# General Management Laws: Major Themes and Management Policy Options

> Briefs, arguments, decisions, and more.

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/documents/crs%3ARL32388

## Record

- **Collection:** Congressional research report
- **Document type:** CRS Report
- **Published:** May 19, 2004
- **Citation:** RL32388

## Text

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Prepared for Members and Committees of Congress

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This report is a companion to CRS Report RL30795, General Management Laws: A Compendium
(hereafter “compendium”). In combination, these reports have three main objectives: (1) to
identify and describe the major management laws under which the executive branch is required to
operate, including their rationale, design, and scope; (2) to assist Members of Congress and their
staff in oversight of executive branch management; and (3) to help Congress when considering
potential changes to the management laws, as well as other legislation, including authorization
statutes and appropriations.
This report focuses on major themes—and possible policy options for Congress—that emerge
when the general management laws are viewed together, as a whole. The report also describes
historical context of the roles that Congress and the President play in managing the executive
branch, and compares management in the public and private sectors. The themes and policy
options address five topics.
Discretion for the Executive Branch: Congress frequently faces the issue of how much
discretion to give the executive branch. Congress has options to address delegation situations and
balance agency flexibility with accountability.
Standardization vs. Customization: Should the management laws under which agencies operate
be standardized, with uniform rules? Or should some agencies have customized, agency-specific
laws? Should there be a mix of the two approaches? Congress has options when confronted with
these decisions.
Functional Silos vs. Integrated General Management: A functional perspective (e.g., looking
at agency operations from the perspective of a budget officer or human resources officer) can
boost efficiency. However, if functional orientations become inward-looking, functions can
operate in isolation, resulting in coordination problems or missed opportunities. Congress has
options to use an integrated general management perspective to solve agency management
problems.
Making and Measuring Progress: Many executive branch agencies suffer from persistent,
major management problems. Often these problems relate to areas the general management laws
were intended to address. Congress has options for measuring and motivating agency progress in
improving management practices.
Agency “Chief Officers” and Interagency Councils: Statutorily created “chief officers” (e.g.,
chief financial officers and chief acquisition officers) have increased in number in federal
agencies. Congress also established interagency councils of these officers. Congress has options
when considering whether additional chief officers should be established and how the councils
could be more accountable.
The report reflects the status of general management laws at the end of the first session of the
108th Congress, and will be updated along with the compendium to reflect actions taken through
the close of the 108th Congress.

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Purposes........................................................................................................................................... 1
How the Compendium and Companion Report Are Organized ...................................................... 1
Who Manages the Executive Branch?............................................................................................. 3
Congress and the President ....................................................................................................... 3
Historical Context of Managing the Executive Branch............................................................. 3
Comparing Management Practices in the Public and Private Sectors............................................. 6
Major Themes and Management Policy Options ............................................................................ 8
Discretion for the Executive Branch ......................................................................................... 8
Advantages and Disadvantages........................................................................................... 9
Management Policy Options............................................................................................... 9
Standardization vs. Customization...........................................................................................11
Three General Approaches.................................................................................................11
Advantages and Disadvantages......................................................................................... 12
Management Policy Options............................................................................................. 12
Functional Silos vs. Integrated General Management............................................................. 13
Two Perspectives on Management.................................................................................... 13
Management Policy Options............................................................................................. 14
Making and Measuring Progress............................................................................................. 16
Challenges to Making Progress ........................................................................................ 16
Brief History of Measuring Progress ................................................................................ 17
Management Policy Options............................................................................................. 20
Agency “Chief Officers” and Interagency Councils ............................................................... 22
Chief Officers.................................................................................................................... 22
Interagency Councils ........................................................................................................ 25
Advantages and Disadvantages......................................................................................... 28
Management Policy Options............................................................................................. 29

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Table 1. Agency “Chief Officers”.................................................................................................. 24
Table 2. Interagency Councils ....................................................................................................... 26

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Author Contact Information .......................................................................................................... 33

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This report, General Management Laws: Major Themes and Management Policy Options, is a
companion to CRS Report RL30795, General Management Laws: A Compendium (hereafter
“compendium”). In combination, these reports have three main objectives:
•

to identify and describe the major general management laws under which the
executive branch is required to operate, including their rationale, design, and
scope;

•

to assist Members of Congress and their staff in overseeing management of the
executive branch; and

•

to help Congress when considering potential changes to the management laws, as
well as other legislation, including authorizing statutes and appropriations.1

The compendium contains profiles of selected “general management laws”—broad statutes
designed to regulate the activities, procedures, and administration of all or most executive branch
agencies.2 The quality of the general management laws, as well as their implementation, are
considered crucial to maintaining the accountability of the executive branch to Congress, the
President, and the public. Moreover, these laws influence the effectiveness of federal agencies
when they implement, evaluate, and help formulate public policies.
As a complement to the compendium, this report (“companion report”) focuses on major themes
and possible management policy options for Congress that emerge when the general management
laws are viewed together, as a whole. The companion report reflects the status of general
management laws at the end of the first session of the 108th Congress, and will be updated along
with the compendium to reflect actions taken through the close of the 108th Congress.3

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The compendium includes more than 90 separate entries that describe general management laws
for the executive branch. The entries are organized into the following seven functional
categories:4
•

Information and Regulatory Management;

1

A related report, CRS Report RL30240, Congressional Oversight Manual, describes the major purposes, processes,
techniques, and information sources for congressional oversight of the executive branch.
2
Agencies are sometimes exempted from the coverage of some general management laws due to a category into which
they fall (e.g., department, government corporation, etc.), specific provisions in an agency’s authorizing statute or
appropriations, or provisions in the general management law itself. The report addresses this theme in a subsequent
section.
3
Previous versions of the compendium, coordinated by (name redacted), reflected the status of general management
laws at the close of the 104th, 105th, and 106th Congresses, respectively. This report, which analyzes the general
management laws together, is new.
4
The listed functions are not necessarily the only way to categorize the report’s entries into sections, which could have
been aggregated differently or further broken down.

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Strategic Planning, Performance Measurement, and Program Evaluation;

•

Financial Management, Budget, and Accounting;

•

Organization;

•

Procurement and Real Property Management;

•

Intergovernmental Relations Management; and

•

Human Resources Management and Ethics.

Within the management field, functions typically refer to “business areas that require related
bundles of skill” or “groups of people with similar skills and performing similar tasks.”5 (In the
private sector, by way of comparison, functions often include marketing, finance, production, and
human resources.) This functional orientation is a major theme to which this report will return.
Most of the compendium’s entries profile a specific law, or in some cases, several related laws.
The “Human Resources Management and Ethics” section, however, presents most civil service
laws according to their codification in Title 5 of the United States Code—the way that
practitioners and specialists typically discuss these laws. For each entry in the compendium, one
or more CRS analysts present a brief history of the general management law, describe the law’s
major provisions, close with a discussion of key developments and issues, and provide source
readings for readers who might want more information.
As a companion to the compendium, this report provides historical background on the roles that
Congress and the President play in managing the executive branch. Next, the report briefly
discusses the extent to which management in the public and private sectors can or should be
compared. Finally, the largest share of the report analyzes major themes that run through the
general management laws and identifies potential management policy options.

5

For more discussion of functional structures and perspectives within a management context, see John R.
Schermerhorn Jr., Core Concepts of Management (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2004), pp. 119-120, and Peter F.
Drucker, Management (New York: Harper & Row, 1974), pp. 558-563. This usage of the term function differs from
usages found in Title 5 of the United States Code and in budgetary accounting. In Title 5, the term function is used in
several contexts, including agency strategic plans (5 U.S.C. § 306, requiring agencies to specify goals and objectives
for major functions and operations of the agency), transfer of functions (5 U.S.C. § 3503), and reductions in force (5
U.S.C. § 3502). Title 5 does not define the term, but the implementing regulations for transfer of functions and
reductions in force define function as “all or a clearly identifiable segment of an agency’s mission (including all
integral parts of that mission), regardless of how it is performed” (5 C.F.R. § 351.203). With regard to budgetary
accounting, the term function refers to categories of federal spending, organized according to the purpose or mission of
government (e.g., income security, energy, and international affairs). The Congressional Budget and Impoundment
Control Act of 1974 established the first statutory foundation for budget function classifications (see 2 U.S.C. §
632(a)(4) and 31 U.S.C. § 1104(c)). For background on budget function classifications, see CRS Report 98-280,
Functional Categories of the Federal Budget, by (name redacted); and U.S. General Accounting Office,
Budget Function
Classifications: Origins, Trends, and Implications for Current Uses, GAO/AIMD-98-67, Feb. 1998.

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Who manages the executive branch? The President or Congress? Both branches together?
Scholars have long debated their constitutional roles, whether one institution is more powerful
than the other in this regard, and which should control the activities of federal agencies. The
record of the last two centuries provides ample evidence that Congress and the President both
manage the executive branch, as scholars have noted.6 The U.S. Constitution created a system of
separated powers, but it also established a system of checks and balances. Justice Robert Jackson
captured this subtlety:
While the Constitution diffuses power to better secure liberty, it also contemplates that
practice will integrate the dispersed powers into a workable government. It enjoins upon its
branches separateness but interdependence, autonomy but reciprocity.7

Thus, the question is about how Congress and the President share power—or should share
power—in managing the executive branch. This report and the compendium examine part, but
not all, of that conversation so far.8

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The Constitution gives Congress the power to establish administrative agencies and determine
how they operate. Article I, Section 1 of the Constitution provides that “[a]ll legislative Powers
herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States.” Section 8 provides further that
Congress

6

See (name redacted),
The Politics of Shared Power: Congress and the Executive, 4th ed. (College Station, TX: Texas
A&M University Press, 1998); Charles O. Jones, Separate but Equal Branches: Congress and the Presidency
(Chatham, NJ: Chatham House, 1995); Robert S. Gilmour and Alexis A. Halley, eds., Who Makes Public Policy?: The
Struggle for Control Between Congress and the Executive (Chatham, NJ: Chatham House, 1994); and Peter Woll,
American Bureaucracy, 2nd ed. (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1977). See also CRS Report RS20443,
American National Government: An Overview, by (name redacted).
7
Youngstown Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579, 635 (1952) (concurring opinion).
8
Congress and the President share power to manage the executive branch in many venues that are not within the scope
of this report. For example, Congress can include provisos in appropriations bills to prohibit the use of funds for certain
activities, insert earmarks in appropriations bills, or modify agency authorizing statutes to require management-related
actions. For more discussion, see James P. Pfiffner, ed., The Managerial Presidency, 2nd ed. (College Station, TX:
Texas A&M University Press, 1999); Fisher, The Politics of Shared Power; Jones, Separate But Equal Branches;
Gilmour and Halley, Who Makes Public Policy?; Woll, American Bureaucracy; Keith E. Whittington and Daniel P.
Carpenter, “Executive Power in American Institutional Development,” Perspectives on Politics, vol. 1, no. 3 (Sept.
2003), pp. 495-513; and (name redacted), “Congress’s Prerogative over Agencies and Agency Decisionmakers: The
Rise and Demise of the Reagan Administration’s Theory of the Unitary Executive,” The George Washington Law
Review, vol. 57, no. 3 (Jan. 1989), pp. 627-703. The judicial branch also plays an important role in influencing agencies
and public administration. For a review of that literature, see David H. Rosenbloom and Rosemary O’Leary, Public
Administration and Law, 2nd ed. (New York: Marcel Dekker, 1997), pp. 301-319 (chapter 9). For discussion of
federalism issues and the powers of the states in contrast with powers of the federal government, see CRS Report
RL30315, Federalism, State Sovereignty, and the Constitution: Basis and Limits of Congressional Power, by (name re
dacted).

