New GAO Report Cites Practices to Help Federal Agencies Collaborate

Barriers

Agency missions often conflict, making reaching a consensus on strategies and priorities difficult. Agencies also seek to protect jurisdiction over missions and control over resources. Finally, interagency collaboration is often hindered by incompatible procedures, processes, data, and computer systems. The result can be a patchwork of programs that waste scarce funds, confuse and frustrate citizens, and limit the overall effectiveness of federal efforts.

Key Practices

To help agencies overcome these barriers, the GAO report identifies key practices to enhance and sustain federal agency collaboration.

  1. Define and articulate a common outcome.
  2. Establish mutually reinforcing or joint strategies.
  3. Identify and address needs by leveraging resources.
  4. Agree on roles and responsibilities.
  5. Establish compatible policies, procedures, and other means to operate across agency boundaries.
  6. Develop mechanisms to monitor, evaluate, and report on results.
  7. Reinforce agency accountability for collaborative efforts through agency plans and reports.
  8. Reinforce individual accountability for collaborative efforts through performance management systems.

To illustrate these practices, GAO selected three programs: (1) Healthy People 2010, a long-standing effort by HHS to track public health objectives; (2) Forest Service’s wildland fire management; and (3) the Departments of Veterans Affairs and Defense’s health resource sharing collaborations. GAO also considered how the Government Performance and Results Act and the Office of Management and Budget address collaboration among agencies.

GAO recommends that the Director of the Office of Management and Budget focus on additional programs in need of collaboration and promote the practices in this report. Options include expanding the focus on collaboration in the President’s Management Agenda and supplementing the Program Assessment Rating Tool guidance with information about these practices. OMB agreed with this recommendation. Read the full report from the GAO web site.