Senate Hearing Will Examine Use of Performance Information

Sen. Carper's (D-DE) Homeland Security and Government Affairs Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information and International Security is scheduled to hold a hearing this Thursday, Sept. 24, on the use of performance information within federal agency decision-making processes.

The hearing, entitled Getting to Better Government: Focusing on Performance [1] is a follow up to a hearing Carper held in 2008 [2] on the use of performance information. Two interesting things to watch in this hearing.

First, the Government Accountability Office will be releasing additional information about a study that sought to understand the extent to which federal agencies use performance data for correcting problems and sharing best practices, and how their use could be improved. GAO released preliminary findings from this survey at the first hearing in 2008.

Second, this will be perhaps the first time newly-appointed Chief Performance Officer Jeffrey Zients will testify before Congress about the future of the Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART) and the Obama administration's plans for developing a more useful and productive performance measurement system. Although Carper's release on the hearing states Zients is planning to talk about "OMB plans to strengthen a performance culture throughout the federal government," this hearing would be a very appropriate place to share information about the broader reform plans being developed within OMB and throughout the federal government. Given this is a topic OMB Watch has been heavily involved in monitoring, we are particularly interested in hearing his testimony.

The hearing is scheduled to begin at 10:30 am in Dirksen Senate Office Building Room 342.