ASPA Center for Accountability & Performance

Emphasizing Evidence: Strengthening Texas Grantmaking

Results for America

What does investing in what works look like? In Texas, state workforce officials are demonstrating how evidence-based grantmaking can improve outcomes for young people looking for a pathway to a successful career.

Public Sector Porkies – 10 Years of Lying Up the Hierarchy

Centre for Public Impact

I quickly learned that in the real world, data is cleansed, re-presented and re-formatted until it tells an acceptable and neat story.

Data Is Infrastructure

Data Coalition

When the United States government issued its Federal Data Strategy in 2019, it recognized the role of data as a component of infrastructure.

Survey Measures Show Feds Are Happier with Their Jobs in the Midst of a Pandemic

Federal Times

Even during the worst global pandemic of the century, increased demands on public jobs and a radical shift to predominantly remote work, federal employees are confident in their agencies’ ability to keep them safe and recognize their hard work, according to results of the 2020 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey.

Hiring Assessment Dashboards Help

Federal News Network

Most agencies rely on job candidates to self-certify their own skills and abilities, but those assessments bring in qualified talent about half the time, according to a federal hiring data dashboard.

Using AI to Assess Contractor Performance

Federal News Network

If the federal acquisition workforce is ever going to make contractor evaluations meaningful, it’s going to happen this year.

Data Science for Everyone – Webinar, April 26^th

Center for Radical Innovation for Social Change, University of Chicago

Join the Data Science for Everyone coalition in a webinar led by Kumar Garg of Schmidt Futures to learn more about the Data Science for Everyone Commitments Campaign 

Trump Administration Performance Management Archives

U.S. Office of Management and Budget

Federal Cross-Agency Priority Goals, Agency Strategic Plans did not completely disappear with the end of the Trump Administration

Update to Implementation of Performance Management Statutes

U.S. Office of Management and Budget

Restores Part 6 to OMB Circular A-11, “Federal Performance Framework for Improving Program and Service Delivery.”

Grants Management: OMB Should Collect and Share Lessons Learned from Use of COVID-19-Related Grant Flexibilities

U.S. Government Accountability Office

OMB issued 15 temporary exceptions to its grant requirements; should they become permanent?

Federal Low-Income Programs: Data to Verify Eligibility Varies Among Selected Programs and Opportunities Exist to Promote Additional Use

U.S. Government Accountability Office

GAO reviewed 6 federal programs that reported using over 30 data sources to verify recipient eligibility. It recommends federal agencies share with state and local agencies to improve their verification processes.

Inclusive, Equity-Centered Government

Deloitte Research

Embedding greater inclusion, diversity, and equity into the public sector to address underlying imbalances

Performance and Management

OMB restores data-driven goal setting requirements that Trump nixed

Dave Nyczepir, FedScoop

An OMB memo reinstated the government’s performance improvement and service delivery framework, which expects senior leaders at agencies to set ambitious goals, hold regular progress reviews and publicly report the results. The memo also brings back customer experience tools.

How to Build Employee Commitment and Improve Performance

Howard Risher, Government Executive

A good place to start would be to reward goal achievement.

Open Data and Analytics

Three ways Biden can use open data to deliver on his ambitious agenda

Hodan Omaar, Federal News Network

There are three immediate steps that the new administration can take to leverage open and transparent data to advance President Biden’s agenda

Data community asks OMB to remember data funding in fiscal 2022

Dave Nyczepir, FedScoop

Members of the data community urged the Office of Management and Budget to include data infrastructure funding in its fiscal 2022 budget proposal in a letter sent by the Data Coalition.

Modernizing Data Sharing and Analytics Is Critical to Solving Our Nation’s Challenges

Clarke Allen, NextGov

We must evolve the way we analyze and use the treasure trove of data at our disposal.

Customer Experience

Humanizing Government Is a Public Outreach Superpower

Julia Edinger, Government Technology

Government agencies of all sorts had to adapt their public communication strategies to address the public health crisis of COVID-19. Those who did so with a human approach found a lasting connection with their audiences.

