ASPA Center for Accountability & Performance

Biden Administration Details Initial Vision, Three Top Priorities Under President’s Management Agenda

Federal News Network

The Biden administration on Thursday laid out the vision for its President’s Management Agenda, detailing three broad goals and four values that will drive a multi-year, multi-faceted effort throughout the government.

Biden’s Management Agenda Puts Feds Front and Center

Government Executive

The management agenda outlines four strategies for empowering federal employees . . . . [and] every member of the President’s Management Council signed on as an author of the report,

Why Biden’s Presidential Management Agenda is a Big Deal

Government Executive (Don Kettl)

The release of each new administration’s president’s management agenda predictably raises the question, “Is this a big deal?” For the new Biden PMA, the answer is a clear “yes,” in subtle and surprising ways. 

State Highway Performance: Where Does Your State Rank?

Governing

A new report by the Reason Foundation ranks state highways on their cost effectiveness. The categories analyzed in the report include such things as spending per mile of highway, administrative costs per mile, the condition of urban and rural pavement, traffic fatalities and deficient bridges.

How New Mexico Has Become a Leader in Evidence-Based Policymaking

Barrett & Greene (Charles Sallee)

New Mexico stands “at the forefront of states engaging in evidence-based policymaking,” according to a Pew Charitable Trusts brief published this year.

Resource of the Week:  Evidence-Building and Evaluation in Government

Kathryn Newcomer and Nick Hart

This new book provides a road map for evaluators doing business within or for government, and public managers who are expected to assess and use evidence generated by a large variety of evaluation approaches. The book provides checklists and how-to guidance to help students and other readers develop skills in important activities such as assessing the quality of evidence claims and developing theories of change.

More Federal Agencies Report Using Performance Data

NextGov

More federal agencies made operational decisions based on performance data than in prior years, showing progress meeting the goals of the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act according to a survey conducted by the Government Accountability Office. 

Pathways to Work: Evidence Clearinghouse

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children & Families

The Pathways to Work Evidence Clearinghouse is a comprehensive, transparent, and systematic assessment of the effectiveness of interventions designed to help job seekers with low incomes succeed in the labor market.

County-Level Plans for Use of Rescue Plan Recovery Funds

National Association of Counties

NACo has created a collection of planned ARPA Recovery Fund investments, sourced from official county documents such as the State and Local Fiscal Recovery Fund (SLFRF) Recovery Plan Performance Reports, county press releases or other county budgeting materials. The searchable database includes 187 plans, 150 of which are Recovery Plans. SLFRF Recovery Plans contain detailed project performance data, including information on efforts to improve equity and engage communities for counties with populations above 250,000.

How to Make Your Performance Review Process Less Painful

Government Executive

If you’re a leader in an organization that puts a lot of effort into the annual performance review process, here are three ideas that can make the annual review process more meaningful and help set you and your team up for success.

Chattanooga’s Data-Driven Mission to End Veteran Homelessness

What Works Cities

In 2014, the city set out to house all of the city’s homeless veterans by 2016. They canvassed the city to track down every homeless veteran and found 184. They then began to hold weekly meetings with case managers and city officials, using a dashboard to track progress. It partnered with other agencies and nonprofits, and created a taskforce to get veterans into housing, cutting the time from 300 to 60 days. This use of data-driven techniques was then applied to other realms.

Resource of the Week:   Tools for Decision Making: A Practical Guide for Local Government

David Ammons and Dale J. Roenigk (2022) 3^rd edition. Routledge Publishers

This brand-new third edition is written in an easy-to-read style with an emphasis on providing practical assistance to local government practitioners, it features analytic methods selected for their relevance to everyday problems encountered in city and county governments.

What Is Evidence? Basics of Evidence, Brief  #1

Urban Institute

By understanding the many types, uses, and qualities of good evidence, federal policymakers and program managers can improve their policies and programs and—ultimately—social, economic, environmental, and other outcomes. 

Evidence-Based Policymaking: Survey Results Suggest Increased Use of Performance Information across the Federal Government

 U.S. Government Accountability Office

Using results from GAO’s 2020 survey of about 4,000 federal managers, this report analyzes reported views on the use of performance information in decision-making at their agencies. The reported use of performance information in decision-making increased across the federal government when compared to prior surveys.

Federal Agencies Are Using Data and Evidence to Drive an Equitable Recovery

Results for America

Results for America released the 2021 Invest in What Works Federal Standard of Excellence, which highlights the progress that nine leading federal agencies have made in implementing the Evidence Act and using evidence and data to improve the impact of $286 billion in federal investments.

Ten Steps for Advancing Racial Equity with American Rescue Plan Funding

RouteFifty

A PolicyLink report identifies ten priorities for advancing racial equity by using ARP Act funds, including tracking disaggregated data to ensure accountability to equity goals.

With Data, Cities Max ARP Spending Plans

Bloomberg Cities Network

A recent survey of What Works Cities members found that 70 percent are systematically using data-informed decision-making to respond to the COVID-19 crisis. Bloomberg Cities checked in with a number of these cities to identify four main ways that having solid data capacity in place is helping governments deploy their new federal funds effectively.

Building an Equitable Future

Barrett & Greene (Chris Fabian)

ResourceX partnered with Results for America and the Government Finance Officers Association to work with a cohort of cities on the What Works Cities City Budgeting for Equity and Recovery (CBER) program. Through this program, select cities endeavored to define equity for their community and align resources accordingly through Priority Based Budgeting.

Resource of the Week:  List of Performance-Focused Reports Over the Years

Urban Institute 

A search of Urban Institute reports associated with Harry Hatry produces a fascinating list of 160 reports spanning several decades of Institute reports on performance management and related topics.

Is a Focus on Goals a Good Idea?

Government Executive

Effective organizations encourage self-control, good process, proper discussion, and are more driven by growth mindsets than unrealistic performance metrics, according to the authors of this article.

States Bolster Program Evaluation Using American Rescue Plan Funds

Pew Charitable Trusts/Results First Initiative

Leaders in Colorado and New Mexico are considering an innovative approach using federal relief funding to build capacity for evidence-based policymaking – a smart investment that can have a positive impact down the road.

A Guide for Using Administrative Data to Examine Long-Term Outcomes in Program Evaluation

MDRC

This guide is a resource to assist program evaluation teams—including funders, sponsors, and evaluation research partners—in assessing the feasibility and potential value of examining long-term outcomes using administrative data.

Three Keys to a Successful Evaluation Office

GovInnovator (Podcast)

What does it take to be a successful evaluation office within a public agency? Three things that are important are being trustworthy, being engaging, and being relentless, explains Dr. Susan Jenkins, director of performance and evaluation for the Administration for Community Living in the Department of Health and Human Services.

Practical Steps for Building State Capacity and Infrastructure to Data for Evidence-Based Decision Making

NORC at University of Chicago (Nancy Potok and Nick Hart)

This paper provides a roadmap based on specific examples taken from successful federal and state experiences that can help states and local governments build capacity and infrastructure to use data for evidence-based decision-making. (scroll past cover page to see the actual paper).

Resource of the Week:  Customer Experience One-Stop for Selected Federal Services

Office of Management and Budget

While most of the projects undertaken via Cross-Agency Priority Goals have gone into hibernation on OMB’s Performance.gov website – after the end of the Trump administration and until the Biden administration launches its own CAP goals — the Customer Experience initiative continues and is becoming increasingly informative and substantive. Hopefully this will be the model all new CAP goals will adopt, instead of the previous static, stale approach used in the past.