ASPA Center for Accountability & Performance

Big Changes to Federal Grants Management on Horizon

Governing (Jed Herrmann)

The federal Uniform Grants Guidance is the bible that every state and local government grants manager lives by when managing federal funds. While the proposed new rules contain dozens of individual changes, three themes stand out, including a stronger emphasis on accountability and oversight.

An Evaluation Blind Spot

Government Executive (Nick Hart)

Decades of design flaws have left agencies struggling to measure the impact of their major initiatives. It is time to move beyond compliance and build real, durable capacity.

Measuring Government

Substack (Rainer Kattel/UK)

When we measure government, we mostly don’t measure government as an organisation at all. We measure something almost entirely mediated and indirect: the impact of government, several steps removed from the organisations themselves. And this measurement gap is a huge problem — because it means we don’t actually know what makes a government effective.

Benchmarking the World

Barrett & Greene (Guest Column)
Benchmarking within peer groups can certainly produce incremental improvement. But for the big breakthroughs, global exploration can be key. The Baldrige Performance Excellence framework has long emphasized this practice. 

WEBINAR: Meeting the Challenge of Measurement (Tues., June 30, 2 p.m. Eastern)

NAPA, CODE, and Bridge Alliance

To restore public trust, we need to address the challenges facing government data – including low survey response, privacy concerns, and flawed statistical methods – and consider alternatives. Panelists on this webinar will discuss these issues in federal data and possible government solutions.

Building an On-Ramp for Evidence

Standford Social Innovation Review

Scaling effective solutions often stalls in state government because funding systems are not designed to reward proof of impact. A new partnership model shows how states and funders can unlock smarter public spending together.

Resource of the Week:  Fiscal Survey of the States, Spring 2026 Edition

Barrett & Greene

The National Association of State Budget Officers release a survey of state budget conditions twice a year. The Spring Edition is now out and details governors’ proposed budgets. (The Fall Edition details enacted budgets). B&G highlight eight key findings.

Building City-Level Data Capacity

Bloomberg Cities Network (Oliver Wise)

A growing number of city-level data teams are taking a nontraditional approach by starting with the problem, demonstrating quick results, and developing lasting capacity along the way, rather than starting with the traditional approach of creating a grand plan to standardize data and invest in central data stores.

Resource of the Week:  Building the National Data Ecosystem

USAFacts.org and CODE

This paper lays out a vision for the future data ecosystem that provides answers to pressing public questions via a shared source of knowledge and performance information that underlies public discourse. Drafting this paper engaged 154 stakeholders from all segments of society and serves as a starting point for the work ahead.

Resource of the Week:  Evidence Act One-Stop Hub

Data Foundation

Federal agencies are required by law to publicly post their plans for collecting evidence on how well their programs work. The Office of Management and Budget prior to the Trump Administration had created a useful one-stop for all agency plans and reports. The Data Foundation has re-created an Evidence Act Hub to provide easy access to these documents. It is also developing an AI-powered search tool to explore themes across agencies’ plans and policies.

WEBINAR: Implications of the President’s Management Agenda for States and Localities (Tues., June 9, 1 p.m. Eastern)

Center for Accountability & Performance

Attendee takeaways will begin with an overview of the President’s Management Agenda, its impact on grants and funding flows to states and localities and what the shifts in accountability for performance will have on their priority-setting and operations. Jed Herrmann, a former US Treasury and OMB official familiar with federal-state-local interactions, will be the discussant.

Resource of the Week:  Investing for Impact: A Decision-Making Tool

Annie E. Casey Foundation

Impact investing requires balancing financial returns with meaningful outcomes for children, families and communities. This report introduces a decision-making tool to help funders assess and compare investment opportunities with clarity and consistency.

Evidence and Policymaking: An Organizational Approach

Public Administration Review (Johan Christensen)

Evidence-informed policy-making not only depends on the rigor and relevance of the research, science communication or features of policy-makers. It also depends on how expertise arrangements in public organizations are organized.

From Receipts to Results: Denver Redesigns Homeless Shelter Contracts

Substack/Department of What Works

By tying payments to performance, the city is reducing administrative burden, improving data and helping shelter providers focus on moving people toward housing.

UK Introduces Pay for Performance for Top Civil Servants

Prime Minister’s Cabinet Office

For the first time ever, the UK Government has introduced performance-based pay progression for the Senior Civil Servants – with those who deliver for the public at an exceptional level being rewarded with salary increases. “Reward the doers, not the talkers.”

Seeking Legitimacy Through Accountability

Public Administration Review

Institution-based accountability, rooted in rational-legal authority and procedural regularity, is widely seen as the gold standard for ensuring legitimacy. However, this research experiment challenges the dominant view that emphasizes rational-legal authority as the main source of legitimacy among Chinese civil servants.