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Report to Congressional Committees:

January 2004:

ARCHITECT OF THE CAPITOL:

Status Report on Implementation of Management Review Recommendations:

GAO-04-299:

GAO Highlights:

Highlights of GAO-04-299, a report to Congressional Committees

Why GAO Did This Study:

The Office of the Architect of the Capitol (AOC) plays an important 
role in supporting the effective functioning of Congress and its 
neighboring institutions. In January 2003, GAO conducted a 
comprehensive management review of AOC’s operations and made 35 
recommendations to help AOC establish a strategic management and 
accountability framework, improve its management infrastructure and 
internal control, and address longstanding concerns. In February 2003, 
the Conference Report mandated GAO to monitor progress being made on 
the implementation of the 35 management review recommendations. 

What GAO Found:

As discussed in GAO’s January 2003 report, many of AOC’s management 
problems were long-standing and its organizational transformation 
would take time to fully accomplish. Not surprisingly, AOC’s efforts 
in addressing these initial management review recommendations is very 
much a work in progress. Initial steps are being taken, but a great 
deal more needs to be done. Moreover, greater effort will have to be 
made if more timely improvements are to occur. Sustained commitment 
and assertive involvement of AOC’s leadership is key to addressing 
AOC’s long-standing weaknesses and instilling lasting change. 

AOC is taking the first steps in the development of its management and 
accountability framework, such as improving planning and 
organizational alignment through its draft strategic plan. AOC is also 
strengthening individual accountability for organizational goals 
through its senior executive performance management systems, but more 
progress can be made by aligning its employee performance management 
system with mission-critical goals. AOC needs to take additional steps 
to strengthen agencywide communications by providing opportunities to 
gather employee feedback sooner than fiscal year 2005 and by 
conducting a pilot of its congressional protocols. 

AOC is making some progress in improving its management infrastructure 
and internal control. AOC is addressing initial concerns about the 
lack of consistent human capital policies and procedures. Also, AOC 
has developed three broad-based action plans to achieve its strategy 
of institutionalizing financial management best practices. However, 
while efforts on individual action items associated with the three 
action plans have begun, many are not scheduled for completion until 
fiscal years 2006 and 2007. Much work remains to address unplanned 
action items and complete ongoing efforts in improving financial 
management. AOC is developing a new IT portfolio management process or 
investment framework, which it plans to implement in fiscal year 2004 
and is also taking steps to develop and use EA. However, while AOC is 
generally implementing the kind of IT management reforms recommended, 
GAO makes additional recommendations to ensure that mature investment 
management and EA processes are developed and implemented. 

Finally, AOC is addressing GAO’s concern about worker safety by 
developing a hazard assessment and control policy, but this policy is 
not expected to be fully implemented in all jurisdictions until May 
2006. Until AOC completes this policy implementation and its 
subsequent analysis in all jurisdictions, it will not be able to 
develop a comprehensive picture of AOC hazards. AOC is also taking 
steps to establish a project priority framework for better project 
management and accountability. Also, AOC has made some progress toward 
adopting a more strategic approach to recycling taking steps to 
clarify the mission of the program and establishing goals as part of 
its environmental program plan.

What GAO Recommends:

GAO recommends that AOC strengthen agencywide communications with 
employees and congressional stakeholders. 

GAO also recommends that AOC further improve its management 
infrastructure internal controls in the management of IT by planning 
for and implementing mature investment management and enterprise 
architecture (EA) practices. 

GAO provided a draft of this report to the Architect of the Capitol in 
December 2003 for his review and comment. The Architect generally 
agreed with our findings, although there are some areas of 
disagreement in IT, worker safety, and recycling. 

www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-04-299. 

To view the full product, including the scope and methodology, click 
on the link above. For more information, contact J. Christopher Mihm, 
202-512-6806 or mihmj@gao.gov. 

