High-Risk Series: Heightened Attention Could Save Billions More and Improve Government Efficiency and Effectiveness

What GAO Found

Since GAO's 2023 update to the High-Risk List, Congress and executive branch agencies have taken actions resulting in notable improvements across the 37 high-risk areas. These efforts over the last two years resulted in about $84 billion in financial benefits. However, the progress made overall varied. Ten areas improved their standing and three regressed, while the others maintained their position, were rated for the first time, or were newly added. Lasting solutions to high-risk problems could save billions of dollars, improve service to the public, and increase government performance and accountability.

We added a new high-risk area on Improving the Delivery of Federal Disaster Assistance. Recent natural disasters—including wildfires in Southern California and hurricanes in the Southeast—demonstrate the need for federal agencies to deliver assistance as efficiently and effectively as possible and reduce their fiscal exposure.

While all high-risk areas need to make more progress, we highlight several areas that require significant attention. Examples of areas in need of significant attention include:

• Harnessing Modern Information Technology to Improve Services and Programs: The government spends over $100 billion annually on IT, with the vast majority of this spent on operations and maintenance of existing systems rather than new technology. Many attempts to implement new systems have too often run far over budget, experienced significant delays, and delivered far fewer improvements than promised.
• Expediting the Pace of Cybersecurity and Critical Infrastructure Protections: Government and private sector systems are under attack thousands of times each day, putting systems supporting Americans' daily lives at risk, such as safe water, energy supplies, reliable and secure telecommunications, and financial services. Cybersecurity threats require greater federal efforts to better understand the status of technological developments with security implications, such as artificial intelligence, to continue to enhance public and private sector coordination.
• Better Protecting Public Health and Reducing Risks: Several of GAO's high-risk areas focus on addressing critical weaknesses in public health efforts. Recommendations focus on issues such as coordinating public health emergencies, improving federal oversight of food safety, and addressing persistent drug shortages.
• Addressing Human Capital Management Challenges: Human capital challenges are cross-cutting issues that intersect with many items on GAO's High-Risk List. Twenty areas are included in the list in part due to skills gaps or an inadequate number of staff. Moreover, the government-wide personnel security clearance process, which ensures adequate screening to handle sensitive information, is not effectively managed

Why GAO Did This Study

The federal government is one of the world's largest and most complex entities. About $6.8 trillion in outlays in fiscal year 2024 funded a broad array of programs and operations. GAO's High-Risk Series identifies government operations with serious vulnerabilities to fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement, or in need of transformation.

This testimony to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform describes the status of high-risk areas, outlines actions that are needed to assure further progress, and identifies a new high-risk area needing attention by the executive branch and Congress.

GAO uses five criteria to assess progress in addressing high-risk areas: (1) leadership commitment; (2) agency capacity; (3) an action plan; (4) monitoring efforts; and (5) demonstrated progress. Ratings are based on analysis of actions taken up to the end of the 118th Congress.

Efforts to address high-risk issues have contributed to hundreds of billions of dollars saved. Over the past 19 years (fiscal years 2006-2024), these financial benefits totaled nearly $759 billion or an average of $40 billion per year.