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... shall have Power ... [t]o make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying
into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the
Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

In turn, the Constitution gives the President considerable power to manage the executive branch.
Article II, Section 1 vests the executive power in the President, and Section 3 provides that the
President “shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” However, this power is limited.
As one commentator states, the President’s duty is “to ensure that officials obey Congress’s
instructions,” and Article II’s ‘take Care’ clause “... does not create a presidential power so great
that it can be used to frustrate congressional intention.”9 Article II makes only two explicit
references to executive departments.10 Section 2 states the President “may require the Opinion, in
writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating
to the Duties of their respective Offices.” Section 2 also mentions “Heads of Departments” when
outlining the President’s appointment powers.
In September 1789, Congress enacted two of the nation’s initial general management laws. The
Treasury Act established the Treasury Department and the basic elements of the federal
government’s financial management system (1 Stat. 65), including provisions for warrants,
accounts, and audits. Several days later, Congress enacted a law to establish the annual salaries
for the Secretaries of the Departments of the Treasury, State, and War, and to impose a salary cap
for clerk positions in these departments (1 Stat. 67). By the end of the 18th century, only these
three departments and the Navy Department had been created, along with the office of Attorney
General and the Post Office.11 Nonetheless, after the nation’s founding, elected officials gradually
experienced greater difficulty in administering the federal government of a growing nation.12
The Federalists, including Alexander Hamilton, had by 1801 “created from almost nothing an
administrative system,” including the establishment of an independent chief executive vested with
administrative authority, effective delegation of authority by the President to heads of
departments and subordinates, and the formation of a fiscal system for the government.13 After
ascending to power in 1801, the Democratic-Republicans, led by Thomas Jefferson, generally
accepted the Federalist framework for government administration that they inherited.14 Congress,
9

Rosenberg, “Congress’s Prerogative over Agencies and Agency Decisionmakers,” pp. 650-651.
The Constitution does not establish any specific departments or agencies.
11
Woll, American Bureaucracy, pp. 35-36, 60. The Continental Congress established the Postmaster General position
in 1775, and the Post Office was codified into law in 1789 (1 Stat. 70). The Post Office was not specifically established
as an executive department by Congress until 1872 (17 Stat. 283). For more information on the history of the United
States Postal Service, see The United States Postal Service: An American History 1775-2002 (Washington: U.S. Postal
Service, 2003). Until the Civil War, Congress added only the Department of the Interior to the initial group of
departments (9 Stat. 395), and the Department of Justice was not established until 1870 (16 Stat. 162).
12
For historical context on federal government organization and administration before the 20th century, as well as
discussion of major government reform commissions during the 20th century, see CRS Report RL31446, Reorganizing
the Executive Branch in the 20th Century: Landmark Commissions, by (name redacted), and (name redacted),
Administrative Renewal: Reorganization Commissions in the 20th Century (Lanham, MD: University Press of America,
2003). For more on the federal government’s administrative history before the 20th century, see four volumes by
Leonard D. White: The Federalists: A Study in Administrative History (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1978); The
Jeffersonians: A Study in Administrative History, 1801-1829 (New York: Macmillan, 1951); The Jacksonians: A Study
in Administrative History, 1829-1861 (New York: Macmillan, 1954); and The Republican Era: 1869-1901: A Study in
Administrative History (New York: Macmillan, 1958).
13
White, The Federalists, p. 512.
14
White, The Jeffersonians, p. 553.
10

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however, became more active in its dealings with the administrative system than it had been
previously.15 In addition, the country was growing in geographic size and population; and by the
end of the 1820s, “[b]oth Presidents and department heads were badly overburdened with official
work, but neither of the two obvious remedies—delegation or provision of administrative
assistants—were grasped.”16
Over time, and in response to the increasing volume of work in government administration,
federal employment rose from about 4,837 employees in 1816 to 36,672 in 1861.17 In addition,
the organization of executive departments became more complex:
The structure of the executive departments in 1860 was much more complex than in 1800....
The difference, may be stated, with some exaggeration, by asserting that in 1800 a
department consisted of the Secretary, clerks, and a field establishment, while in 1860 a
department consisted of the Secretary, a group of bureaus handling the mass of routine
business usually without the intervention or even knowledge of the Secretary, and a field
service that, in the larger establishments, exceeded in size the parent departments of an
earlier day.18

Several developments after the Civil War—including industrialization, the Progressive
Movement, efforts to combat the Great Depression, two world wars, and increasingly complex
social policy problems—led to the rise and growth of the administrative state and significant
challenges to effectively managing the executive branch.19 To deal with the complexity, “[b]y
1946 ... Congress had become a delegator, vesting much of its legislative authority in
administrative agencies, and a great deal of the initiative for policy making and budgeting had
passed to the executive branch.”20 Observers noted that Congress sometimes found it difficult to
legislate in detail, and increasingly relied upon agencies’ discretion and technical expertise to
flesh out, and even formulate, public policies. In other words, observers argued that agencies
sometimes exercised legislative powers.
In response, and also to improve executive branch management practices, Congress over time
expanded the number and types of general management laws to address myriad aspects of the
modern-day executive branch, as the entries in the CRS compendium help show.21 For example,
15
Ibid., pp. 89-107. For example, Congress demanded better information from executive sources, pursued more
intensive investigations, and established standing committees on expenditures for the State, Treasury, War, Navy, and
Post Office Departments, plus one on public buildings.
16
Ibid., p. 557.
17
U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to
1970, part 2, chapters N-Z (White Plains, NY: Kraus International Publications, 1989), p. 1103. Federal employment
continued to increase, reaching 51,020 in 1871 and 157,442 by 1891.
18
White, The Jacksonians, p. 533. See also pp. 85-103 for more on the workload facing department heads.
19
For more on these developments, see Stephen Skowronek, Building a New American State: The Expansion of
National Administrative Capacities, 1877-1920 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1982), pp. 248-284;
David H. Rosenbloom, Building a Legislative-Centered Public Administration: Congress and the Administrative State,
1946-1999 (Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 2000); and Woll, American Bureaucracy, pp. 35-75.
20
Rosenbloom, Building a Legislative-Centered Public Administration, p. 1. For example, the Budget and Accounting
Act of 1921 required the President to propose a budget for Congress’s consideration, which “tended to frame
congressional budgetary discussions,” leading to Congress’s “[loss of] a substantial degree of control over federal
spending” (ibid., p. 73).
21
Congress was not alone in pursuing management improvements in the executive branch. Various Presidents also
undertook management reform efforts—through executive orders and by establishing commissions—to focus on
government management and organization. See CRS Report RL31446, Reorganizing the Executive Branch in the 20th
(continued...)

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Congress moved to increase transparency in its oversight of the executive branch by passing
legislation such as the Administrative Procedure Act (1946), the Freedom of Information Act
(1966), the Federal Advisory Committee Act (1972), and other laws described in the
compendium.22 To improve congressional oversight and increase executive branch accountability,
Congress established inspectors general (1978), enacted the Congressional Review of Regulations
Act (CRA), and required agency strategic planning with the Government Performance and
Results Act (1993).
However, Congress did not merely seek to improve its oversight capacity. Congress also sought
to reassert influence over the budget process with the Congressional Budget and Impoundment
Control Act (1974). Because many agencies could not accurately account for their financial
operations, Congress passed the Chief Financial Officers Act (1990)23 and other laws to improve
agencies’ capacities to manage their finances. The list goes on, as the compendium’s more than 90
entries illustrate.
In sum, then, should general management laws be thought of as legislative action and the results
of congressional oversight, necessary to bring disciplined management to executive branch
agencies? Or, less favorably, should they be thought of as statutory directives that stifle flexibility
and initiative? Or does the answer lie somewhere in between—for example, the laws narrow
agency discretion in management and perhaps help the President to motivate changes in agency
behaviors? The conclusion likely depends on the viewpoint of the questioner and the situation at
hand, but history can help shed light on the matter. In any case, numerous and potentially
controversial issues—both perennial and new—remain which Congress may consider.
Before the report outlines some of these issues, however, the next section discusses how scholars
have approached an important question: to what extent can, or should, management practices in
the public and private sectors be compared?

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Can government be run like a private-sector company? Scholars and practitioners often see points
of similarity and overlap between management of the public and private sectors, and frequently
seek to take management-related “lessons learned” from one sector to the other.24 They also
(...continued)
Century: Landmark Commissions, by (name redacted).
22
Unless stated otherwise, the laws to which this report refers are included as entries in the compendium, where more
detailed citations and background can be found. See CRS Report RL30795, General Management Laws: A
Compendium, by (name redacted) et al.
23
For example, see U.S. Congress, House Committee on Government Operations, Chief Financial Officer Act of 1990,
report to accompany H.R. 5687, 101st Cong., 2nd sess., Oct. 6, 1990, H.Rept. 101-818 (Washington: GPO, 1990), p. 14.
24
Much of the training given to students in professional schools of public policy and administration, and much of the
public-sector management literature, approach policy and management problems from the perspective of political
appointees and senior career officials. These unelected officials have considerable administrative discretion in a world
where politics and administration are not always separable, and where the officials work under laws and policies
established by elected officials. As a result, considerable literature exists regarding how senior agency officials can use
this discretion (or seek additional discretion) to improve government management practices and government
(continued...)

˜—›Žœœ’˜—Š•ȱŽœŽŠ›Œ‘ȱŽ›Ÿ’ŒŽȱ

Ŝȱ

ȱ

Ž—Ž›Š•ȱŠ—ŠŽ–Ž—ȱŠ œDZȱŠ“˜›ȱ‘Ž–ŽœȱŠ—ȱŠ—ŠŽ–Ž—ȱ˜•’Œ¢ȱ™’˜—œȱ

conclude that key differences should be recognized and respected. Thus, management and public
administration scholars have recommended caution, in general, before applying private-sector
management principles to government agencies.25
Public administration scholar Wallace Sayre is widely cited for his aphorism: “public and private
management are fundamentally alike in all unimportant respects” [emphasis added].26 One of the
most significant differences is that public-sector agencies and private-sector companies operate
under different sets of laws,27 which were established to regulate public-sector and private-sector
behaviors for very different purposes. For example, under the Constitution and public law,
government has coercive power: government can regulate some private activity and collect
taxes.28 To prevent arbitrary exercise of coercive power, the framers of the Constitution
established a system of checks and balances and separation of powers.29 Federal government
agencies may only act under authority provided in public law, as formulated, executed, and
adjudicated by Congress, the President, and the courts, on behalf of the American public. These
laws authorize an agency’s mission (i.e., its purpose for being) and establish how the agency is
required to operate.30 In contrast, a private company operates under laws enacted to create and
regulate a functioning market economy (e.g., antitrust and financial reporting laws). Furthermore,
these laws generally do not prescribe what the company is to do, or how the company should
operate. Under this framework of law, a company is, in principle, accountable primarily to its
particular owners or shareholders, who bear financial risk.31

(...continued)
“performance,” or perhaps their definitions of performance. For more on this literature, see Laurence E. Lynn Jr.,
Public Management as Art, Science, and Profession (Chatham, NJ: Chatham House, 1996), Mark H. Moore, Creating
Public Value: Strategic Management in Government (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), and Robert D.
Behn, Leadership Counts: Lessons for Public Managers from the Massachusetts Welfare, Training, and Employment
Program (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991).
25
A full treatment of the question—which has generated a large literature—is beyond the scope of this report.
However, this section of the report cites some of the key issues that scholars and commentators have identified. For an
overarching discussion of the subject by staff writers of The Economist magazine, see John Micklethwait and Adrian
Wooldridge, “Managing Leviathan: The Public Sector,” in their The Witch Doctors: Making Sense of the Management
Gurus (New York: Times Books, 1996), pp. 277-303.
26
Quoted in Graham T. Allison Jr., “Public and Private Management: Are They Fundamentally Alike in All
Unimportant Respects?,” in Frederick S. Lane, Current Issues in Public Administration, 2nd ed. (New York: St.
Martin’s Press, 1982), p. 13.
27
For a discussion of public law as a foundation for public-sector management, see (name redacted) and Robert S.
Gilmour, “Rediscovering Principles of Public Administration: The Neglected Foundation of Public Law,” Public
Administration Review, vol. 55, no. 2 (Mar./Apr. 1995), pp. 135-146.
28
Theodore J. Lowi and Benjamin Ginsberg, American Government: Freedom and Power (New York: W.W. Norton &
Company, 1990), pp. 8-10.
29
See, for example, Federalist Paper 51, in James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay, The Federalist Papers
(New York: Penguin, 1987), pp. 318-322.
30
For discussions of the status of government corporations and quasi-governmental organizations, see CRS Report
RL30365, Federal Government Corporations: An Overview; CRS Report RL30533, The Quasi Government: Hybrid
Organizations with Both Government and Private Sector Legal Characteristics; and CRS Report RL30340,
Congressionally Chartered Nonprofit Organizations (“Title 36 Corporations”): What They Are and How Congress
Treats Them; all by (name redacted).
31
The private sector is not immune, however, from accountability and governance problems. See Lucian Arye Bebchuk
and Jesse M. Fried, “Executive Compensation as an Agency Problem,” Journal of Economic Perspectives, vol. 17, no.
3 (summer 2003), pp. 71-92.