[End of section]

Contents:

Letter: 

Results in Brief: 

Background: 

Objective, Scope, and Methodology: 

AOC Has Begun Establishing a Strategic Management and Accountability 
Framework, but Communications with Employees and Stakeholders Can Be 
Improved: 

Recommendations for Future Action: 

Progress Is Being Made in Establishing Management Infrastructure and 
Internal Control, but Considerable Work Remains Before Effective 
Information Technology Management Capability Will Be in Place: 

Recommendations for Future Action: 

AOC is Beginning to Address Long-standing Issues in Worker Safety, 
Project Management, and Recycling: 

Concluding Observations: 

Agency Comments: 

Appendixes:

Appendix I: Strategic Management: 

Appendix II: Strategic Human Capital Management: 

Appendix III: Financial Management: 

Appendix IV: Information Technology: 

Appendix V: Worker Safety: 

Appendix VI: Project Management: 

Appendix VII: Recycling: 

Appendix VIII: Comments from the Architect of the Capitol: 

GAO Comments: 

Tables: 

Table 1: AOC's Strategic Focus Areas and Strategic Goals: 

Figures: 

Figure 1: Examples of Workforce Data That Are Collected and Analyzed by 
Other Federal Agencies: 

Abbreviations: 

AOC: Architect of the Capitol: 

BCA: Building Condition Assessments:

CFO: Chief Financial Officer:

CIO: Chief Information Officer:

COO: Chief Operating Officer:

EA: Enterprise Architecture:

EAC: Employee Advisory Council:

FMA: Facility Management Assistant:

GC: General Contractor:

GPRA: Government Performance and Results Act:

GSA: General Services Administration:

HRMD: Human Resources Management Division:

IT: Information Technology:

JHA: Job Hazard Analysis:

JOSH: Jurisdiction Occupational Safety and Health:

NAS: National Academy of Sciences:

OAP: Office of the Attending Physician:

OCFO: Office of the Chief Financial Officer:

ODC: Office of Design and Construction:

OIRM: Office of Information Resource Management:

OSH: Occupational Safety and Health:

OSHA: Occupational Safety and Health Administration:

PCES: Performance Communication Evaluation System:

PIC: Project Information Center:

PHS: Public Health Service:

PRP: Performance Review Process:

SED: Safety and Environmental Division:

SHEC: Safety, Health and Environmental Council:

WFPM: Office of Workforce Planning and Management:

Letter January 30, 2004:

The Honorable Ben Nighthorse Campbell: 
Chairman: 
The Honorable Richard J. Durbin: 
Ranking Minority Member: 
Subcommittee on Legislative Branch: 
Committee on Appropriations: 
United States Senate:

The Honorable Jack Kingston: 
Chairman: 
The Honorable James P. Moran: 
Ranking Minority Member: 
Subcommittee on Legislative: 
Committee on Appropriations: 
House of Representatives:

The Honorable Trent Lott: 
Chairman: 
The Honorable Christopher J. Dodd: 
Ranking Minority Member: 
Committee on Rules and Administration: 
United States Senate:

In January 2003, we issued a management review of the Office of the 
Architect of the Capitol (AOC) that contained 35 recommendations to 
assist AOC in establishing a strategic management and accountability 
framework to transform its organization.[Footnote 1] One of the most 
important issues raised in our January 2003 report was the need for 
Congress to create a Chief Operating Officer (COO) position to serve as 
the central leadership point to improve AOC's executive decision-making 
capacity and accountability. Congress accepted this suggestion. The 
Architect of the Capitol appointed the first COO on July 28, 
2003.[Footnote 2] As the first of our reports on AOC's implementation 
of the recommendations contained in our January 2003 report, this 
status report will provide the Architect and the agency's new COO with 
information that can assist them in elevating, integrating, and 
institutionalizing attention and accountability for certain key 
management functions and leading transformational change within AOC.

