Government Efficiency and Effectiveness: Opportunities to Improve Collaboration and Achieve Billions of Dollars in Financial Benefits

What GAO Found

GAO's 2024 annual report identifies 112 new matters for congressional consideration and recommendations to federal agencies to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of government. For example:

• The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration should collaborate with the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Emergency Management Agency to clarify and document their responsibilities and decision-making process to better manage fragmented efforts to improve how the public is alerted to tsunami hazards.
• Agencies should better manage fragmentation and enhance their efforts to establish a national wildlife disease surveillance system by more fully following leading practices for collaboration, including clearly defining common outcomes and involving relevant participants.
• Congress could close regulatory gaps while seven federal financial regulators should improve coordination to better manage fragmented efforts to identify and mitigate risks posed by blockchain applications in finance.
• The Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Office of Personnel Management should better manage fragmentation and potentially realize cost savings by avoiding duplicative background investigations.
• The Department of Health and Human Services should clearly track and report progress made toward goals for federal autism activities to better manage fragmentation and document procedures the National Institutes of Health uses to help ensure activities across 18 federal departments and agencies are not unnecessarily duplicative.
• The Department of Defense should take action to better manage fragmentation in research projects on using wearable devices to address service member fatigue, potentially saving costs.
• The Department of Homeland Security's National Biosurveillance Integration Center should better manage fragmentation among federal biosurveillance partners by developing clear performance measures with associated time frames in cooperation with federal agency partners.
• The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency should conduct a comprehensive assessment of centralized and federated sharing methods to better manage fragmentation and assess the overlap of federal cyber threat sharing efforts.
• The Department of Defense should reduce the risk of overlapping management activities and potentially save ten million dollars or more over 5 years in medical facility management by continuing its efforts to reevaluate its market structure and establishing performance goals.
• Agencies could save one hundred million dollars or more by using predictive models to make investment decisions on deferred maintenance and repair for federal buildings and structures and could save ten million dollars or more over 5 years by setting building utilization benchmarks to help identify and reduce underutilized office space.

Since 2011, Congress and federal agencies have addressed many of the 2,018 matters and recommendations that GAO identified to reduce costs, increase revenues, and improve agencies' operating effectiveness, although work remains to fully address them. These efforts have resulted in about $667.5 billion in financial benefits, an increase of $71.3 billion from GAO's June 2023 report.

To achieve these benefits, as of March 2024, Congress and agencies had fully addressed 1,341 (about 66 percent) of the 2,018 matters and recommendations and partially addressed 139 (about 7 percent). Additionally, legislation was introduced in the 117th or 118th Congress to address 31 (about 41 percent) of the 76 open matters for congressional consideration. However, further steps are needed to fully address the 549 open matters and recommendations from GAO's 2011 to 2024 annual reports.

GAO estimates that by fully addressing these, tens of billions of additional dollars and improved government services could be achieved. For example, Congress should consider directing the Secretary of Health and Human Services to equalize payment rates between settings for evaluation and management office visits and other services that the Secretary deems appropriate, which could save $141 billion over 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Why GAO Did This Study

GAO annually reports on federal programs, agencies, offices, and initiatives—either within departments or government-wide—that have duplicative goals or activities. As part of this work, GAO also identifies additional opportunities for greater efficiency and effectiveness that could result in cost savings or enhanced revenue collection.

The May 2024 report, GAO-24-106915, discusses new opportunities to achieve billions of dollars in financial savings and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of a wide range of federal programs. It also evaluates the status of previous matters for congressional consideration and recommendations to federal agencies related to the duplication and cost savings body of work.

In addition, the May report provides examples of open matters and recommendations where further implementation steps could yield significant financial and other benefits.

This statement discusses

• new topic areas identified in GAO's 2024 annual report;
• the benefits Congress and executive branch agencies have achieved in addressing many of the matters and recommendations GAO has identified since 2011; and
• examples of open matters and recommendations that could yield significant financial and other benefits.

For more information, contact Jessica Lucas-Judy at (202) 512-6806 or lucasjudyj@gao.gov or Michelle Sager at (202) 512-6806 or sagerm@gao.gov.