˜—›Žœœ’˜—Š•ȱŽœŽŠ›Œ‘ȱŽ›Ÿ’ŒŽȱ

ŝȱ

Ž—Ž›Š•ȱŠ—ŠŽ–Ž—ȱŠ œDZȱŠ“˜›ȱ‘Ž–ŽœȱŠ—ȱŠ—ŠŽ–Ž—ȱ˜•’Œ¢ȱ™’˜—œȱ

ȱ

Scholars and commentators have cited many other differences between government agencies and
private sector organizations. For example,
[t]o a much greater extent than is true of private bureaucracies, government agencies (1)
cannot lawfully retain and devote to the private benefit of their members the earnings of the
organization, (2) cannot allocate the factors of production in accordance with the preferences
of the organization’s administrators, and (3) must serve goals not of the organization’s own
choosing. Control over revenues, productive factors, and agency goals is all vested to an
important degree in entities external to the organization—legislatures, courts, politicians, and
interest groups. Given this, agency managers must attend to the demands of these external
entities.32

In addition, government frequently encounters comparative difficulty measuring—and coming to
consensus on how to measure—the performance of agencies.33

Š“˜›ȱ‘Ž–ŽœȱŠ—ȱŠ—ŠŽ–Ž—ȱ˜•’Œ¢ȱ™’˜—œȱ
Given the history of managing the executive branch and also the differences between
management practices in the public and private sectors, the entries in the compendium of general
management laws may raise public policy issues, both for the general management laws
themselves and for specific agencies. Moreover, when considering the compendium as a whole—
viewing the general management laws together—several major themes emerge. Each of these
themes, in turn, may raise potential issues and “management policy” options for Congress.34

’œŒ›Ž’˜—ȱ˜›ȱ‘Žȱ¡ŽŒž’ŸŽȱ›Š—Œ‘ȱ
Congress frequently faces the question “How much discretion should we leave for the executive
branch?”35 For example, when examining or reexamining any of the general management laws,
the question often becomes how much discretion the executive branch should be authorized to
determine the contents, scope, or priorities of agency actions.

32
James Q. Wilson, Bureaucracy: What Government Agencies Do and Why They Do It (New York: Basic Books,
1989), p. 115.
33
See, for example, Allison, “Public and Private Management,” p. 18 (citing a commentator’s conclusions); Peter F.
Drucker, Management, pp. 130-166; and Henry Mintzberg, “Managing Government, Governing Management,”
Harvard Business Review, May-June 1996, pp. 79-80.
34
Here, the term management policy is defined generally as “the principles or methods under which the executive
branch, or an agency, is to be managed.” In the management and business literatures, the terms management policy and
business policy have been used interchangeably, but without precise consensus on definitions. One textbook defined
business policy as “the functions and responsibilities of senior management, the crucial problems that affect the success
of the total enterprise, and the decisions that determine the direction of the organization, shape its future, and, when
well implemented, secure its achievement” (Joseph L. Bower, et al., Business Policy: Managing Strategic Processes,
8th ed. (Chicago: Irwin, 1995), pp. 2-3). See also George A. Steiner, John B. Miner, and Edmund R. Gray, Management
Policy and Strategy: Text, Readings, and Cases, 3rd ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1986), pp. 3-10.
35
The literature surrounding this topic is extensive. In Building a Legislative-Centered Public Administration,
Rosenbloom generally argues that many general management laws were enacted as an effort to provide the executive
with discretion, while still retaining congressional control and oversight over agency actions.

˜—›Žœœ’˜—Š•ȱŽœŽŠ›Œ‘ȱŽ›Ÿ’ŒŽȱ

Şȱ

ȱ

Ž—Ž›Š•ȱŠ—ŠŽ–Ž—ȱŠ œDZȱŠ“˜›ȱ‘Ž–ŽœȱŠ—ȱŠ—ŠŽ–Ž—ȱ˜•’Œ¢ȱ™’˜—œȱ

ŸŠ—ŠŽœȱŠ—ȱ’œŠŸŠ—ŠŽœȱ
This question has been heavily debated for some time. On one hand, giving discretion to the
executive branch can provide agencies flexibility to tailor the implementation of laws to specific
circumstances as the President or agencies perceive them. In addition, some observers argue that
this discretion allows agencies to be more responsive if circumstances later change. For example,
an agency might take less time to issue and implement regulations, or to exercise initiative to
pursue a management action, than the time necessary for a law to be passed. Further, many argue
that when agency responsibilities involve scientific standard-setting or other technical judgments,
the executive is often in a better position to do so.
On the other hand, discretion can allow the President or an agency to make decisions or engage in
operations that might not have support from Congress, had the subject been considered explicitly
during the legislative process. The President’s or an agency’s views regarding the “right thing to
do” might be at variance with those of Congress and key stakeholders. Furthermore, some argue
that if the President or an agency has different views and acts accordingly, Congress might not
have resources or time to notice the agency actions or to intervene in a timely way.36 Granting
discretion to the executive branch can also put key decisions in the power of unelected agency
officials, when some stakeholders might wish for more transparency and political accountability.
With regard to general management laws, Congress faced this tension between flexibility and
accountability in 2002 and 2003, when considering whether to grant the Departments of
Homeland Security (DHS) and Defense (DOD) discretion to determine some of the contents of
their human resources management (HRM) systems through regulation.37 A similar situation
arose in 1993, when the Clinton Administration’s National Performance Review (NPR)
recommended a number of ways to “cut red tape” in procurement policy, culminating in passage
of the Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act of 1994 (FASA; 108 Stat. 3243).38 The tension is
perhaps most common in the regulatory arena.

Š—ŠŽ–Ž—ȱ˜•’Œ¢ȱ™’˜—œȱ
In considering situations when Congress weighs whether to give discretion to an agency, and if
so, to what extent, scholars have noted four general options that can be used alone or in
combination by Congress to address delegation situations and help balance flexibility with
accountability.39
36

Congress can seek to reverse or modify an agency’s decision, either through oversight or legislative action. However,
a President may decide to veto such a bill, forcing Congress to muster a two-third majority in each chamber for the
override.
37
Separate authorities for DHS and DOD to establish new HRM systems were enacted into law, as described in the
Title 5, U.S.C., Chapter 97 and Chapter 99 entries in the compendium. However, in both cases, DHS and DOD were
required to do so in regulations prescribed jointly with the Office of Personnel Management (OPM).
38
For more information, see Office of the Vice President, From Red Tape to Results: Creating a Government That
Works Better & Costs Less, Report of the National Performance Review (Washington: GPO, Sept. 7, 1993) and CRS
Report RL30596, The National Performance Review and Other Government Reform Initiatives: An Overview, 19932001, by (name redacted), (name redacted), and (name redacted).
39
The four general options come from D. Roderick Kiewiet and Mathew D. McCubbins, The Logic of Delegation:
Congressional Parties and the Appropriations Process (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), pp. 27-38. The
illustrative options come from sources including the Kiewiet-McCubbins book and this report’s author. Kiewiet and
McCubbins note that these four general options can sometimes impose financial and other costs on agencies.

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şȱ

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ȱ
•

Contract design:40 Congress can set the conditions for a delegation of authority
to better ensure that its intentions will be carried out by the executive branch, as
well as reduce risk of adverse consequences. For example, Congress could
establish goals, sanctions, probation periods, or sunsets; require the use of pilot
projects; or establish “profit-sharing relationships” (i.e., establish incentives for
agencies to behave in ways that benefit both the agency and the government as a
whole—for example, an agency might be allowed to retain 50% of unspent funds
after the end of a fiscal year, thereby providing an incentive against end-of-theyear “use it or lose it” spending behaviors).

•

Screening and selection mechanisms: To avoid delegating authority to an
agency in a way that could risk poor “on-the-job” performance with a given task,
program, or management initiative, Congress can try to look beforehand for
signals or other information that indicate whether the executive branch agency
and its officials will likely do the work effectively. For example, Congress could
convene hearings to determine whether the agency rigorously analyzed a problem
and its potential solutions or look for evidence that the agency has organizational
capacity and management skill to do the job.41

•

Monitoring and reporting requirements: To increase accountability and
transparency for a given activity or program, Congress can require agencies to
report their “actions taken,” milestones they have reached, and any information
the agencies have obtained during their activities. The rationales might be to (a)
monitor agency actions that are difficult to oversee and (b) make available
information that is difficult for Congress and outside stakeholders to access. The
advent of information technology and the Web may enable such reporting to be
close to real-time and more frequently updated. However, some commentators
argue that a proliferation of reporting requirements can be burdensome, and that
reports to Congress are not always used.

•

Institutional checks: When authority is delegated to an agency, Congress can
ensure that one or more additional agencies or entities can veto or block the
delegate agency’s actions. For example, Congress could involve another agency
in the promulgation of regulations (such as the DHS personnel system, which
requires that regulations be prescribed jointly by DHS and the Office of
Personnel Management (OPM)); require notice and comment before an agency is
allowed to proceed with certain actions; provide sequential funding within an
appropriation that is contingent upon certain conditions at each of several
milestones; require the agency or additional agencies to conduct an independent
study examining an issue; or use “committee vetoes”42 to prevent certain actions
absent congressional committee approval.

40

Here, the term contract is figurative, and means “the terms and conditions under which authority or power is
delegated from the legislative body to an agency.” In a delegation situation, theorists see one actor, the legislature, as a
principal, and the other actor, an agency, as an agent for the principal. Because the agent can take action that is optimal
in light of his or her own goals, instead of the principal’s intended goals, theorists call this situation an agency problem.
In response, theorists often advocate establishing a contract that aligns the terms and conditions of the delegation
(sometimes including incentives for the agent) with the principal’s goals, in order to accomplish the principal’s goals.
41
For presidential appointments that require the advice and consent of the Senate, hearing questions often relate to a
nominee’s skills and reputation.
42
Committee vetoes continue to be used after the Supreme Court’s ruling in INS v. Chadha (1983), which struck down
(continued...)

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ŗŖȱ

ȱ

Ž—Ž›Š•ȱŠ—ŠŽ–Ž—ȱŠ œDZȱŠ“˜›ȱ‘Ž–ŽœȱŠ—ȱŠ—ŠŽ–Ž—ȱ˜•’Œ¢ȱ™’˜—œȱ

Š—Š›’£Š’˜—ȱŸœǯȱžœ˜–’£Š’˜—ȱ
Should the management laws under which agencies operate be standardized, with rules that apply
uniformly to many different agencies? Or should some (or all) agencies have agency-specific
laws that are customized to each agency’s internal and external environments? Or should there be
a mix of these two approaches? This tension between standardization and customization arises
frequently for Congress with respect to management of the executive branch—where varying
degrees of standardization and customization can exist in general management laws, authorizing
statutes, or appropriations.

‘›ŽŽȱ Ž—Ž›Š•ȱ™™›˜ŠŒ‘Žœȱ
Many experts believe standardization can help improve executive branch transparency and
accountability. For example, the Administrative Procedure Act, enacted in 1946, was intended to
establish basic requirements across the executive branch for agency rulemaking. With regard to
another functional area, financial management, Congress introduced standardization in stages.
The Chief Financial Officers (CFO) Act of 1990 (104 Stat. 2838), as amended by the Government
Management Reform Act of 1994 (GMRA; 108 Stat. 3410), required 24 major executive
departments and agencies to prepare audited financial statements covering all their accounts. This
requirement contributed to many agencies receiving unqualified (“clean”) opinions in FY2002.43
In 2002, Congress further amended the CFO Act to extend similar requirements to most other
executive agencies with passage of the Accountability of Tax Dollars Act (116 Stat. 2049).44
Standardization can also promote accountability by putting the burden of proof on agencies to
demonstrate when (or if) exceptions are necessary.
By contrast, customization can also be beneficial for effective management. Customization can
help align an agency’s management with both the agency’s internal environment (e.g., culture,
size, decision-making processes) and its external environment (e.g., economic conditions, events,
stakeholder and client needs). Congress regularly uses authorizing statutes, appropriations, and
accompanying reports to require or direct specific actions (or prohibitions) for agencies, but
Congress also builds customization into general management laws. For example, until recently,
small agencies were not generally required to prepare audited financial statements. Similarly,
when the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was established by the Homeland Security
Act of 2002 (116 Stat. 2135, at 2145), the new agency’s CFO position was not subject to CFO Act
requirements.45 Another example comes from the HRM area. In the last two years, DHS and the

(...continued)
the legislative veto. For more on committee vetoes, see (name redacted), “Congress As Co-Manager of the Executive
Branch,” in James P. Pfiffner, ed., The Managerial Presidency, pp. 306-308; and (name redacted), “The Legislative Veto:
Invalidated, It Survives,” Law and Contemporary Problems, vol. 56, no. 4 (autumn 1993), pp. 273-292.
43
An unqualified opinion indicates that an auditor found that an agency’s financial statement presented a variety of
measures of the agency’s financial condition fairly, in all material respects, and in conformity with specified accounting
principles.
44
However, Congress left some discretion to the President by allowing the Office of Management and Budget to
exempt very small agencies.
45
The 108th Congress is considering legislation (H.R. 2886, S. 1567) that would, if enacted, include DHS among the
CFO Act agencies.