The Conference Report accompanying the fiscal year 2003 Legislative 
Branch Appropriations Act mandated GAO to monitor the implementation of 
the recommendations of our January 2003 report.[Footnote 3] This report 
discusses the progress AOC has made in establishing its strategic 
management and accountability framework, instituting management 
infrastructure and controls, and addressing long-standing program 
issues. As such, this report does not directly address issues 
associated with major AOC projects, such as the Capitol Visitor Center 
and the Capitol Power Plant. Rather, the January 2003 report and this 
status report concern the establishment of AOC's strategic management 
and accountability framework and the management infrastructure and 
internal control AOC needs to have in place to be successful in all its 
efforts, including its major projects. Our January 2003 report 
concluded that AOC needs to improve its internal control, which is 
synonymous with management control, and is integral to any 
organization. Internal control is comprised of the plans, methods, and 
procedures used to meet missions, goals, and objectives, and that help 
safeguard assets and prevent and detect errors and fraud. (For a 
detailed assessment of AOC's progress addressing each of our 35 
management review recommendations, as well as an expanded explanation 
of the basis for our additional recommendations, see appendixes I 
through VII.):

Results in Brief:

As we discussed in our January 2003 report, many of AOC's management 
problems have been longstanding, and its organizational transformation 
would take years to fully accomplish. Not surprisingly, therefore, 
AOC's progress in addressing our initial recommendations remains very 
much a work in progress. Initial steps are being taken but a great deal 
more needs to be done. Moreover, greater effort will have to be made if 
more timely improvements are to occur. Sustained commitment and 
assertive involvement of AOC's leadership are key to addressing long-
standing weaknesses and instilling lasting change.

AOC is taking the first steps in the development of its strategic 
management and accountability framework and addressing the concerns we 
identified in our January 2003 report, such as improving planning and 
organizational alignment through the development of its strategic plan. 
This framework and the accompanying draft plans provide a basis for 
AOC's ongoing effort to reassess its organizational structure to ensure 
that it is aligned to meet its goals, as well as provide high quality-
-and accountable--products and services to its clients and customers.

AOC is also strengthening individual accountability for organizational 
goals through its senior executive performance management systems, but 
more progress can be made with aligning employee performance management 
systems with agency strategic goals. On the other hand, a key component 
of a successful transformation is ongoing communication with customers, 
stakeholders, and employees; without effective communications, 
transforming AOC will be difficult. In that regard, we are making 
additional recommendations that AOC can take to strengthen agencywide 
communications by providing opportunities to gather employee feedback 
sooner than is currently planned and conduct a pilot of its agency 
congressional protocols. (For details on the progress of the 
development of AOC's strategic management framework, see appendix I.):

At the same time, AOC is taking the first steps towards improving its 
management infrastructure and internal control. AOC is addressing our 
concerns about the lack of consistent human capital policies and 
procedures by drafting its absence and leave policy, providing 
guidelines for premium pay eligibility, and completing its policy and 
procedures for administering pay flexibilities. (See appendix II for 
details on the progress of AOC's implementation of the recommendations 
we made in strategic human capital management.) In addition, AOC has 
developed three broad-based action plans that are intended to 
accomplish its goal of institutionalizing financial management best 
practices that support the effective delivery of programs and services. 
These action plans, if properly carried out, represent a reasonable 
basis for achieving AOC's goal of institutionalizing financial 
management best practices that support the effective delivery of 
programs and services. However, while efforts have begun to implement 
individual action items associated with the three action plans, none of 
the individual action items has been completed, and many are not 
scheduled for completion until fiscal years 2006 and 2007. Also, 
planning for certain action items has not yet begun, and for some is 
not scheduled to begin until mid-fiscal year 2004. While AOC has made 
progress since our January 2003 report, much work remains to address 
unplanned action items and complete ongoing planning and implementation 
efforts. (See appendix III for details on the progress of the 
implementation of the recommendation we made in financial management.):

As part of its efforts to adopt a strategic, agencywide approach to 
leveraging information technology (IT) to advance strategic agency 
goals, AOC is developing an IT investment management process, which it 
plans to implement in fiscal year 2004, and is also taking steps to 
develop and use an enterprise architecture (EA), or modernization 
blueprint, to guide and constrain its IT investments. These and other 
IT management improvements demonstrate AOC's commitment to implementing 
the kind of IT management reforms that are embodied in our 
recommendations. However, AOC has much to do before it fully implements 
our recommendations, and we are making additional recommendations to 
better ensure that its investment management and EA efforts are 
successful. (See appendix IV for details on the progress of the 
implementation of the recommendations we made concerning information 
technology management.):

