Accountability and Performance Update – May 6 – 12, 2024

Long-Time OMB Official Moves to Social Security

Federal News Network

A long-time official at the Office of Management and Budget is taking on a new role at the Social Security Administration. Dustin Brown is the SSA’s new chief operating officer and acting chief of staff. . . And in related news . . . . 

Social Security Launches Public Data Hub

Federal News Network

Social Security Administration Commissioner Martin O’Malley has been on the job for over 100 days, and now the public has the opportunity to follow along with his work against stated agency goals on how SSA serves customers. . . . This week, SSA launched a page dedicated to showcasing data around O’Malley’s top priorities to fix customer service problems at the agency charged with delivering disability benefits, retirement payments and more. 

Resource of the Week: Towards Generally Accepted Performance Principles

The Commonwealth Secretariat

Praja Trivedi and  Marc Holzer’s monograph for the Commonwealth Secretariat develops a set of 16 principles for creating highly effective governments. It is based on research, publications, and insights from panelists at various international forums.

Accountability and Performance Update – Apr 29-May 5, 2024

President’s Management Agenda Priority Goals Update

U.S. Office of Management and Budget

OMB released its quarterly progress update on the three cross-agency priority goals that comprise the President’s Management Agenda. This update covers the period Oct 1 – Jan 31, the first quarter of fiscal year 2024.

Staying Alive? Data Analytics Center

FederalNewsNetwork

The Pandemic Response Accountability Committee (PRAC) oversees $5 Trillion in pandemic aid spending but is scheduled to sunset in September 2025. A bipartisan Senate bill would help the government retain the PRAC’s data analytics platform so it would still be available to inspectors general across the government. P.S. – Congress let the 2009 center overseeing Recovery Act spending to expire. Will lessons be learned?

Can a Risk Management Lens Improve Decision Making and Performance?

FederalNewsNetwork

Agencies have been required by OMB for the past eight years to use enterprise risk management approaches in their planning and budgeting. a new survey highlights why certain agencies are more successful than others.

A Hierarchy of Administrative Reforms

IBM Center for The Business of Government (Praja Trivedi)

Today, the generation of new ideas on “how” to undertake administrative reforms has outstripped the questions: “why” to reform and “when” to reform “what”?

Mousetraps for Flawed Data

Barrett & Greene

”For years now we’ve been writing about the endless reams of bad data that are used to manage and to make policy. . . . But, as time has passed, we’ve come across a great many signals, easily spotted and identified, that point to quicker recognition that information should be scrutinized.” The article has a half dozen examples.

Can Measuring and Managing Risk Improve Resilience?

RouteFifty

The Baltimore bridge catastrophe is an opportunity for local leaders to reevaluate their community’s risk profile and grapple with a concept that is complex but vital for local resilience: the “total cost of risk.”

Resource of the Week: Let’s Talk Performance

National Center for Public Performance

The NCPP hosts (and posts) a series of Spotify podcasts on improving performance – ranging from using AI to performance budgeting, to making data-driven decisions.

Accountability and Performance Update – Apr 22-28, 2024

First Round of Updates for New Agency Priority Goals

U.S. Office of Management and Budget

These updates mark reporting from the first quarter of the FY 2024-25 performance period. They describe the progress being made in major federal agencies and highlight significant milestones or barriers along the way. Along with a continuation of many initiatives from the previous two-year term, several agencies also announced new goals spanning a range of new policy commitments.

Limitations of Dashboards for New York City Projects

Barrett & Greene

New York City has long had many delays and cost overruns on its projects. Its reporting efforts and lack of transparency have contributed to the problems. In part as a result, the city is attempting to improve in this field with the addition of a dashboard, which is supposed to replace the prior system for tracking and monitoring capital projects. But there’s nothing magical about dashboards.

Accountability and Performance Update – Apr 15-21, 2024

How Collaboration is Changing N. Carolina, One Project at a Time

RouteFifty
States that want to tap universities and philanthropies to find solutions to policy challenges using the best research, evidence and data should look at how one state mastered the communications and logistics essential for effective partnerships.

Oregon Obscures Effectiveness of Paid Leave Program

Governing

A public dashboard shows only some of the numbers pertaining to the state’s family and medical leave program that launched in September, furthering distrust in a system that has already faced a variety of issues.

Resource of the Week: Our Take on What Matters

Delivery Associates

Insights, videos, books, and podcasts by the staff of Delivery Associates, a consultancy founded by Sir Michael Barber, the pioneer of Tony Blair’s Prime Minister’s Delivery Unit.

Accountability and Performance Update – Apr 8-14, 2024

How Do We Create Systems to Support the Use of Evidence?

Administration on Children & Families, US HHS

There is a growing body of research that suggests investment is needed in “evidence-using systems” that facilitate the use of evidence. Such systems, or interventions, to facilitate evidence use span from linear (i.e. traditional dissemination efforts) to relational (i.e. fellowships or research-practice partnerships) and systems (i.e. leadership, infrastructure) approaches.

Response to Response Times

Barrett & Greene

When it comes to many vital public services, including police, fire and EMS, one of the primary – and sometimes the only – performance measurement that people use is response time. On the surface, this makes a lot of sense. . . . All that said, however, response times are often misunderstood. Sometimes, when they are overemphasized, they can actually lead to emergencies themselves.

New York City’s TrashStat

The New Yorker

On Thursday mornings, New York City Sanitation Commissioner Jessica Tisch attends a meeting called Trash Dash. Whereas CompStat involves meetings about changes in crime stats—murders, shootings, and robberies—Trash Dash involves Sanitation brass grilling lower-ranked officers about missed collections, dirty conditions, and street-sweeping efficacies. 

D.C. Police Opens ‘Real-Time Crime Center’

Washington Post

D.C. police opened the Real-Time Crime Center, the 24-hour staffed nerve center where police watch live video feeds from numerous locations and coordinate responses. 

Quantum Leaps in Public Sector Performance?

Governing

Deloitte Center for Government Insights’ Government Trends of 2024 report concludes that AI and other technologies alone aren’t sufficient. True transformation necessitates a more holistic approach, one that combines technological innovation with process reinvention, human-centered design, behavioral insights and cross-sector collaborations.

AI, Analytics, Data and Baseball: Moneyball 2.0

Washington Post

Is Fredrick Taylor back in fashion? Improving baseball performance via Driveline involves video analysis that breaks down individual muscles and movements by the inch. Hardware (bats and balls) is equipped with software (sensors) that tracks every baseball action and renders them into equations that measure force and torque. A fun article to start off baseball season!