˜—›Žœœ’˜—Š•ȱŽœŽŠ›Œ‘ȱŽ›Ÿ’ŒŽȱ

ŗŗȱ

ȱ

Ž—Ž›Š•ȱŠ—ŠŽ–Ž—ȱŠ œDZȱŠ“˜›ȱ‘Ž–ŽœȱŠ—ȱŠ—ŠŽ–Ž—ȱ˜•’Œ¢ȱ™’˜—œȱ

DOD were granted authority to customize several significant (but not all) aspects of their HRM
systems apart from the standardized laws of Title 5 of the United States Code.46
A third possibility is to mix the two approaches. The examples described above move toward
standardization or customization, but also represent varying degrees of a mixed approach—
balancing standardization with customization. Under a mixed approach, general management
laws are applied to all or most agencies, but Congress can, nevertheless, make exceptions to a
smaller or larger extent, or allow some flexibility within the laws’ broader requirements.47 An
example of the mixed approach is the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 (GPRA;
107 Stat. 285), which required most executive branch agencies, in consultation with Congress, to
develop strategic plans. However, GPRA provided only a general framework within which
agencies were required to comply, without prescribing detailed format or contents.

ŸŠ—ŠŽœȱŠ—ȱ’œŠŸŠ—ŠŽœȱ
Each of these approaches—standardization, customization, and mixed—can bring advantages and
disadvantages. Alongside the advantages described above, standardization can sometimes be too
rigid, stifling initiative or creativity. In turn, customization can sometimes reduce transparency or
accountability if agencies do not report in real-time on the nature and status of their customized
efforts, or if oversight and analytical resources are too scarce or distracted to support monitoring
how well a customized law is working. Customization can also lead to different entities working
at cross-purposes. For example, if agencies gain pay flexibility but then were to begin a bidding
war for certain types of employees, the budgets of each agency would come under pressure.
Mixed approaches can suffer from all these problems. Therefore, in addition to the three general
approaches outlined above, Congress also has policy options for avoiding these problems.

Š—ŠŽ–Ž—ȱ˜•’Œ¢ȱ™’˜—œȱ
Generally, the decision to use one of these approaches is highly contextual, depending on the
nature of “the problem” to be solved (as defined differently by numerous stakeholders), the
problem’s history, the actors who are involved, and a host of other factors. Nonetheless, one
overall option is to examine regularly whether increased customization or standardization in a
general management law is necessary for improved transparency, accountability, efficiency, or
effectiveness. Analytical support in weighing the evidence can come from a variety of sources
including agency management, agency program evaluations, inspectors general, the General
Accounting Office (GAO), and outside scholars and evaluators.
Another overall option in situations where customization is widespread (e.g., human resources
related laws) is to reduce the analytical burden for Congress and other stakeholders in their efforts
to monitor the situation, by requiring the executive branch to maintain comprehensive, real-time
46

See the Title 5, U.S.C., Chapter 97 and Chapter 99 entries in the compendium for more on this subject. The 108th
Congress is considering legislation (S. 610; H.R. 1085) that would provide flexibilities for the National Aeronautics
and Space Administration (NASA). Other titles of the United States Code also contain personnel laws, as the beginning
of the compendium’s section VII.A., “Title 5: The Federal Civil Service,” describes.
47
This approach is somewhat akin to what management writers Thomas Peters and Robert Waterman described as
“simultaneous loose-tight properties.” See Thomas J. Peters and Robert H. Waterman Jr., In Search of Excellence:
Lessons from America’s Best-Run Companies (New York: Warner Books, 1982), pp. 318-325. For an overall
assessment of Peters’ thinking, see Micklethwait and Wooldridge, The Witch Doctors, pp. 79-92.

˜—›Žœœ’˜—Š•ȱŽœŽŠ›Œ‘ȱŽ›Ÿ’ŒŽȱ

ŗŘȱ

ȱ

Ž—Ž›Š•ȱŠ—ŠŽ–Ž—ȱŠ œDZȱŠ“˜›ȱ‘Ž–ŽœȱŠ—ȱŠ—ŠŽ–Ž—ȱ˜•’Œ¢ȱ™’˜—œȱ

descriptions of the current state of affairs and maintain updated comparisons showing any
differences across agencies. As illustrated by the compendium’s introductory profile of Title 5
human resources laws (section VII.A., “Title 5: The Federal Civil Service”), increasing
fragmentation of civil service laws may increase the difficulty of monitoring, comparing, and
analyzing government-wide developments in general areas like pay, performance management,
and adverse actions and appeals, for different agency and bureau workforces.48 Establishment of
reporting requirements in areas of widespread customization may help reduce the analytical
burden for Congress and the public in examining the extent of customization and standardization,
or exploring possible changes if customization does not produce the desired outcomes. Such
reporting might be possible on a real-time basis on the Web. Central management agencies like
the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), OPM, the General Services Administration
(GSA), the Financial Management Service (FMS) of the Treasury Department, or others could be
candidates to report how certain management policies are customized and, thereby, facilitate
government-wide analysis and comparisons. However, such requirements would likely entail
costs for the reporting agencies.

ž—Œ’˜—Š•ȱ’•˜œȱŸœǯȱ —Ž›ŠŽȱ Ž—Ž›Š•ȱŠ—ŠŽ–Ž—ȱ
It is no coincidence that the general management laws can be grouped into “functions,” such as
financial management, human resources, and procurement. Most organizations in the private and
public sectors manage themselves, to a greater or lesser extent, with a functional orientation or
functional structures.49 For example, even when an organization is structured according to
“customers”—or, as in the case of the Internal Revenue Service, “taxpayer groups”—functional
perspectives still reside within business or administrative units, shared services, and
headquarters.50

 ˜ȱŽ›œ™ŽŒ’ŸŽœȱ˜—ȱŠ—ŠŽ–Ž—ȱ
A functional perspective is considered important, because it can boost efficiency through
specialization and ensure centralized control over strategic decisions. However, if the functional
orientation becomes too inward-looking, organization-wide coordination and decision-making
can become problematic, and an organization’s internal development of general managers can be
inhibited.51 Thus, borrowing a term from the management literature, various functions can tend to
48

The fragmentation exists among several different titles of the United States Code, and within Title 5, exists across
multiple agencies, including DHS, DOD, and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
49
As discussed previously, in the management literature, functions refer to “business areas that require related bundles
of skill” or “groups of people with similar skills and performing similar tasks,” such as human resources, financial
management, and information technology. This usage of the term function is different from two others, in Title 5 of the
United States Code and in budgetary accounting.
50
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998 (112 Stat. 685, at 689; P.L. 105-206)
required the IRS to organize itself by taxpayer groups, but IRS’s new organizational structure created specialist
functional organizations throughout the agency. The organization design literature has reached consensus that no one
type of organizational orientation or structure (by function, geography, client, customer, product, matrix, etc.) is
necessarily best. Instead, a recurrent theme is that an organization’s structure should flow from its strategy for
accomplishing its goals. Even then, however, different organizational structures have different sets of advantages and
disadvantages. For discussion, see Jay R. Galbraith, Designing Organizations, rev. (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2002),
pp. 17-37, and David A. Nadler and Michael L. Tushman, Competing by Design (New York: Oxford University Press,
1997), pp. 21-41.
51
See Samuel C. Certo and J. Paul Peter, Strategic Management: A Focus on Process, 2nd ed. (Homewood, IL: Irwin,
(continued...)

˜—›Žœœ’˜—Š•ȱŽœŽŠ›Œ‘ȱŽ›Ÿ’ŒŽȱ

ŗřȱ

Ž—Ž›Š•ȱŠ—ŠŽ–Ž—ȱŠ œDZȱŠ“˜›ȱ‘Ž–ŽœȱŠ—ȱŠ—ŠŽ–Ž—ȱ˜•’Œ¢ȱ™’˜—œȱ

ȱ

operate as functional silos, in isolation from each other. This can create problems for the
organization as a whole, or cause opportunities to be missed.52
Management literature acknowledges the continuing importance of functional perspectives, but
only within the broader context of an integrated, general management perspective.53 An excerpt
from one business school’s website explains this perspective:
All of us come to a problem, opportunity, or decision with a set of assumptions that are
based on our backgrounds and experiences. For example, someone who has spent years in a
finance function concentrating on, say, managing cash flow, raising capital, and budgeting
will have a particular point of view that is different from someone whose experience has
been in marketing focusing on product development, segmenting customers, product
positioning, etc. Two implications arise from this: (1) Each person will have only a “limited”
view of the whole story, and may be driven to define a problem as a “finance” or
“marketing” problem because this is what their experience tells them, and (2) Each person
may be correct, but only partially.... The solution is to develop a general management
perspective. The general management perspective seeks to integrate multiple functional
perspectives to arrive at a complete understanding of a problem or opportunity.54

A recent example of this general management perspective could include efforts to use information
technology to help improve human resources management and financial management.55

Š—ŠŽ–Ž—ȱ˜•’Œ¢ȱ™’˜—œȱ
An integrated general management perspective—especially when combined with the perspective
of focusing on individual functions—provides a potential toolbox of options for addressing
executive branch management problems. Many of the general management laws focus on
improving the executive branch’s management fundamentals in individual functional areas (e.g.,
cleaning up agency finances, improving the process for purchasing technology, or addressing
human capital problems). But the general management laws need not be viewed in isolation from
one another. Instead, from an integrated general management perspective, these laws may be
utilized to provide mutual support to each other, as illustrated below. Integration could occur
through a variety of means, including changes to the general management laws, agency

(...continued)
1993), pp. 136-141.
52
The silo metaphor comes from an image of vertical silos on an organization chart that do not communicate with each
other horizontally. To illustrate the same point, some commentators use the synonymous term stovepiped organization.
See Schermerhorn, Core Concepts of Management, p. 120.
53
Here, the term general management has a different meaning from the definition offered previously. In the current
case, general management corresponds to the integration of multiple functional perspectives into one holistic, or
general, perspective. Previously, general management referred to laws that apply across multiple agencies. Both of
these senses of the term general management can be helpful when grappling with management issues.
54
See: http://oracle-www.dartmouth.edu/dart/groucho/tuck_mba_program.syllabus?p_id=AGM, visited Jan. 15, 2004.
A hard copy is available from the author’s files.
55
See Ted Leventhal, “White House Expands E-government Initiative,” GovExec.com, Feb. 4, 2004, available at
http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0204/020404tdpm2.htm, visited Feb. 4, 2004. A hard copy is available from the
author’s files.