Finally, AOC is also making some progress in its efforts to 
institutionalize accountability concerning such long-standing issues 
as worker safety, project management, and recycling. AOC is addressing 
our concern about a lack of clearly defined and documented policies and 
procedures for reporting hazards by developing a hazard assessment and 
control policy, but the policy is not expected to be fully implemented 
until May 2006. Until AOC completes the implementation of this policy 
and its subsequent analysis across all jurisdictions, it will not be 
able to develop a comprehensive picture of AOC hazards. (See appendix V 
for details on the progress of the implementation of the 
recommendations we made on worker safety.) AOC is also taking steps to 
establish a framework for better project management and accountability 
by establishing a process to assign project priorities based on clearly 
defined, well-documented, consistently applied, and transparent 
criteria. (See appendix VI for details on the progress of the 
implementation of the recommendations we made in project management.) 
In addition, AOC has made some progress toward adopting a more 
strategic approach to its recycling program by taking steps to clarify 
the mission of the recycling program and establish program goals as 
part of its environmental program plan, as we recommended in our 
January 2003 report. (See appendix VII for details on the progress of 
the implementation of the recommendations we made on recycling.):

The Architect generally agreed with the findings of our report, 
although there are some areas of disagreement in information 
technology, worker safety, and recycling. His written response is 
reprinted in app. VIII.

On December 17, 2003, we provided the Architect with our draft report 
for his review and comment. The Architect generally agreed with the 
findings of our report, although there are some disagreements in the 
areas of information technology, worker safety, and recycling issues. 
His written comments and our response, which includes our comments on 
the concerns raised by the Architect, are reprinted in app. VIII.

Background:

AOC is responsible for the maintenance, renovation, and new 
construction of all buildings within the Capitol Hill complex. 
Organizationally, AOC is made up of a centralized staff that performs 
administrative functions and "jurisdictions" that handle their own day-
to day operations, such as the Capitol building, the House and Senate 
office buildings, the Library of Congress, and the Supreme Court, and 
support the operation of Congress and its neighboring institutions. The 
historic nature and high-profile use of many of these buildings creates 
a complex environment in which to carry out this mission. AOC must 
perform its duties in an environment that requires balancing the 
divergent needs of congressional leadership, committees, individual 
members of Congress, congressional staffs, and the visiting public. The 
challenges of operating in this environment were compounded by the 
events of September 11, 2001, and the resulting need for increased 
security and safety.

Objective, Scope, and Methodology:

The Conference Report on the Legislative Branch Appropriations Act, 
2003, directed us to monitor and evaluate AOC's progress in 
implementing its management plan that addressed the recommendations 
contained in our January 2003 report. Accordingly, our objective for 
this report was to assess the progress AOC is making in addressing our 
findings and implementing our recommendations since the issuance of our 
January 2003 report. In this regard, this report addresses the 
recommendations we made in our January 2003 report, which concerned the 
areas of strategic planning and management, human capital, financial 
management, information technology, worker safety, project management, 
and recycling.

To address our objective, we collected from AOC documentation of the 
organization's implementation of our recommendations, which we used to 
assess the progress made in addressing the issues underlying these 
recommendations. For example, we reviewed documents such as AOC's draft 
strategic and performance plans, draft communications plan, IT 
investment framework, centralized IT management policy, initial 
versions of EA products, occupational safety and health program plan, 
master safety plan, project management evaluation and screening matrix, 
and pollution prevention planning initiative, among others. We also 
reviewed documentation to see that policies had been changed and 
meetings had taken place. We also interviewed AOC officials to 
determine the status of the organization's progress on our 
recommendations. In addition, we also continue to meet regularly with 
the COO to discuss the status of improvement efforts underway at AOC 
and other issues of mutual interest and concern. We performed our work 
in Washington, D.C., from July 2003 through November 2003 in accordance 
with generally accepted government auditing standards.

