federal civilian managers and supervisors between November 2016 and March 2017. The survey's response rate was about 67%.
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Highlights
This product is a supplement to Managing for Results: Further Progress Made in Implementing the GPRA Modernization Act, but Additional Actions Needed to Address Pressing Governance Challenges (GAO-17-775). The purpose of this supplement is to provide information from our web-based survey of federal managers on their observations on and perceptions of results-oriented management topics. Such topics included the presence and use of performance measures, hindrances to measuring performance and using performance information, agency climate, and program evaluation use. To assess the implementation of the GPRA Modernization Act of 2010 (Public Law 111-352), the survey included questions to collect managers' views on various provisions of the act, such as cross-agency priority goals, agency priority goals, and quarterly performance reviews. This survey updated information obtained from five previous GAO surveys of federal managers conducted in 1997 (GAO/GGD-97-109), 2000 (GAO-01-127 and GAO-01-592), 2003 (GAO-04-38), 2007 (GAO-08-1036SP), and 2013 (GAO-13-519SP). Click on the preceding report numbers to view the products summarizing the results of those surveys.
Supplemental Material
Background
The purpose of this supplement is to provide information from our web-based survey of federal managers on their observations on and perceptions of results-oriented management topics. Such topics included the presence and use of performance measures, hindrances to measuring performance and using performance information, agency climate, and program evaluation use. To assess the implementation of the GPRA Modernization Act of 2010 (Public Law 111-352), the survey included questions to collect managers' views on various provisions of the act, such as cross-agency priority goals, agency priority goals, and quarterly performance reviews. This survey updated information obtained from five previous GAO surveys of federal managers conducted in 1997 (GAO/GGD-97-109), 2000 (GAO-01-127 and GAO-01-592), 2003 (GAO-04-38), 2007 (GAO-08-1036SP), and 2013 (GAO-13-519SP). Click on the preceding report numbers to view the products summarizing the results of those surveys.
The web-based survey was administered between November 2016 and March 2017. We selected a stratified random sample of 4,395 persons from a population of approximately 153,779 mid-level and upper-level civilian managers and supervisors (General Schedule levels 13 through 15 and career Senior Executive Service, or equivalent) working in the 24 executive branch agencies covered by the Chief Financial Officers Act of 1990, as amended (31 U.S.C. Sect. 901(b)). We received useable responses from 2,726 federal managers and supervisors, or about 67 percent of the eligible sample. The weighted response rate across 23 of the 24 agencies ranged from 57 percent to 82 percent, while the Department of Justice had a weighted response rate of 36 percent. This supplement presents the weighted survey estimates and 95 percent confidence intervals based on all respondents, i.e., government-wide, as well as for each of the 24 CFO Act agencies separately. See GAO-17-775 for a more detailed discussion of our scope and methodology, as well as a discussion of survey results.
This supplement presents the aggregate results to survey questions as reported to GAO by the managers in our sample. We do not report open-ended narrative responses or responses to the survey's demographic questions, but we did review them.
We conducted the work upon which this supplement is based 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.
Click on the links below to view a blank copy of the questionnaire or the complete list of all Agency Priority Goals.
Copy of Questionnaire
Agency Priority Goals
Click on the link below to download the results as a comma-separated values (.csv) file.
Results file (.csv)
Click on the links below to view results.
U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)
U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)
Department of Commerce (Commerce)
Department of Defense (DOD)
Department of Education (Education)
Department of Energy (Energy)
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
General Services Administration (GSA)
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)
Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)
Department of the Interior (Interior)
Department of Justice (DOJ)
Department of Labor (Labor)
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
National Science Foundation (NSF)
Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)
Office of Personnel Management (OPM)
Small Business Administration (SBA)
Social Security Administration (SSA)
Department of State (State)
Department of Transportation (DOT)
Department of the Treasury (Treasury)
Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)
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Copyright
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