˜—›Žœœ’˜—Š•ȱŽœŽŠ›Œ‘ȱŽ›Ÿ’ŒŽȱ

ŗŚȱ

Ž—Ž›Š•ȱŠ—ŠŽ–Ž—ȱŠ œDZȱŠ“˜›ȱ‘Ž–ŽœȱŠ—ȱŠ—ŠŽ–Ž—ȱ˜•’Œ¢ȱ™’˜—œȱ

ȱ

authorizing statutes, and agency appropriations, and through other legislative and oversight tools.
For example,56 to integrate functional perspectives, Congress might consider:
•

leveraging the E-Government Act of 2002 (information technology perspective)
to achieve more timely and frequent financial and performance reporting
(financial management and program evaluation perspectives), by requiring
agencies and the OMB to utilize the Federal Enterprise Architecture57 for
reporting results closer to real-time, in order to better support congressional
oversight, reauthorization, and appropriations (budgeting perspective) activities;

•

directing appropriations (budget perspective) to ensure specific funding is used to
hire, train, and retain contract oversight specialists (human resources perspective)
in order to help certain agencies better manage and monitor their contracts
(acquisition perspective);58

•

restructuring the budget accounts of some agencies (budget perspective) to better
align resources with individual programs (organizational perspective) and
program evaluations of these programs (performance measurement and program
evaluation perspective) to align resources with results; or

•

leveraging the Chief Human Capital Officers Act of 2002 by requiring OPM to
develop metrics for assessing whether agencies dedicate sufficient staff resources
(human resources perspective) for contract management and oversight
(acquisition and program evaluation perspectives).59

Other options for leveraging functional perspectives into an integrated general management
perspective could include various combinations of the general management laws in the
compendium. These options could be constructed to apply generally to many agencies or only to
specific agencies, and could include any of the following functional perspectives: information
56

These examples are illustrative only. Each would entail advantages and disadvantages.
The Federal Enterprise Architecture (FEA), along with its “reference models,” is the blueprint released by OMB for
managing information technology (IT) investments across multiple agencies (e.g., payroll services or rulemaking). The
FEA’s Performance Reference Model (PRM) is OMB’s framework for “characteriz[ing] performance in a common
manner where necessary.” OMB’s directions for the President’s FY2005 budget proposal require agencies to use the
PRM for their IT business cases. For more on the FEA, see http://www.feapmo.gov, visited Jan. 28, 2004. OMB’s
FY2005 budget guidance to agencies regarding the FEA and PRM is included in U.S. Office of Management and
Budget, Circular No. A-11, “Preparation, Submission, and Execution of the Budget,” revised, July 2003, Section 300,
available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/circulars/index.html, visited Jan. 28, 2004.
58
Numerous sources cite contract management and oversight as a serious and continuing problem. The FY2002 report
from agency inspectors general (IGs) to the President stated “[t]he IG community ... has noted that generally, the
Federal government has been lax in its contractor oversight.” (See President’s Council on Integrity and Efficiency and
Executive Council on Integrity and Efficiency, A Progress Report to the President, Fiscal Year 2002 (Washington:
2002), p. 17, available at http://www.ignet.gov, visited Jan. 28, 2004.) In turn, the General Accounting Office included
contract management on its January 2003 “High-Risk List” for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration
(NASA) and the Departments of Defense (DOD) and Energy (DOE). See U.S. General Accounting Office, High-Risk
Series: An Update, GAO-03-119, Jan. 2003.
59
See the discussion of Title 5 of the United States Code, Chapter 14 in the compendium for more on OPM’s human
capital metrics provisions. For discussion of agency procurement staffing, see David Phinney, “More Big Contracts,
Fewer Managers: Agencies Strain to Provide Oversight,” Federal Times, July 7, 2003, p. 1. In the report accompanying
the bill that became the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993, the Senate Governmental Affairs
Committee called this type of phenomenon “hollow government”: “where an agency has inadequate resources to meet
its public missions.” See U.S. Congress, Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, Government Performance and
Results Act of 1993, report to accompany S. 20, 103rd Cong., 1st sess., S.Rept. 103-58 (Washington: GPO, 1993), p. 16.
57

˜—›Žœœ’˜—Š•ȱŽœŽŠ›Œ‘ȱŽ›Ÿ’ŒŽȱ

ŗśȱ

Ž—Ž›Š•ȱŠ—ŠŽ–Ž—ȱŠ œDZȱŠ“˜›ȱ‘Ž–ŽœȱŠ—ȱŠ—ŠŽ–Ž—ȱ˜•’Œ¢ȱ™’˜—œȱ

ȱ

policy, regulation, strategic planning, performance measurement, program evaluation, auditing,
investigation, financial management, budgeting, accounting, organization, acquisition
management, real property management, intergovernmental relations, human resources
management, and ethics.

Š”’—ȱŠ—ȱŽŠœž›’—ȱ›˜›Žœœȱ
The history of federal government management reform is replete with efforts, in both the
legislative and executive branches, to improve agencies’ performance, organization, and
management practices.60 Many of these efforts focused on improving agency management
practices and closely involved the general management laws. However, in spite of these efforts,
many observers have concluded that progress has been difficult to achieve.

‘Š••Ž—Žœȱ˜ȱŠ”’—ȱ›˜›Žœœȱ
Congress has faced major challenges in its oversight of executive branch management, especially
regarding:
•

how to ensure executive branch agencies improve their management practices by
complying with general management laws, and

•

how (or whether) to measure agencies’ progress in improving their management
practices.

Management literature generally holds that measurement can be a strong motivator to action, and
frequently quotes industrial psychologist Mason Haire: “What gets measured gets done. If you are
looking for quick ways to change how an organization behaves, change the measurement
system.”61 While measurement systems can motivate action and commitment, they can also create
perverse incentives in some situations. To use an analogy from the private sector, if a company’s
employees are rewarded only on the basis of short-term profits and not long-term research and
development that would keep the company profitable in the future, employees may show less
interest in longer-term performance.62 An illustration more applicable to the federal government
may be the achievement of unqualified financial audits, where “[c]lean audits of an agency’s
financial systems ... look like a sign of good fiscal management, but not if they are achieved only
by applying brute force at audit time in manually working around deficient systems.”63
60

For a treatment of this history from a legislative perspective, see Rosenbloom, Building a Legislative-Centered
Public Administration. For a treatment from an executive branch perspective, with an emphasis on reorganization, see
Peri E. Arnold, Making the Managerial Presidency: Comprehensive Reorganization Planning 1905-1996, 2nd ed.
(Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1998). For a treatment that is critical of past management reform efforts,
see Paul C. Light, The Tides of Reform: Making Government Work, 1945-1995 (New Haven, CT: Yale University
Press, 1997).
61
Quoted in Richard L. Lynch and Kelvin F. Cross, Measure Up! Yardsticks for Continuous Improvement (Cambridge,
MA: Blackwell, 1991), p. 144.
62
For more on perverse incentives, see Steve Kerr, “On the Folly of Rewarding A, While Hoping for B,” Academy of
Management Journal, vol. 18, no. 4, 1975, pp. 769-783. In response, some management authors have proposed
“balanced scorecards,” which guard against perverse incentives by including several perspectives in an agency’s
performance measures. See Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton, “The Balanced Scorecard—Measures That Drive
Performance,” Harvard Business Review, Jan./Feb. 1992, pp. 71-79.
63
Gregory F. Treverton, “The State of Federal Management,” Government Executive, Jan. 2004, p. 24.

˜—›Žœœ’˜—Š•ȱŽœŽŠ›Œ‘ȱŽ›Ÿ’ŒŽȱ

ŗŜȱ

ȱ

Ž—Ž›Š•ȱŠ—ŠŽ–Ž—ȱŠ œDZȱŠ“˜›ȱ‘Ž–ŽœȱŠ—ȱŠ—ŠŽ–Ž—ȱ˜•’Œ¢ȱ™’˜—œȱ

›’Žȱ ’œ˜›¢ȱ˜ȱŽŠœž›’—ȱ›˜›Žœœȱ
Some history helps put the current situation into context. In the last 25 years, agency inspectors
general (IGs) and the GAO have reported persistent, major management problems in executive
branch agencies in such areas as financial management, acquisition, information technology
investment, human resources, and the strategic planning and implementation of major
programs64—areas the general management laws were intended to address. Beginning in 1992
and most recently in 2003, GAO released six continually updated series of reports detailing “high
risk” areas and major management challenges that affect specific agencies or cut across many
agencies government-wide.65 GAO stated in these reports that progress was made by the
executive branch and Congress to address these issues, but GAO also reported that much work
remained to be done. Both before and during this period, several management reform initiatives
were pursued by presidential administrations, including, for example, President Ronald Reagan’s
Reform ‘88 initiative; President George H. W. Bush’s efforts to address financial management,
information resources management, and high risk areas; and President William Clinton’s NPR.66
Members of Congress and their committee staff frequently expressed concern during this period
about the state of government management. For example, in 1992, the majority staff of the House
Committee on Government Operations took a retrospective look and recommended actions to
improve central management, procurement, information resources management, financial
management, and human resources management.67 Nearly a decade later, in June 2001, Senator
Fred Thompson, Chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, released a report
concluding that “urgent federal government management problems” faced the administration of
President George W. Bush, including problems regarding the federal workforce, financial
management, information technology, and overlap and duplication.68
More recently, in August 2001, President George W. Bush’s Office of Management and Budget
released the President’s Management Agenda (PMA), which includes five government-wide
initiatives: (1) Strategic Management of Human Capital, (2) Competitive Sourcing, (3) Improved

64
Establishment of agency IGs in the middle to late 1970s had been driven in part by high-profile management
scandals. In turn, GAO began its “high risk” program in 1990 in the aftermath of more recent management scandals.
For more on creation of agency IGs, see Paul C. Light, Monitoring Government: Inspectors General and the Search for
Accountability (Washington: Brookings Institution, 1993).
65
The most recent set of reports are summarized and listed in GAO’s overview document: U.S. General Accounting
Office, High-Risk Series: An Update. In the report summary, GAO defines “high risk” programs or operations as
vulnerable to fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement, and states that “[i]ncreasingly, we also are identifying high-risk
areas to focus on major economy, efficiency, or effectiveness challenges.” The President’s Office of Management and
Budget (OMB) began identifying high-risk programs in 1989 and included reports in the President’s annual budget
proposals from FY1992 (released Feb. 1991) through FY1995 (Feb. 1994), but ceased with FY1996.
66
For sympathetic descriptions of these reform initiatives, see U.S. Executive Office of the President, Office of
Management and Budget, Management of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 1989 (Washington: GPO, 1988)
[President Reagan]; U.S. Executive Office of the President, Office of Management and Budget, Budget of the United
States Government, Fiscal Year 1993, part 1 (Washington: GPO, 1992), pp. 305-411 [President George H. W. Bush];
and U.S. Office of the Vice President, From Red Tape to Results [President Clinton].
67
U.S. Congress, House Committee on Government Operations, Managing the Federal Government: A Decade of
Decline, committee print, 102nd Cong., 2nd sess., Dec. 1992 (Washington: GPO, 1993).
68
Sen. Fred Thompson, Committee on Governmental Affairs, Government at the Brink, 2 vol. (Washington: June
2001), available at http://www.senate.gov/~gov_affairs/, visited Jan. 22, 2004, from the “Committee Documents”
menu, under “Reports.”

˜—›Žœœ’˜—Š•ȱŽœŽŠ›Œ‘ȱŽ›Ÿ’ŒŽȱ

ŗŝȱ

Ž—Ž›Š•ȱŠ—ŠŽ–Ž—ȱŠ œDZȱŠ“˜›ȱ‘Ž–ŽœȱŠ—ȱŠ—ŠŽ–Ž—ȱ˜•’Œ¢ȱ™’˜—œȱ

ȱ

Financial Performance, (4) Expanded Electronic Government, and (5) Budget and Performance
Integration.69
Under the PMA, OMB leads quarterly evaluations of agencies to gauge “status” and “progress”
for each of the initiatives with red, yellow, or green “stoplight scores,” based on published
“standards for success.”70 These standards cite what the Bush Administration believes should be
done to solve the most difficult management problems facing the federal government. According
to the PMA website, an agency is green on status for an initiative if the agency meets all the
standards for success, yellow if it has achieved some, but not all, of the criteria, and red if it has
any one of a number of serious flaws.71 For progress, OMB assesses each agency “on a case by
case basis against the deliverables and time lines established for the five initiatives,” as agreed to
by the agency and OMB. A green on progress means that “[i]mplementation is proceeding
according to plans agreed upon with the agencies.” In turn, yellow indicates “[s]ome slippage or
other issues requiring adjustment by the agency in order to achieve the initiative objectives on a
timely basis.” Finally, red shows the “[i]nitiative [is] in serious jeopardy” and is “[u]nlikely to
realize objectives absent significant management intervention.”
The five government-wide PMA initiatives fall, to some extent, into functional categories.
However, OMB stated that the five initiatives would be mutually reinforcing, where efforts in one
initiative would be consistent with and benefit from efforts in the other initiatives.72 Notably, the
five initiatives also use a number of the general management laws to achieve the PMA’s goals.
For example,
•

the Competitive Sourcing initiative utilizes (“leverages”) the Federal Activities
Inventory Reform (FAIR) Act of 1998;

•

the Improved Financial Performance initiative leverages the Antideficiency Act,
Federal Managers’ Financial Integrity Act of 1982, Chief Financial Officers Act
of 1990, Government Management Reform Act of 1994, and Federal Financial
Management Improvement Act (FFMIA) of 1996;

69

See U.S. Office of Management and Budget, The President’s Management Agenda (Washington: GPO, 2001) and
the President’s PMA website, http://www.results.gov/agenda/, visited Jan. 22, 2004. For an overview of the PMA, see
CRS Report RS21416, The President’s Management Agenda: A Brief Introduction, by (name redacted). For an
overview of OMB, see CRS Report RS21665, Office of Management and Budget (OMB): A Brief Overview, by (name re
dacted).
70
For the PMA, OMB adopted terminology that is widely used in the field of project management (e.g., deliverables,
timelines, status, progress, stoplight, etc.), where stoplight colors are often used to provide performance measures that
are visually simple, which can help time-constrained project managers and overseers assimilate large amounts of
information quickly. For more on project management performance reporting, see Project Management Institute, A
Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK Guide), 2000 ed. (Newtown Square, PA: PMI, 2000),
pp. 122-124.
71
The standards for determining agency status scores have changed twice since original publication. The first version
was published in the President’s FY2003 budget proposal: U.S. Executive Office of the President, Office of
Management and Budget, Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2003, Analytical Perspectives
(Washington: GPO, 2002), pp. 411-415. The second version was published in the President’s FY2004 budget proposal:
U.S. Executive Office of the President, Office of Management and Budget, Budget of the United States Government,
Fiscal Year 2004, Performance and Management Assessments (Washington: GPO, 2003), pp. 4-7. A third version was
created later in 2003, and is available at http://www.results.gov/agenda/standards.pdf, visited Jan. 22, 2004, and from
the author’s files.
72
U.S. Office of Management and Budget, The President’s Management Agenda, p. 4.

