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Piloting coordinated performance
audits to address crosscutting
issues
7h Meeting of the INTOSAI Working Group on Key National Indicators
Kuta, Indonesia
24-26 February, 2014
J. Christopher Mihm
Managing Director, Strategic Issues
United States Government Accountability Office
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Update from our last meeting in Krakow
My presentation last year discussed provided
1. An update on the status of U.S. efforts,
2. Discussed how GAO is evolving its approach to performance
auditing to include a more direct focus on crosscutting issues, and
3. What this evolution means for us internally.
This year, I will discuss two initiatives broadly related to KNI issues
1. Our pilot project with state and local auditors on coordinated audits
on affordable housing.
2. The use of Strategic Reviews under the Government Performance
and Results Act Modernization Act (GPRAMA).
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As was discussed in prior KNI WG meetings, the US is part of
the “global public management revolution” with certain
overarching characteristics
•
The types of issues that government confronts are growing more
complex and boundary-less (wicked issues).
•
The approaches (policy tools) that government uses to address these
issues are wide ranging and increasingly indirect (hollow or third-party
government).
•
Citizen confidence in the federal government is at historic lows and
citizens are rightly demanding increased transparency and
opportunities for active engagement.
•
All of this must take place in an environment where agencies are
stressed to develop and maintain the basic capacities they need
(austerity budgets, the “thinning of the hollow state”).
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This Governance Environment is Consistent
with Europe’s Plan for 2025
• The European Parliament 2025: Preparing for Complexity
• Four major trends
• A multi-polar world
• Multi-level governance
• Multi-actor
• Multi-tech
• The implications for performance auditing:
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-13-868T
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GAO’s Intergovernmental Initiative
•
GAO is partnering with members of the state and local accountability community
who have volunteered to participate in a pilot to develop an approach for
reviewing how federal, state, and local resources might be better coordinated to
enhance performance outcomes and/or increase efficiency in a selected policy
area.
•
The partners group is a mix of state auditors and comptrollers, county auditors,
city auditors, and internal auditors. We also have senior-level representation
from the National Association of State Auditors, Comptrollers, and Treasurers
(NASACT) and the Association of Local Government Auditors (ALGA).
•
A subset of the partners group will conduct coordinated audits focused on the
use of rental assistance to provide affordable housing to low-income families to
show how federal, state, and local programs—often delivered through various
mechanisms such as grants, tax preferences, loans, guarantees, and
vouchers—are combined at the service-delivery level.
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Strategic Reviews under GPRAMA
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•
Annual assessments of progress to improve outcomes and seek
opportunities for productivity improvements.
•
To be undertaken at the strategic objective level, i.e., below
strategic goals but above annual performance goals. Strategic
objectives are to “reflect the outcomes or management impact the
agency is trying to achieve and generally include the agency’s
role”.
•
Bring together multiple sources of analytic, research, performance,
and evaluation data.
•
To be effective, they will need to involve multiple actors as well.
•
Agencies are to do the first round of Strategic Reviews in 2014.
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Thank you!
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GAO on the Web
Web site: http://www.gao.gov/
Congressional Relations
Katherine Siggerud, Managing Director, siggerudk@gao.gov
(202) 512-4400, U.S. Government Accountability Office
441 G Street, NW, Room 7125, Washington, DC 20548
Public Affairs
Chuck Young, Managing Director, youngc1@gao.gov
(202) 512-4800, U.S. Government Accountability Office
441 G Street, NW, Room 7149, Washington, DC 20548
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