AOC Has Begun Establishing a Strategic Management and Accountability 
Framework, but Communications with Employees and Stakeholders Can Be 
Improved:

In our January 2003 report, we stated that to better serve Congress, 
AOC needed to build its capability to define goals, set priorities, 
ensure followthrough, monitor progress, and establish accountability 
for results to achieve its agenda for organizational transformation. We 
made 11 recommendations that would help AOC establish a management and 
accountability framework to lead and execute its organizational 
transformation. To adopt the elements of the management and 
accountability framework--strategic planning, organizational 
alignment, communications, performance measurement, and strategic 
human capital management--and build on efforts under way at AOC, we 
recommended that the Architect of the Capitol:

* improve strategic planning and organizational alignment by involving 
key congressional and other external stakeholders in AOC's strategic 
planning efforts and in any organizational changes that may result from 
these efforts;

* strengthen accountability for results by developing annual goals, 
measuring performance, and strategically managing human capital to 
support achieving those goals and measures, such as creating a line of 
sight by linking AOC's senior executive and employee performance 
management system; and:

* develop a comprehensive strategy to improve internal and external 
communications by completing the development of congressional protocols 
with stakeholder involvement and continuing to regularly measure 
customer satisfaction AOC-wide, among other strategies, such as 
providing opportunities for employee feedback.

AOC is taking the first steps towards establishing our recommended 
strategic management and accountability framework. For example, AOC is 
making important progress in improving strategic planning and 
organizational alignment by issuing draft strategic and performance 
plans, though both are still subject to revision and approval by AOC's 
new COO.[Footnote 4] Specifically, in March 2003, AOC issued its draft 
strategic plan for fiscal years 2003-2007, which outlines four 
strategic focus areas and corresponding strategic goals, and a draft 
performance plan for fiscal years 2003-2007 with a particular focus on 
fiscal years 2003-2004, which provides the specific action plans and 
milestones for achieving the goals and objectives in the draft 
strategic plan. This framework and the accompanying draft plans provide 
a basis for AOC's ongoing effort to reassess its organizational 
structure to ensure that it is aligned to meet its goals, as well as 
create and administer high quality--and accountable--products and 
services.

Many of the action plans and milestone dates that AOC has outlined in 
its draft performance plan are scheduled to occur over the next several 
years. Because AOC's organizational transformation agenda is a long-
term process, it is especially important that AOC leadership closely 
monitor the interim activities, action plans, and milestones outlined 
in its draft performance plan to ensure that it meets intended 
deadlines and completes its transformation. As we noted in our January 
2003 report, sustained top leadership attention is essential to 
overcome an organization's natural resistance to change, marshal the 
resources needed to implement the change, and build and maintain the 
organizationwide commitment to new ways of doing business.

In addition, AOC is also involving key congressional stakeholders, as 
we recommended, in the development of its agency draft strategic plan 
and is requesting input on the strategic direction of the agency. AOC's 
high-level summary of the stakeholder reaction it received demonstrates 
the value of such outreach. The need for a strong and continuing 
communications strategy, an augmented fire safety strategy, and 
creating a "living" planning and improvement approach that becomes part 
of AOC's culture, were among the important issues raised by 
stakeholders. Building on its strategic planning efforts, it is 
important that AOC continues to involve key congressional, as well as 
other stakeholders, in its strategic planning process, and keeps them 
informed of any operational and organizational changes resulting from 
this planning process.

In addition, AOC is making progress in strengthening individual 
accountability for organizational goals--creating a line of sight--by 
linking its senior executive performance management system, known as 
the Performance Review Process (PRP), with its draft agency strategic 
goals, as we also recommended. However, AOC has not made as much 
progress in linking its employee performance management system, known 
as the Performance Communication Evaluation System (PCES) to its agency 
strategic goals. We have reported that high performing organizations 
align performance expectations of top leadership with goals and then 
cascade those expectations down to lower levels.[Footnote 5] According 
to the Director of the AOC Human Resource Management Division (HRMD), 
to align PCES with PRP, AOC plans to first consolidate its multiple 
jurisdictional rating cycles into one cycle and then expects to 
incorporate the agency's strategic goals into PCES by January 2005. 
While consolidating the multiple jurisdictional employee performance 
management cycles may be helpful in the administration of its 
performance reviews, AOC does not need to wait for this consolidation 
of performance review cycles to integrate its strategic goals into 
PCES. By linking both its senior executive and employee performance 
management systems to agency strategic goals, AOC can improve the 
strategic management of its human capital and help achieve these goals.