˜—›Žœœ’˜—Š•ȱŽœŽŠ›Œ‘ȱŽ›Ÿ’ŒŽȱ

ŗŞȱ

Ž—Ž›Š•ȱŠ—ŠŽ–Ž—ȱŠ œDZȱŠ“˜›ȱ‘Ž–ŽœȱŠ—ȱŠ—ŠŽ–Ž—ȱ˜•’Œ¢ȱ™’˜—œȱ

ȱ
•

the Expanded Electronic Government initiative leverages the Clinger-Cohen Act
of 1996, E-Government Act of 2002, and Federal Information Security
Management Act (FISMA) of 2002; and

•

the Strategic Management of Human Capital and Budget and Performance
Integration initiatives leverage the Government Performance and Results Act of
1993.

In the news media, some agencies have stated that the PMA is being taken seriously, and that
significant progress is being made.73 However, several additional observations about PMA
measurement practices can be made that relate to congressional oversight of the general
management laws. First, PMA evaluation practices have not been fully transparent outside of the
executive branch. While the standards for success are publicly available, detailed rationales and
worksheets behind these grades are not. By contrast, OMB assessments of agency programs using
the Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART)—a component of the Budget and Performance
Integration initiative—were considerably more transparent. OMB published overall PART
assessments in the President’s FY2004 budget proposal, but, to increase transparency, OMB also
released detailed worksheets showing the evidence OMB used to complete assessments of agency
programs.74
The stoplight scoring criteria may make subjectivity difficult to avoid for some of the initiatives.
For example, the current standards for success state that to achieve green on status for the
Expanded Electronic Government initiative, an agency must have “acceptable” information
technology business cases.75 Similarly, for the Strategic Management of Human Capital initiative,
an agency must have succession strategies that “result in a leadership talent pool.” Furthermore,
independent evaluation organizations (e.g., GAO or agency IGs) have not conducted verification
and validation assessments of the overall agency stoplight scores.76
73

See, for example, Adam Stone, “Reforms Help HHS Agency Ace Management Scorecard,” Federal Times, Sept. 29,
2003, p. 22; Mollie Ziegler, “To Boost Performance, GSA’s Marshall Readies Rollout of Merit Pay,” Federal Times,
Sept. 29, 2003, p. 30; and Bara Vaida, “Administration Has Hits, Misses in Implementing Management Agenda,”
GovExec.com, May 9, 2004, available at http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0503/050903td1.htm, visited Jan. 22, 2004.
74
OMB made the detailed worksheets available to the public at http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2004/
pma.html, visited Jan. 22, 2004. The overall program assessments were published in the President’s budget proposal
(U.S. Executive Office of the President, Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2004, Performance and
Management Assessments, pp. 9-298). A year later, GAO issued a report on the PART, U.S. General Accounting
Office, Performance Budgeting: Observations on the Use of OMB’s Program Assessment Rating Tool for the Fiscal
Year 2004 Budget, GAO-04-174, Jan. 2004. PART worksheets for the President’s FY2005 budget proposal can be
found at http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2005/part.html, visited Feb. 4, 2004.
75
The OMB evaluation criteria for capital assets may leave some room for subjectivity. See U.S. Office of
Management and Budget, Circular No. A-11, Part 7, “Planning, Budgeting, Acquisition, and Management of Capital
Assets,” July 2003, Section 300.10.
76
GAO, however, has evaluated some aspects of PMA implementation. For example, GAO took note of incomplete
business case information for OMB’s 24 e-government initiatives, concluding that there would be insufficient
information to monitor the status of the initiatives (see U.S. General Accounting Office, Electronic Government:
Selection and Implementation of the Office of Management and Budget’s 24 Initiatives, GAO-03-229, Nov. 2002).
OMB may or may not have considered this situation when assigning agency stoplight scores under the PMA. GAO also
testified to Congress on the overall PMA (see U.S. General Accounting Office, Management Reform: Continuing
Progress in Implementing Initiatives in the President’s Management Agenda, GAO-03-556T, Mar. 26, 2003).
Furthermore, agency IGs have been involved in doing independent audit and investigations work that OMB considers
in discrete aspects of the overall PMA quarterly assessments. For example, IGs have a formal role in assessing agency
information security remediation, evaluating agency financial management practices, and sometimes conducting
program evaluations upon which OMB relies for input in PART assessments.

˜—›Žœœ’˜—Š•ȱŽœŽŠ›Œ‘ȱŽ›Ÿ’ŒŽȱ

ŗşȱ

ȱ

Ž—Ž›Š•ȱŠ—ŠŽ–Ž—ȱŠ œDZȱŠ“˜›ȱ‘Ž–ŽœȱŠ—ȱŠ—ŠŽ–Ž—ȱ˜•’Œ¢ȱ™’˜—œȱ

Finally, the scope of the PMA does not necessarily cover all aspects of general management laws
that outside observers might consider important.77 For example, the PMA’s acquisition-related
initiative, Competitive Sourcing, does not include either contract oversight or small business
contracting concerns among its criteria, when GAO and outside observers have expressed longstanding concerns over these management issues.78 Real property management issues are also not
explicitly addressed by the PMA.79
The PMA is not the first time that the executive branch, nongovernmental organizations,80 or
Congress have endeavored to influence agencies to improve their management practices by
measuring compliance with general management laws. For decades, agency IGs and GAO have
focused in detail on specific problems within agencies. As described earlier, OMB and GAO also
created “high risk” programs to focus on particularly troublesome management areas. Moreover,
some (especially in Congress) have undertaken measurement efforts to make assessments about
specific general management laws and functional areas that are comparable across agencies. For
example, for several years, Representative Stephen Horn issued letter grades to evaluate agency
financial management and information security performance. Representative Adam Putnam has
continued that practice for information security in evaluating agency compliance with the Federal
Information Security Management Act of 2002.81 Senator Fred Thompson similarly issued grades
for agency annual performance reports required by the Government Performance and Results
Act.82

Š—ŠŽ–Ž—ȱ˜•’Œ¢ȱ™’˜—œȱ
In light of this overview, one could again ask the questions that began this section. What options
are available to Congress to ensure that executive branch agencies improve their management
practices by complying with the general management laws? Furthermore, if it is possible to
measure agency progress (through cross-agency comparisons that are easily understood and that
motivate action by political appointees and senior career officials), how could Congress measure

77

When the original PMA was released in August 2001, President Bush stated that the initiatives were chosen “to
address the most apparent deficiencies where the opportunity to improve is the greatest.” See OMB, The President’s
Management Agenda, p. 1.
78
GAO included contract management on its January 2003 “High-Risk List” for the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA) and the Departments of Defense and Energy. See U.S. General Accounting Office, High-Risk
Series: An Update. For more on small business contracting, see Jason Peckenpaugh, “OMB, Under Fire, Says Changes
in Contract Bundling on the Way,” GovExec.com, Oct. 17, 2002, available at http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/1002/
101702p1.htm, visited Jan. 22, 2004. A hard copy is available from the author’s files.
79
For background, see CRS Report RL32368, The General Services Administration and Federal Real Property
Management: Overview and Current Legislation, by (name redacted), and U.S. General Accounting Office, High-Risk
Series: Federal Real Property, GAO-03-122, Jan. 2003.
80
For evaluations from the Federal Performance Project, see Gregory F. Treverton, “The State of Federal
Management,” pp. 23-34. The Mercatus Center at George Mason University has issued evaluations and rankings for
agency annual performance reports since FY1999; see http://www.mercatus.org, visited Jan. 22, 2004.
81
See http://reform.house.gov/TIPRC/Hearings/EventSingle.aspx?EventID=652, visited Jan. 23, 2004, for more
information on the most recent information security report card.
82
See http://www.senate.gov/~gov_affairs/103100_press.htm, visited Jan. 23, 2004. Some assert that cross-agency
comparisons are strong motivators for action. Management writers Tom Peters and Robert Waterman cited Mason
Haire’s quotation that “what gets measured gets done” and provided examples of how comparative performance
information can sometimes galvanize attention and efforts for improvement. See Thomas J. Peters and Robert H.
Waterman Jr., In Search of Excellence, p. 268.

˜—›Žœœ’˜—Š•ȱŽœŽŠ›Œ‘ȱŽ›Ÿ’ŒŽȱ

ŘŖȱ

Ž—Ž›Š•ȱŠ—ŠŽ–Ž—ȱŠ œDZȱŠ“˜›ȱ‘Ž–ŽœȱŠ—ȱŠ—ŠŽ–Ž—ȱ˜•’Œ¢ȱ™’˜—œȱ

ȱ

or monitor the extent to which agencies improve their management practices? Some options
include:
•

Maintain current efforts: Congress could continue to use existing oversight
tools and institutions, including GAO and agency IGs, to monitor progress
selectively in the executive branch’s efforts to improve agency management
practices, while preserving executive branch discretion in the scope and intensity
of these efforts. This option would arguably involve little additional cost and
would not constrain the activities of the executive branch more than currently.
Critics argue, however, that Congress does not use these tools effectively or
frequently enough.

•

Independent verification and validation: Congress could ask (or direct) GAO
and agency IGs to more systematically verify and validate PMA stoplight scores
and the corresponding agency actions-taken, either government-wide or in
selected agencies. This option could increase congressional confidence in
executive branch measurements and determinations, but would likely involve
costs, and could be perceived negatively by the executive branch as
micromanagement or redundant with current activities.

•

Transparency: Congress could secure from OMB or the agencies access to final
PMA stoplight worksheets, similar to what OMB currently provides for the
PART. This option could further open executive branch management problems to
public discussion, but the executive branch might argue that such a requirement
would increase costs and managerial workloads.

•

Independent measurement: Congress could direct GAO or IGs to develop
measures, and systematically measure agency progress in improving
management practices in a way that could be compared easily across agencies—
along functional lines or for specific general management laws.83 This option
could make management improvement measurement more systematic so that it
would survive the transition from one presidential Administration to another, but
could increase workload and costs for GAO, IGs, and agencies.

•

Measurement through GPRA: Congress could amend GPRA to require
agencies formally and explicitly to address major management problems and
high-risk areas in their strategic plans, annual performance plans, and annual
performance reports. This might be done, for example, by requiring the
establishment of milestones and timelines for improvement, both in addressing
the problems and in building agency management capacity (e.g., identifying
whether, where, and to what extent management capacity needs to be improved
for an agency to make adequate progress).84 Congress could also require the

83
An observer recently called into question GAO’s current method for assessing agency and GAO performance, with
regard to these types of outcomes. He called GAO “best of the best” in government, but questioned whether GAO’s
current performance measurement system is adequate for gauging whether management practices in the federal
government are getting better or worse: “[M]oney recovery is ‘a significant achievement but what does it tell us? ... Is
the problem of bad behavior by government organizations getting worse? GAO’s reporting falls short of giving us a
picture of improvement or deterioration in management practices in government organizations.’ “ Quoted in Michael
Posner, “GAO Chief Worried About Growing Investigations Workload,” GovExec.com, Sept. 16, 2003, available at
http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0903/091603cd2.htm, visited Jan. 22, 2004. A hard copy is available from the
author’s files.
84
In the 105th Congress, the House passed legislation (H.R. 2883) that would have, among other things, required an
(continued...)

