Office of Management and Budget Reinstitutes Requirements for Strategic Planning Goals
The Biden administration announced its plans to rescind a December 2020 memo issued by the Trump administration that changed strategic planning requirements. Robert Fairweather, Acting Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), announced in a March 24, 2021 memo that OMB is reversing the Trump-era memo that suspended requirements for agencies to set strategic planning goals as part of the annual budget process.
Acting Director Fairweather said in the new memo to heads of executive departments and agencies, “The removal of Part 6 from Circular No. A-11 in December 2020 threatened to disrupt strategic and performance planning across federal departments and agencies. These activities are critical to clearly defining the outcomes the federal government aims to achieve, using feedback from our customers to improve service delivery, and being transparent about agency results.”
Circular No. A-11 was originally enacted following the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) Modernization Act of 2010. The GPRA Modernization Act sought to align agency strategic planning initiatives with mission objects and budget assessments. Part 6 sought to clarify the role of agency leaders in strategic planning and goal setting, regularly reviewing agency performance, and progress reporting.
In December 2020, the Trump administration retracted Part 6 to align with the administration’s efforts to “reduce the burden and expense of low-value Government work.” The memo argued the requirements did not generate useful data to agencies nor for the public and Congress.
The March 2021 memo holistically reinstates the Part 6 requirements and directs agencies to submit draft strategic plans and priority goals to OMB by June 4. These plans will inform the White House’s fiscal year 2023 budget and the development of the President’s Management Agenda. Agencies are instructed to conduct quarterly reviews to ensure plans are being followed. Chris Mihm, the Managing Director for Strategic Issues at the Government Accountability Office (GAO) expressed support for making performance and budget a part of the same conversation by reincorporating Part 6.
Mihm explained, “It’s not an either-or — you don’t think of dollars, and then think of performance afterward, or think of performance without thinking of the budgetary consequences of that. They have to be brought together systematically, as part of the same decision-making process.”
Mihm also said agencies should be working together to reach collective goals. For instance, GAO suggested that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) work with the Department of Defense on the COVID-19 vaccine rollout. Mihm said, “Everything that we care about is not going to be caused or contributed by one single agency or program acting in isolation. It’s going to be patterns of organizations working together.”
To encourage collaboration between agencies, the Biden administration also announced its intention to revitalize the Federal Program Inventory. This project was also mandated under the GPRA Modernization Act of 2010, but was largely stalled until the Trump administration. The program facilitates stakeholder understanding of federal programs and facilitates coordination across the federal government. The program aims to identify duplicative or inefficient programs across federal agencies.
The new memo notes that OMB will coordinate with White House policy council and other Executive Offices of the President to ensure all agency goals and plans are in alignment with the administration’s goals and promote further collaboration as necessary.
