GAO Publishes Report on HUD Management

On August 19, the United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) made publicly available a report it wrote for congressional requesters. The report found that HUD has “not consistently incorporated requirements and key practices  identified by GAO to help ensure effective management into its operations.”

The report identified five management functions and discusses how completely HUD implemented prior GAO recommendations. Selected excerpts can be found below:

Performance planning and reporting – “HUD met most of the requirements in the GPRA Modernization Act of 2010 for its strategic plan and annual performance plan and report . . . [b]ut HUD’s strategic plan does not clearly link HUD’s goals and objectives with federal priority goals.”

Information technology management – “HUD has not demonstrated that it has the capacity to effectively plan for and manage IT projects.”

Human capital management – “HUD has made progress in developing new human capital plans and mostly followed key principle and practices for strategic workforce planning, succession planning, and training planning.”

Financial management – “HUD did not follow seven of eight key practices for financial management.”

Acquisition management – “HUD partially followed key practices for acquisition relating to organizational alignment and human capital.”

The report recommends that HUD take the following eight actions:

1. Link HUD’s goals and objectives with federal priority goals;
2. Describe why HUD’s goals were not met and HUD’s plans for achieving them;
3. Establish procedures and time frames to reach out to Congress and stakeholders to ensure that the strategic plan meets statutory requirements;
4. Establish a process and schedule to review and update HUD’s human capital strategic plan; strategic workforce plan; and succession plan;
5. Establish a process and schedule to update policies and procedures to help ensure that policies and procedures for key management functions remain current and complete;
6. Formalize lines of communication between the Chief Information Officer and the agency head;
7. Designate entities within program offices for fraud risk management activities; and
8. Develop written policies for conducting program evaluations.

Thanks to PHADA for bringing this report to our attention.

The full report can be found here. The PDF can be found here.

The highlights page can be found here.