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ȱ

President to address these issues in the government-wide performance plan
required by 31 U.S.C. § 1105(a)(28). Depending on congressional preference,
this option could make management improvement measurement statutory or
more systematic, or both, but could increase workload for agency and OMB
personnel.

Ž—Œ¢ȱȃ‘’Žȱ’ŒŽ›œȄȱŠ—ȱ —Ž›ŠŽ—Œ¢ȱ˜ž—Œ’•œȱ
A fifth and final major theme that runs through the compendium of general management laws is
the expanding set of (a) agency “chief officer” positions (and their equivalents) and (b)
interagency councils of these officers.

‘’Žȱ’ŒŽ›œȱ
Chief officers, who are sometimes also called “CXOs,” include a variety of statutory, senior
positions in executive branch agencies that usually head a function (human resources, financial
management, procurement, etc.) within each agency. These chief officers now include, in
chronological order of establishment by statute:85
•

inspectors general (established 1978);

•

chief financial officers (established 1990);

•

chief information officers (CIOs; established 1996);

•

chief human capital officers (CHCOs; established 2002); and

•

chief acquisition officers (CAOs; established 2003).

On the next page, Table 1 summarizes key categories of information about each of these officers,
including (1) the function(s) with which the officer position is typically associated, (2) the law
that established the officer position,86 (3) a United States Code citation for key statutory
provisions, (4) a summary of the statutory rules governing appointments for the position, and (5)
the person to whom the chief officer reports.

(...continued)
agency to describe major management problems affecting the agency and the “specific goals, strategies, and
performance measures to resolve those problems.” However, no further action occurred on the bill, beyond referral to
the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs. GPRA allows, but does not necessarily require, agencies to establish
management-related “general goals” and “performance goals.” By contrast, OMB’s FY2005 guidance for complying
with GPRA (OMB Circular No. A-11, available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/circulars/index.html, visited Jan.
22, 2004) states that agencies may establish management-related general goals, but could also be interpreted as saying
that agencies should treat management-related goals and indicators as “means and strategies” rather than performance
goals or indicators. Per the circular (Section 51-6 through 51-7), “means” should be described “briefly” and “strategies”
should be “highlighted,” which could result in meager attention by agencies in these documents.
85
Inspector general positions were established at the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (now Health and
Human Services) by P.L. 94-505 (1976), and at the Department of Energy by P.L. 95-91 (1977), before passage of the
Inspector General Act of 1978. A chief financial officer position was established at the Department of Veterans Affairs
by P.L. 100-527 (1988) before passage of the Chief Financial Officers Act of 1990.
86
An entry in the compendium discusses each of the listed laws. However, for discussion of the Chief Human Capital
Officers Act of 2002, see the compendium’s entry for Title 5, United States Code, Chapter 14, in the compendium’s
“Human Resources Management and Ethics” section.

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ȱ

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As the table shows, some of these officers are presidentially appointed with Senate confirmation
(PAS); some are presidentially appointed, and others may be appointed or designated by an
agency head. Many positions can be filled with political or career employees, but CAOs and
certain CFOs are required to be political (non-career). With regard to reporting relationships,
three chief officers are required to report directly to the agency head (IGs, CFOs, and CIOs), but
reporting relationships for the other two officers (CHCOs and CAOs) are left to an agency head’s
discretion.

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Řřȱ

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Table 1. Agency “Chief Officers”
Position
Inspector
General (IG)a

Chief Financial
Officer (CFO)b

U.S. Code
Location(s)

Function(s)

Enacting Law(s)

Audits;
investigations

Inspector General Act of
1978 (92 Stat. 1101; P.L. 95452); Inspector General Act
Amendments of 1988 (102
Stat. 2515; P.L. 100-504)

5 U.S.C.
App. 3

Financial
management;
accounting;
budgeting

Chief Financial Officers Act
of 1990 (104 Stat. 2838, at
2842; P.L. 101-576)

31 U.S.C.
§§ 901-902

Reporting Relationship

President shall appoint in
“establishments” with Senate
confirmation (PAS) without regard to
political affiliation; head of “designated
federal entity” shall appoint in accordance
with IG Act
President shall appoint with Senate
confirma-tion (PAS); or President shall
designate in consultation with agency
head; or head of agency shall appoint
(career competitive service or senior
executive service employee)
Head of agency shall designate (career or
non-career employee)

Direct report to agen-cy
head (or next in rank),
who transmits IG report,
unaltered but with
comments, to Congress
Direct report to agency
head; career deputy CFO
reports to CFO

Clinger-Cohen Act of 1996
44 U.S.C.
Direct report to agency
(110 Stat. 679, at 684;
§ 3506;
head
Division E of National
40 U.S.C.
Defense Authorization Act
§ 11315
for FY1996, P.L. 104-106)
Chief Human
Human
Chief Human Capital
5 U.S.C.
Head of agency shall appoint or designate
At discretion of agency
Capital Officer
resources and
Officers Act of 2002 (116
§§ 1401-1402
(career or non-career employee)
head
(CHCO)
personnel
Stat. 2287; Title XIII of
management
Homeland Security Act of
2002, P.L. 107-296)
Chief
Acquisition
Services Acquisition Reform
41 U.S.C.
Head of agency shall appoint or designate
At discretion of agency
Acquisition
management
Act of 2003 (117 Stat. 1663,
§ 414
(non-career employee); 41 U.S.C. §
head
Officer (CAO)
at 1666; Title XIV of the
414(c) also requires a “senior
National Defense Auth. Act
procurement executive” to be designated
for FY2004, P.L. 108-136)
a. See also CRS Report RL30795, General Management Laws: A Compendium, by nae reacte et al.
b. See also CRS Report RL31965, Financial Management in the Federal Government: Efforts to Improve Performance, by nae reacte. The CFO Act also calls for the
appointment of deputy CFOs, which are to be career reserved senior executive service (SES) positions.
c. See also CRS Report RL30661, Government Information Technology Management: Past and Future Issues (The Clinger-Cohen Act), by e rete.
Chief
Information
Officer (CIO)c

ȬŘŚȱ

Information
resources
management;
technology

Appointment

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ȱ

A detailed history behind the creation of each of these chief officer positions is not within the
scope of this report.87 However, a common theme behind the creation of the positions was many
observers’ belief that senior managers within executive branch agencies paid insufficient attention
to functional perspectives (e.g., financial management) in managing their agencies. Therefore,
many observers believed that each functional perspective needed to be “elevated” to a higher,
more salient position within agencies’ management ranks, as a means to ensure that long-standing
problems would be addressed.88

—Ž›ŠŽ—Œ¢ȱ˜ž—Œ’•œȱ
In turn, each group of chief officers was placed into an interagency council by statute or executive
order. Table 2, on the next page, summarizes key information about each of these councils,
including (1) the statutory membership of the council, (2) the chair of the council, (3) a United
States Code or Code of Federal Regulations citation for key statutory provisions or the executive
order, (4) the law or executive order that established the council, and (5) notes and the council’s
website location, if available.89 As the table shows, four of the councils were established by law,
but two (the IG councils) exist through executive order. Memberships of the councils vary
considerably, but the Office of Management and Budget’s deputy director for management is the
chair or vice chair for each, thus enabling the Executive Office of the President to direct, or at
least influence, each council’s activities.

87
For the history behind each of these positions, see the compendium’s entries for each position’s enacting law and the
CRS reports listed at the bottom of the table.
88
For example, see the General Accounting Office’s 1988 analysis recommending the establishment of agency chief
financial management officers: U.S. General Accounting Office, Transition Series: Financial Management Issues,
GAO/OCG-89-7TR, Nov. 1988, pp. 22-23. With regard to establishment of chief acquisition officers, see Jason
Peckenpaugh, “Chief Acquisition Officer Proposal Wins Endorsement,” GovExec.com, June 17, 2003, available at
http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0603/061703p1.htm, visited Feb. 3, 2004 (a hard copy is available from the author’s
files). Moreover, a similar proliferation of “chief officer” titles had been occurring in the private sector for some time.
See, for example, testimony supporting the establishment of CHCO positions that cited the existence of these positions
in many large corporations: U.S. Congress, Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, Subcommittee on
International Security, Proliferation and Federal Services, The Federal Workforce: Legislative Proposals for Change,
hearings, 107th Cong., 2nd sess., Mar. 18-19, 2002 (Washington: GPO, 2003), p. 52.
89
For a broader survey on federal interagency councils and coordination efforts, see CRS Report RL31357, Federal
Interagency Coordinative Mechanisms: Varied Types and Numerous Devices, by (name redacted). Another
management-oriented council, the President’s Management Council (PMC), is described in CRS Report RS21001,
President’s Management Council: Memorandum of Establishment, by (name redacted).

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Table 2. Interagency Councils

U.S.
Code or
C.F.R.

Statutory or
Other Authority

Notes/Website

3 C.F.R.,
1992
Comp.,
pp. 299302
31 U.S.C.
§ 901
note

Executive Order
12805 (President
George H.W. Bush),
May 11, 1992

The PCIE was initially
established by E.O. 12301
(Reagan), March 26, 1981
http://www.ignet.gov

Chief Financial
Officers Act of 1990
(104 Stat. 2838, at
2848; P.L. 101-576)

Deputy CFOs are included
as council members by the
CFO Council charter
http://www.cfoc.gov

OMB DDM, chairperson (per statute,
administrator of OMB’s
Office of E-Government
leads on DDM’s behalf)

44 U.S.C.
§ 3603

E-Government Act
of 2002 (116 Stat.
2899, at 2905; P.L.
107-347)

The CIO Council was
initially established by E.O.
13011 (Clinton), July 16,
1996
http://www.cio.gov

Director of OPM; OMB
DDM is vice chairperson

5 U.S.C.
§ 1401
note

OMB DDM, chairman

41 U.S.C.
§ 414b

Chief Human Capital
Officers Act of 2002
(116 Stat. 2287, at
2288; P.L. 107-296)
Services Acquisition
Reform Act of 2003
(117 Stat. 1663, at
1668; P.L. 108-136)

No website; see
http://www.opm.gov/hrmc
for OPM memoranda to
agency CHCOs
No website; see
http://www.fac.gov for
Federal Acquisition Council
website

Council Name(s)

Membership

Chair

President’s Council on
Integrity and Effciency
(PCIE); Executive
Council on Integrity
and Efficiency (ECIE)a
Chief Financial
Officers Council (CFO
Council)b

Inspectors general (IGs)—
presidentially appointed IGs (PCIE)
and other IGs (ECIE); others including
Director of Office of Government
Ethics, Special Counsel, etc.
Agency statutory CFOs appointed
under 31 U.S.C. § 901; Fiscal Assistant
Secretary of the Treasury; controller
of OMB Office of Federal Financial
Management (OFFM)

OMB deputy director
for management (DDM),
chairperson of PCIE and
ECIE

Chief Information
Officer Council (CIO
Council)c

CIOs from agencies at 31 U.S.C. §
901(b); administrator of OMB’s Office
of Electronic Government; administrator of OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA);
CIOs from military services, others
CHCOs of “Executive departments”
and others designated by Director of
Office of Personnel Management
(OPM)
Administrator for Federal
Procurement Policy; agency CAOs;
other officials

Chief Human Capital
Officer (CHCO)
Chief Acquisition
Officers Council
(CAO)

OMB DDM, chairperson

a. See also CRS Report 98-379, Statutory Offices of Inspector General: Past and Present, by nae redacted.
b. See also CRS Report RL31965, Financial Management in the Federal Government: Efforts to Improve Performance, by nae redacted.
c. See also CRS Report RL30661, Government Information Technology Management: Past and Future Issues (The Clinger-Cohen Act), by e rete.

