DOE's Strategic Management System The Department of Energy's Strategic Management System links together the planning, budgeting and program evaluation processes required by the Government Performance and Results Act and other management reforms. This site consolidates links to Department-wide information sources.

Introduction

In the last few years, Congress has enacted several laws to reform management throughout the government. First among these is GPRA, the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993, now simply called the "Results Act". This law requires agencies to develop tri-annual strategic plans, annual performance plans, and annually report results beginning with the FY 1999 budget cycle. Other laws, like the Chief Financial Officers Act of 1990, Government Management Reform Act of 1994 (GMRA), Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act of 1994, and the Information Technology Management Reform Act of 1996, call for similar activities, products, and reports. The Department is well on its way to implement these reforms through its Strategic Management System initiated in 1996 and endorsed by Secretary Richardson. This systems approach was created because we want better management systems, not just because the laws require us to.

For some time the Department has been implementing better management practices that meet the spirit of the management reform laws. Our first Strategic Plan was published in April 1994, three and a half years before the Results Act required one. That strategic plan introduced the concept of business lines to organize our wide spectrum of missions and was written for the public, our stakeholders, and ourselves. It was very well received and got us started.

Although the laws discuss the process for one fiscal year, which takes a long time from strategic planning to reporting results, almost four years. The first year under the Results Act is fiscal year (FY) 1999 which is October 1, 1998 through September 30, 1999. The Department began implementation for FY 1999 with a new strategic plan published in September 1997 and a performance plan submitted with the FY 1999 budget in February 1998. The report of results for FY 1999 will be made by March 31, 2000. However, we have been developing performance plans, performance agreements, and reporting annually on the commitments since FY 1995.

We will be updating our strategic plan this year, ahead of the legal requirements. Several strategic changes have occurred since our last plan including the development of the Comprehensive National Energy Strategy and the Accelerating Cleanup: Paths to Closure.

Where the "rubber meets the road," we have developed and executed Performance Agreements between the Secretary and President for each year since FY 1995. These gave us experience in setting performance goals and establishing realistic but challenging performance expectations in preparation for the Results Act. The results we delivered in FY 1995 were used in the Department's Annual Performance Report for FY 1994 and 1995. This report was"re-invented," in that it was organized along the lines of the Strategic Plan's business lines and was only 61 pages rather than the 500 page behemoths previously published for fiscal years. At the end of FY 1996, offices again provided the results against commitments made in a Performance Agreement between the Secretary and the President. This time they were used for the annual financial statements required by GMRA. GMRA is commonly thought of as only requiring audited financial statements, but it also requires reporting on the "results of those funded activities." We began using the results reported for the Performance Agreement as the GMRA results. The financial statements for FY 1996 also serve as the annual report for FY 1996 and received a "clean opinion" from our Inspector General. For FY 1997, we again created a Performance Agreement and the results on that agreement were published in March 1998, again with a "clean opinion."

In preparation for "Results Act" implementation, the Department prepared one of the Results Act's documents with the FY 1998 budget request. It was the "Budget Highlights and Performance Plan". This was our first annual performance plan and it addressed performance by business lines and program areas. We were a year ahead of the Results Act's legal requirement for this. For FY 1999, we again prepared a performance plan within the Budget Highlights and Performance Plan. For FY 2000, the Annual Performance Plan addresses three years of performance. It includes a review of the commitments and results for FY 1998, finalizes the proposed commitments for FY 1999, and proposes commitments to go with the proposed budget for FY 2000.

Overall, we believe the Department is out in front of the rest of the Federal government on implementing these laws. We have already produced all the parts that will be required beginning with FY 1999.

• April 2, 1997 Presentation on DOE's Response to the Results Acts

Planning
DOE will be updating its Strategic Plan during the Spring of 1999. The process is under development.

• DOE's FY 2000 Annual Performance Plan. (pdf)
  (includes side by side FY 1998 Agreement with results,
  FY 1999 final commitments, and
  FY 2000 proposed measures)
  

• DOE's FY 1999 Annual Performance Plan (pdf)

• FY 1999 Strategic Planning Budget Guidance memo of April 22, 1997

• DOE's FY 1998 Performance Plan (pdf)

• DOE's Strategic Plan of September 1997

• DOE's Strategic Plan of April 1994

Budget Formulation

• FY 2000 Budget Request

• FY 1999 Budget Request

• FY 1998 Budget Request

Budget Execution

• Secretary's Performance Agreement for FY 1998

• Secretary's Performance Agreement for FY 1997
• Secretary's Performance Agreement for FY 1996
• Secretary's Performance Agreement for FY 1995

Evaluation

• DOE's FY 1998 Accountability Report (DOE's annual report) (pdf file)

• DOE's FY 1997 Annual Report

• DOE's FY 1996 Annual Consolidated Financial Statements

• DOE's FY 1994/5 Annual Performance Report

Legislation

GOVERNMENT PERFORMANCE AND RESULTS ACT OF 1993 (GPRA)

 GPRA requires each Federal Agency to:

• develop strategic plans prior to FY 1998, which include a comprehensive mission statement, a statement of goals and objectives and how the Federal Agency plans to achieve them, a summary of resources required to meet those goals and objectives, and a description of key external factors that could affect achievement of these general goals
• prepare annual plans setting performance goals for the fiscal year beginning with FY 1999
• report annually on actual performance compared to goals;the first report is due in March 2000.

GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT REFORM ACT OF 1994 (GMRA)

GMRA requires each Federal Agency to:

CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICERS (CFO) ACT OF1990 

The CFO Act requires each Federal Agency to:

FEDERAL ACQUISITION STREAMLINING ACT OF 1994(FASA)

FASA requires each Federal Agency to:

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY MANAGEMENT REFORM ACT OF 1996(ITMRA)

ITMRA requires each Federal Agency to:

SETTING CUSTOMER SERVICE STANDARDS (Executive Order12862)

 Executive Order 12862 requires each Federal Agency to:

Strategic Management System

• Strategic Management System Memorandum of Nov 20, 1996

• Strategic Management System Memorandum of March 4, 1996

Guidelines

• Strategic Planning Guidelines

• Performance Measurement Guidelines (pdf file)

Other Resources

• National Performance Review (NPR)

• Performance Based Management-Special Interest Groups(PBM-SIG)

• Department of Energy Home Page

• DOE Policy Home Page

For more information, please contact:

Office of Strategic Planning, Budget and Program Evaluation, PO-4
Office of Policy and International Affairs
(202) 586-9852.