Former watchdog: Government needs a plan

The GAO was continuously ranked among the best places to work in the federal government during Walker’s tenure, even as it faced major projects involving Hurricane Katrina and the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

Walker also sued then-Vice President Dick Cheney in 2002 to disclose the industry executives involved in developing the Bush administration’s energy policy, though the case was ultimately thrown out.

After leaving the GAO, Walker headed two nonprofits that dealt with fiscal responsibility in government and ran for lieutenant governor of Connecticut. He is the senior strategic adviser for PricewaterhouseCoopers’ public-sector practice, which helps all levels of government improve efficiency.

Examiner: How can the government improve accountability?

Walker: Government does a very poor job of showing what taxpayers get for their money. While progress has been made to financial reporting in most of government, not enough has been done in linking resources that have been allocated to results that have been achieved. If you just know how much resources have been allocated, that by itself is not enough. If you just know what performance has been achieved, that by itself is not enough. You need to correlate them.

The U.S. government has been an operating republic since 1789, and it still doesn’t have a strategic plan. It still doesn’t have specific quantifiable goals in the key areas that it’s operating where it links resources trying to achieve desired results.

As a result, there has been a proliferation of governmental activities and policies and programs and areas where some work and some flat don’t. There’s a lot of duplication, there’s a lot of overlap, there’s a lot of redundancy. There needs to be a way to be able to separate the wheat from the chaff, what’s working, what’s not working, how we can allocate more resources to things that work, how we can modify or terminate things that don’t. The failure to do that means things cost more, take longer and we don’t generate the kind of results that we should for the resources that we allocate.

Right now, you have individual departments and agencies that have performance and accountability reports, but there’s not an umbrella strategic plan. Right now, if you asked [the Office of Budget and Management] what the strategic plan is, they would tell you it’s the budget. Well, the problem with that is that it’s a one-year document. And it really talks about resource allocation. It really doesn’t talk about long-term goals and even short-term performance and accountability on a government-wide basis.

Examiner: Why do government officials often go unpunished when programs fail?

Walker: All too frequently, you will find when there is a major failure, there are few consequences and few people are ultimately held accountable who are not political appointees. That wouldn’t happen in the private sector.

There’s no question that there’s inadequate accountability in the federal government. Part of that is because there are a lot more protections in the civil service system with regard to what type of action you can take to the extent that you’re a career civil servant. Obviously to the extent if you’re an appointed official, then you can take action a lot quicker.

My view is that you want to insulate civil servants against potential retribution that is potentially politically or ideologically motivated. At the same point in time, the system has to recognize that we’ve got to improve our performance and we’ve got to ensure our accountability in appropriate circumstances.

The organizational model and the human capital practices of the federal government with regard to the rating system and the compensation system were designed for an America that existed in the 1950s. One of the real needs … is to really modernize our organizational model and our human capital practices.

Examiner: How can government departments be compelled to adopt the cost-saving recommendations made by the GAO and by agencies’ watchdogs, the inspectors general?

Walker: In order to achieve sustainable success, you have to have properly designed incentives, adequate transparency and appropriate accountability. What the GAO does, it makes recommendations. Roughly 85 percent of the recommendations it makes to the executive branch are adopted within a period of time. It generates a great return on investment.

If additional recommendations were adopted, would that generate an additional return? Sure. But you have to understand that sometimes there are differences of opinion between what the GAO recommends and what management believes should be a priority or what could realistically be achieved within the resources it’s been granted.

There is a lower percentage of adoption as it relates to recommendations that require congressional action. If you look at that High Risk List, you’ll see that there’s a higher number of items on that High Risk List that note that Congress is part of the problem and that Congress needs to be part of the solution in order to effectively address the issue.

I’ll tell you, the big bucks, with regard to government economy, efficiency, effectiveness and sustainability require congressional action.

So, can we improve economy, efficiency, effectiveness, and credibility through additional administrative actions? Absolutely. But a lot of what has to be done requires legislative action.

Examiner: Since government watchdogs have such high returns on investment, would increasing their budgets help improve government accountability and cost-saving?

Walker: Well, there is a point of which you get diminishing returns.

If we want to cut discretionary spending, then we do it on an across-the-board basis, irrespective of what the mission is, irrespective of what the performance is.

GAO and the [inspectors general] can’t expect to be exempt from increasing resource pressures. On the other hand, they shouldn’t be handled the same as everything else because they do generate a return on investment.

What we we need to be doing is to be forcing departments, agencies, programs and policies to do the same thing. The fact of the matter is the amount of money we spend on GAO and the [inspectors general] is immaterial to the amount of money government is spending, and so, we’ve got to end up applying those concepts to the vast majority of concepts where the money is.

Examiner: So how can watchdogs be strengthened?

Walker: My view is the problem is not in the accountability community.

For any system to work … you have to have three things:

You have to have properly designed incentives that encourage people to do the right thing and to discourage them from doing the wrong thing.

You need to have adequate transparency to provide reasonable assurance that they will do the right thing and that they’ll be identified if they do the wrong thing.

You need to have appropriate accountability mechanisms if people do the wrong thing, and yet, that accountability shouldn’t just be all negative. It should also recognize progress and positive performance.

If you look at where we’re having problems in government, whether it be policy or organization, we failed one or more of those tests.

Examiner: Would Hillary Clinton have been investigated aggressively for her private server use and potential conflicts of interest had a permanent, rather than an acting, inspector general been in place while she ran the agency?

Walker: In general, it’s not surprising that actings are somewhat more risk-averse than people who are confirmed in the position. They don’t have the same imprimatur that a confirmed inspector general would have or agency head would have. In addition to that, in some cases, those people would like to rise up to the next level. That could affect how aggressive they might want to be. It’s just part of human nature.

The mere fact that you’re acting doesn’t mean that you’re not supposed to do your job. In fact, acting is really just part of the title.

Examiner: Does using a personal email inherently make officials less accountable?

Walker: I conducted all of my government business using my government email. As far as I was concerned, it wasn’t appropriate to do anything else.

I don’t think there’s a good reason to not exclusively use your .gov email and archive every one of them. Before I left as comptroller, all of mine were taken. I’m sure there were probably some emails in there that may have been personal that went on .gov. Incidental kind of stuff. They got those, too. They got it all.

Some people say, ‘well to the extent that it was government business, it was going to government email.’ Well, not necessarily. There’s lots of government business where you don’t deal with a government employee, and therefore, they don’t have a .gov email.

Examiner: What ways can government improve accountability outside the watchdogs?

Walker: I think it’s important to note that not every government agency and program is on GAO’s High Risk List and that it’s important not just to point out what’s wrong and what needs to change, but to acknowledge what’s right.

Even in circumstances where somebody might be on the High Risk List and might be having problems, I think it’s also important to note what progress they’re making towards trying to rectify the relevant problems. That’s what I call constructive engagement. That’s a concept I brought to GAO that’s basically saying don’t just point out what’s wrong, acknowledge what’s right, be constructive about what needs to be done to change things, acknowledge progress where progress is made, put things in context with regard to how they stand relative to other organizations.

There are some government agencies that do a good job and that’s evidenced by consumer feedback.

Examiner: What can voters do to make government more accountable?

Walker: I think voters need to be pressing their elected officials to break the gridlock and start delivering results. I think people should embrace the concept of the needs of a national strategic agenda.