ȬŘŜȱ

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ȱ

President Ronald Reagan established the first of these councils, the President’s Council on
Integrity and Efficiency (PCIE), with a membership of agency IGs through executive order in
1981.90 The executive order required the PCIE to develop “plans for coordinated governmentwide activities which attack fraud and waste in government programs and operations.” According
to one observer, “the PCIE would quickly become a continuing source of leverage as the IGs
fought for resources within their agencies” and sought to become more independent. Furthermore,
the PCIE “was roundly endorsed as a tool for both enhancing the lobbying power of the IGs and
building the informal networks that support organizational learning.”91 The PCIE established
standing committees in areas where IGs found benefits from sharing ideas or cooperating on
projects. According to an IG who was asked what he thought about the PCIE in a hearing before
the House Committee on Government Operations in 1988:
I think [the PCIE has] been an extraordinarily positive innovation.... [I]t has permitted us to
work together, and to come together. We develop our own work plan.... It has provided a
mechanism I think is unique in Government.... We’re all very close colleagues and friends
because of the fact that we can work together; we have a mechanism to go across the
Government on fraud, waste, and abuse issues. I can’t overstate the value of that particular
vehicle of the Council.92

However, the PCIE was also criticized in the late 1980s as “‘a trade union ... for the IGs, ... an
opportunity to get together and figure out ways to grow.’”93 In 1992, President George H. W.
Bush issued a new executive order establishing two IG councils, the PCIE for presidentially
appointed IGs and an Executive Council on Integrity and Efficiency (ECIE) for IGs typically
appointed by agency heads.94
The Chief Financial Officers (CFO) Council, the second council to be created, was established by
the Chief Financial Officers Act of 1990. The CFO Act also established the deputy director for
management (DDM) position in the President’s Office of Management and Budget. The CFO Act
gave the DDM chairperson status over the CFO Council, and, moreover, charged the DDM with
overall responsibility for establishing “general management policies” in the executive branch for
the “functions” listed at 31 U.S.C. § 503(a) and (b), which include financial management,
procurement policy, information and statistical policy, property management, human resources
management, and program evaluation, among other functions.95
According to one commentator, the CFO Council was initially “passive.” However, in 1994,
council members recommended several actions to energize the council: broaden membership to
include career deputy CFO positions that were also established by the CFO Act, elect several
council officers, and set the agenda themselves rather than receive it from OMB.96 OMB
90
Executive Order 12301, “Integrity and Efficiency in Federal Programs,” Mar. 26, 1981 (3 C.F.R., 1981 Comp., pp.
144-146). This executive order was later replaced with E.O. 12625 of the same name, issued Jan. 27, 1988 (3 C.F.R.,
1988 Comp., pp. 550-552).
91
Paul C. Light, Monitoring Government, pp. 104, 187.
92
Testimony of Richard P. Kusserow, in U.S. Congress, House Committee on Government Operations, The Inspectors
General: A 10-Year Review, hearing, 100th Cong., 2nd sess., Aug. 4, 1988, p. 181.
93
Quoted in Light, Monitoring Government, p. 188.
94
Executive Order 12805, “Integrity and Efficiency in Federal Programs,” 3 C.F.R., 1992 Comp., pp. 299-302.
95
The OMB DDM was made chairperson over the PCIE and ECIE by E.O. 12805 in 1992.
96
Michael D. Serlin, “Born-Again Financial Management,” Government Executive, May 1996, pp. 63-64. A dated
history and guide to the council’s activities are available at http://www.cfoc.gov, visited Jan. 22, 2004.

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Řŝȱ

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ȱ

supported the recommendations. Similar to the PCIE, the CFO Council also formed a variety of
committees for areas of special emphasis.97 Finally, the commentator concluded:
[OMB’s deputy director for management] has only modest resources at his disposal, but he
has tremendous leveraging opportunities through the many interagency councils he chairs.
That approach is clearly working with the CFO Council, which can serve as a model for
other interagency efforts.98

After the CFO Council was established and running, Congress established three additional chief
officer councils: the CIO Council in 2002, the CHCO Council in 2002, and the CAO Council in
2003.99

ŸŠ—ŠŽœȱŠ—ȱ’œŠŸŠ—ŠŽœȱ
The establishment of IGs, CFOs, and CIOs has met with little criticism. On the contrary, longtime observers generally concur that these three chief officer positions (the ones with longest
track records) are important and have been successful to greater or lesser extents in bringing
focus to their functional perspectives.100 Nonetheless, as the entries in the compendium mention,
observers have identified some difficult challenges that face these officers in their efforts to
improve agency management practices, including high turnover among CIOs, potential
difficulties with change management as agency financial reporting requirements continue to
accelerate, and performance measurement. More broadly, some commentators have argued that,
even after these positions were created, agencies continued to suffer from persistent management
difficulties when budget pressures and lack of attention from political appointees, who typically
serve for short times, diminished agencies’ management and analytical capabilities.101 Further,
many management scholars remain wary of functional silos that sometimes see the world from a
narrow, functional perspective at the expense of a more integrated general management
perspective.
With regard to interagency councils of chief officers, observers have noted periods of more and
less effectiveness, as discussed above. However, observers generally agree that interagency
councils have been beneficial. Public management scholars, in recent years, have paid increasing
attention to the potential benefits of interagency collaboration.102 As noted in the compendium’s
97
OMB also established a Budget Officers Advisory Council (BOAC) to foster communication between OMB and
agency budget offices. See the Council’s Web page on the CFO Council’s website at http://cfoc.gov/groups/boac/
bagendas.cfm, visited Jan. 22, 2004, for agendas and minutes of some of the council’s meetings.
98
Serlin, “Born-Again Financial Management,” p. 64.
99
The CIO Council was originally established by President William Clinton via Executive Order 13011, “Federal
Information Technology,” 3 C.F.R., 1996 Comp., pp. 202-209. The CAO Council may replace the Federal Acquisition
Council, an interagency council of procurement officials established under 41 U.S.C. 405(e)(3).
100
CHCOs and CAOs are still new to the federal government.
101
For more information on political appointee turnover, see U.S. General Accounting Office, Political Appointees:
Turnover Rates in Executive Schedule Positions Requiring Senate Confirmation, GAO/GGD-94-115FS, Apr. 1994. For
more on potential effects of budget pressures on agency management and analytical capacities, see U.S. General
Accounting Office, Major Performance and Accountability Challenges: Department of Defense, GAO-03-098, Jan.
2003, p. 28; U.S. General Accounting Office, Transition Series: Program Evaluation Issues, GAO/OCG-93-6TR, Dec.
1992; and Walter Williams, Mismanaging America: The Rise of the Anti-Analytic Presidency (Lawrence, KS:
University Press of Kansas, 1990).
102
See, for example, Eugene Bardach, Getting Agencies to Work Together: The Practice and Theory of Managerial
Craftsmanship (Washington: Brookings Institution, 1998).

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ŘŞȱ

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entry for Chapter 14 of Title 5, United States Code, Congress received testimony from a former
OMB official that councils can play an important role in improving federal management:
I think the [Chief Human Capital Officers] Council is important because more and more
academic research on how organizations work well suggests that setting up networks of
people to share knowledge, share best practices, share information, share approaches, is a
very important thing in getting organizations to perform well. So I think having a situation
where the different human capital officers in the different parts of the Federal Government
meet regularly, get to know each other, talk to each other, can be very valuable.103

Within the management literature and in many companies and government agencies, considerable
attention has been devoted to this “knowledge management” perspective.104 However,
management theorists are ever-wary of the possible allure of seeing agencies’ problems primarily
from the perspective of only one function, which they argue should be avoided if that functional
perspective becomes too narrow and runs the risk of doing violence to other functions or the
agency overall. In addition, some scholars and practitioners have emphasized instead that the
problem of improving federal executive branch management requires a re-thinking of the
structure and role of OMB, within the Executive Office of the President.105

Š—ŠŽ–Ž—ȱ˜•’Œ¢ȱ™’˜—œȱ
Congress might consider further questions with regard to chief officers and interagency councils.
For example, should executive branch agencies have additional chief officers, or their
equivalents?106 Are there too many chief officers already? Should anything be done to preserve
institutional memory and continuity for chief officer positions occupied by political appointees,
whose tenures are short? Should all the councils be statutory? How should the councils be

103

Testimony of Steven J. Kelman, in U.S. Congress, Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, Subcommittee on
International Security, Proliferation and Federal Services, The Federal Workforce: Legislative Proposals for Change,
p. 57.
104
For a brief overview of knowledge management from the private sector perspective, see David A. Garvin, General
Management: Processes and Action (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2002), pp. 420-438.
105
For example, see (name redacted), “The Need for an Office of Federal Management: Now More Than Ever,” paper
presented at the National Academy of Public Administration and Johns Hopkins University “Executive Organization
and Management After September 11” Conference, Washington, DC, Oct. 2003 [available from the author’s files];
U.S. Congress, House Committee on Government Reform, Subcommittee on Government Management, Information,
and Technology, The Office of Management and Budget: Is OMB Fulfilling its Mission?, hearing, 106th Cong., 2nd
sess., Apr. 7, 2000 (Washington: GPO, 2001); ibid., To Establish an Office of Management in the Executive Office of
the President, hearing, 106th Cong., 1st sess., Feb. 4, 1999 (Washington: GPO, 2000); and Paul C. Light, The Tides of
Reform, pp. 224-228. For an overview of OMB, see CRS Report RS21665, Office of Management and Budget (OMB):
A Brief Overview, by (name redacted).
106
In addition to the options outlined in this report, other senior officer positions and interagency councils have been
established and proposed. On Feb. 6, 2004, President George W. Bush issued Executive Order 13327, which requires
CFO Act agencies and the Department of Homeland Security to establish “senior real property officers”—similar to the
positions proposed for establishment by legislation in the 108th Congress (H.R. 2548)—and establishes an interagency
Federal Real Property Council within OMB (E.O. 13327, “Federal Real Property Asset Management,” 69 Federal
Register 5897, Feb. 6, 2004). Furthermore, recently, GAO convened a roundtable to discuss the merits of agency “chief
operating officers” (COOs): see U.S. General Accounting Office, Comptroller General’s Forum: High-Performing
Organizations: Metrics, Means, and Mechanisms for Achieving High Performance in the 21st Century Public
Management Environment, GAO-04-343SP, Feb. 13, 2004; and U.S. General Accounting Office, Highlights of a GAO
Roundtable: The Chief Operating Officer Concept: A Potential Strategy to Address Federal Governance Challenges,
GAO-03-192SP, Oct. 4, 2002.

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Řşȱ

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ȱ

funded? Should the councils be made more accountable to Congress through direct appropriations
and periodic reporting? These options are briefly outlined below.
•

“Chief security officers”: GAO has found that agencies may not have adequate
plans for ensuring that government services are available in emergencies.107 In
the wake of the war against terrorism and increasing consciousness of physical
and information security risks for federal agencies, should Congress establish
agency “chief security officers” (CSOs)? According to a 2002 news report, over
half of 72 surveyed corporate chief executive officers had designated CSOs.108
According to the website for CSO Magazine, many CSOs deal solely with
information technology and report to the company CIO. However, CSO
Magazine’s website also asserts that, “[i]n a growing number of large enterprises,
the CSO handles not only IT but all security responsibilities, such as access to
buildings and grounds.”109 While establishing statutory CSO positions could
encourage battles for turf between CIOs and CSOs with regard to information
security, creating these positions might bring a more integrated approach to
security and risk management at federal agencies. Many federal agencies,
however, may already have established systems and processes to address these
issues. In addition, in view of the increasing number of chief officers, some
observers might argue that requiring an additional type of chief officer for
agencies would be excessive.

•

“Chief program evaluation officers”: Many observers have asserted that
agencies frequently do not adequately evaluate the performance or results of their
programs—or integrate evaluation efforts across agency boundaries—possibly
due to lack of capacity, management attention and commitment, or resources.110
Congress could establish “chief program evaluation officer” (CPEO) positions in
major agencies to bring more attention to this function if it deemed these to be
serious problems. Because programs can differ considerably and the field of
program evaluation is highly interdisciplinary, evaluation methods differ from
program to program.111 Proponents might argue that establishing these chief
officer positions could create a “seat at the table” for program evaluation in

107

GAO cites terrorist attacks, severe weather, and building-level emergencies as examples of such emergencies. See
U.S. General Accounting Office, Continuity of Operations: Improved Planning Needed to Ensure Delivery of Essential
Government Services, GAO-04-160, Feb. 2004. For more information on executive branch continuity of operations and
security management, see CRS Report RL31857, Continuity of Operations (COOP) in the Executive Branch:
Background and Issues for Congress, by (name redacted), and CRS Report RL31739, Federal Agency Emergency
Preparedness and Dismissal of Employees, by (name redacted).
108
See Cynthia Flash, “Rise of the Chief Security Officer,” InternetNews.com, available at
http://www.internetnews.com/ent-news/article.php/7_997111, visited Jan. 22, 2004. A hard copy is available from the
author’s files.
109
See http://www.csoonline.com/research/executive/cso_role.html, visited Jan. 22

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/documents/crs%3ARL32388. Public record. Not legal advice.