Performance & Management

Biden Administration Issues New Guidance Instructing Agencies to Start Tracking Goals Again

Eric Katz, Nextgov

White House reversed last-minute Trump policy to end the practice of developing and monitoring agency objectives.

Lessons From 30 Years of Government Reform Efforts

John Kamensky & Dan Chenok, Government Executive 

There’s much that newcomers to government should learn from the past.

Agencies Face Significant Challenges in Distributing Unprecedented Sums of COVID-19 Relief

Eric Katz, Government Executive

Some agencies are already running into hurdles, while others hope recent experience will ease the process.

The big secret of high-performing agencies

Tom Temin, Federal News Network

Sustaining the motivation for public service is key.

Open Data and Analytics

HHS data collection and sharing continues to evolve with the pandemic

Dave Nyczepir, FedScoop

COVID-19 data collection and sharing has changed throughout the pandemic at HHS to meet the needs of agencies, hospitals, industry and the public, said Kevin Duvall, acting chief data officer, Thursday.

One Year into the Pandemic, Defense Department Data Remains Incomplete

Elizabeth Howe, Government Executive

Outstanding questions include: why are civilians dying at higher rates than troops?

Performance and Management

The Business Case for Investing in Human Capital Management

Howard Risher, Government Executive

The payoff will be improved agency performance—and the gains could be significant.

OPM Modernization is Critical to Building the Federal Workforce the Nation Needs

Terry Gerton and Janet Hale, Government Executive

Rigid and outdated hiring, pay and performance policies and practices are hurting government’s capacity to respond to urgent problems.

How the Pandemic Has Impacted Grants Management

Jeff Myers, Government Executive

A new survey shows that administrative costs have spiked, while funding agencies struggle to measure outcomes.

Open Data and Analytics

Biden Creates Road Map for Equitable State and Local Data

Daniel Castro, Government Technology

Data from marginalized communities is often underreported, meaning their needs are hidden from policymakers. President Biden’s initial actions on equitable data pave a path for state and local governments to follow.

Upskill and tell the story of the data

Peter Musurlian, Federal News Network

A mastery of data literacy could mean a workforce that generates better planning and better decisions.

TMF to fund Labor Dept. data project

Natalie Alms, FCW

The Technology Modernization Fund doled out its first project of 2021 the day after getting $1 billion in the Biden administration’s Rescue Plan legislation.

The Future of AI and Intelligent Automation at Agencies

Phil Goldstein, FedTech

Agencies can go beyond robotic process automation and use artificial intelligence tools to handle more complex tasks.

Opportunity to reskill federal workforce for AI jobs ‘underutilized,’ panel warns Congress

Jory Heckman, Federal News Network

The National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence is warning that the federal government, at all levels, doesn’t have the workforce it needs to stay on top of this emerging technology.

Government Innovation

GSA kicks off two-year effort to innovate service contracting beyond OASIS

Jason Miller, Federal News Network

The new approach to services contracting aims to shake things up in a way the federal contacting community hasn’t seen in at least five years.

Customer Experience

Digital Government Is Only Successful If It Works for All

Noelle Knell, Government Technology

Government is tasked with the hefty responsibility of doing the people’s business, but what happens when people can’t access services or online systems fail?

A prescription for restoring some of the trust in government

Tom Temin, Federal News Network

Trust has been declining for decades. And the pandemic really blew a hole in that balloon. With more on the survey and some clues to restoring trust, Deloitte’s Executive Director for Government Insights Bill Eggers spoke to Federal Drive with Tom Temin.

Government agencies harness RPA ‘bots’ to build capacity, improve services

FedScoop

Federal and state government workers are beginning to benefit from a growing army of digital robots designed to streamline agency workloads and quicken the delivery of public services.

Government vaccine customer experience a mixed bag

Tom Temin, Federal News Network

The speed at which the industry developed vaccines in conjunction with the Operation Warp Speed program was a huge success. The distribution, not so much, even though the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention did develop a distribution plan last fall.