Insights

What are some of the most critical insights OMB has gained?

  • A valuable program inventory would help facilitate more informed decision-making and further enhance Federal policymakers’ ability to make resource allocation decisions.
    • Creating this type of inventory requires identifying programs that stakeholders can readily compare and collecting a variety of information about each program.
    • Currently there is not a single definition of program that is consistently applied by the Budget, CFO, and Performance communities across the Federal government.
    • The lack of a common definition means data about individual programs resides across disparate locations and systems within an agency and there are no linkages that would allow for automatic identification of programs.
    • Building these linkages will require agency efforts to consistently identify programs and potentially technical adjustments to existing financial systems.
    • Critical Insight:  Creating an inventory requires broad consensus across stakeholders about which programs should be included.

  • Clear communication and extensive agency engagement are critical to success.
    • OMB has prioritized engaging agencies throughout the pilot.
    • In total, more than 200 agency staff have already participated in FPI meetings or presentations with OMB, and OMB has addressed hundreds of data issues directly with agencies.
    • This engagement has and will continue to be a two-way street – OMB was able to assist agencies with a wide variety of issues and OMB is learning from agencies and their experiences.
    • Critical Insight:  The success of any future iteration of the FPI hinges on thorough agency feedback and cooperation at every stage.

  • Focusing agency effort and managing the scope through the use of categories or a similar concept can be useful rather than trying to identify the universe of an agency’s programs at the same time.
    • The pilot focused on 12 categories of spending to target agency efforts.
    • The use of categories also facilitated immediate cross-cutting analysis of the pilot data and further illustrated the potential benefits of constructing a more comprehensive inventory.
    • Category definitions generally helped agencies identify spending that may be relevant to the pilot exercise. Applying a similar concept in future program inventory implementations may simplify the analysis of applicable spending.
    • Using categories enabled OMB to utilize subject matter expertise within OMB and agencies to assist with identification and classification of particular sets of programs.
    • Critical Insight:  Use of categories or something similar may be helpful for scoping purposes.

  • Agencies can identify the programs that are in their purview.
    • For the pilot, OMB defined program as a unique combination of how agencies spend their money and the purpose of that spending (e.g., Formula Grants for Housing Assistance).
    • This definition uses common elements to define programs in a way that makes those programs more readily comparable across agencies.
    • Although there were issues with consistency in applying this multi-dimensional approach across agencies, in many cases agencies were able to identify their programs and to provide appropriate descriptions of them.
    • Critical Insight:  The early results of the pilot indicate agencies’ have a deep understanding of their programs that could allow for consistent and comprehensive listings.

  • The use of common elements needs to be refined.
    • The pilot defined program using a common set of elements that, when used together, would create a program identifier.  This definition relied upon the recommended approach to developing an inventory laid out by GAO in a 2017 report.
    • The use of these elements was not as successful at identifying a program identifier as expected.
    • Specifically, there were issues related to the consistency with which agencies applied these elements and the elements did not prove to be unique in many cases.
    • Based on agency feedback and cursory examination of the data, there are several adjustments to these elements that will need to be re-considered if this methodology is to be applied in future iterations of the inventory.
    • Critical Insight:  Early results of the pilot indicate there is still substantial work to be done, in particular with respect to consistently creating a program identifier, before a coherent and comprehensive inventory is attainable.