Furthermore, AOC is progressing in establishing a communications 
strategy and has developed its first agencywide communications plan, as 
recommended in our January 2003 report, and included conducting 
employee focus groups or surveys as part of that plan. According to the 
Deputy Chief of Staff, funds to conduct AOC's employee focus groups or 
surveys were requested after the fiscal year 2004 budget submission in 
early December 2002. Therefore, AOC plans to conduct its employee focus 
groups or surveys in fiscal year 2005. Our own experiences at GAO have 
shown that obtaining employee views, such as through focus groups, need 
not be a resource intensive effort and that in any case, the benefits 
often far exceed the incremental costs. We recently reported that 
because people are the drivers of any organizational transformation, it 
is vital to monitor their attitudes.[Footnote 6] As such, AOC employees 
need to see that AOC top leadership not only listens to their concerns, 
but also takes action and makes appropriate adjustments to the 
transformation in a visible and timely way. Because of the importance 
of considering employee views during an organizational transformation, 
we recommend that AOC not wait until fiscal year 2005 to conduct its 
planned employee focus groups or surveys to gather feedback.

Moreover, as we recommended, AOC completed the development of its 
congressional protocols on June 30, 2003, to strengthen communications 
with key stakeholders and plans to meet with congressional stakeholders 
to discuss these protocols and issue final protocols by March 31, 2004. 
As stated in our January 2003 report, the purpose of agency protocols 
is to help create a basic understanding between AOC and its 
stakeholders of how AOC's efforts and resources can be targeted at the 
highest priorities. Protocols also foster transparency about how 
decisions and tradeoffs can be made and services deployed given the 
competing demands that confront AOC, and how those demands and 
resources require careful and continuous balancing. According to AOC 
officials, although the development of its congressional protocols is 
complete, implementing these protocols may be difficult because of 
stakeholder concerns about their potential effect on decreasing levels 
of service. In our January 2003 report, we noted that we had worked 
closely with Congress on the development of our own congressional 
protocols, along with careful pilot testing, and then implemented our 
final protocols in 1999. AOC needs to discuss with its stakeholders how 
the use of these protocols will help AOC balance immediate needs with 
the achievement of overall agency strategic goals. A pilot test would 
provide AOC and its customers an opportunity to test the application of 
the protocols to the various types of customer needs AOC confronts and 
to revise those protocols based on feedback obtained during the pilot.

Recommendations for Future Action:

To further progress in developing its strategic management and 
accountability framework and improve communications agencywide, we 
recommend that the Architect of the Capitol take the following actions:

* gather and analyze employee feedback from focus groups or surveys 
before fiscal year 2005, as well as communicate how it is taking 
actions to address any identified employee concerns:

* conduct a pilot of AOC congressional protocols in one or more of its 
jurisdictions to determine how well protocols would work in addressing 
customer requests for service, while balancing the demands of multiple 
requests with the strategic plan and corresponding project priorities 
of the agency.

Progress Is Being Made in Establishing Management Infrastructure and 
Internal Control, but Considerable Work Remains Before Effective 
Information Technology Management Capability Will Be in Place:

In our January 2003 report, we made nine recommendations to help AOC 
improve its management infrastructure and internal control to support 
its organizational transformation initiative. In particular, we stated 
effective internal control also could help AOC manage change and cope 
with shifting environments and evolving demands and priorities. We 
found that AOC would need to further develop and consistently apply 
transparent human capital policies and procedures to help encourage 
trust in management. Additionally, we stated that AOC must continue 
improving its approach to financial management to support effective and 
efficient program management by developing and implementing effective 
budget formulation and execution policies and procedures that govern 
capital projects and operating activities AOC-wide. We also noted that 
AOC needed to adopt an agencywide approach to information technology 
management to position itself to optimize the contribution of 
information technology to agency mission performance. Specifically, we 
recommended that AOC:

* strengthen and consistently implement its human capital policies, 
procedures, and processes, such as developing a consistent agencywide 
leave policy, assessing ways in which AOC management could better 
gather and analyze data on employee relations issues, and establishing 
a direct reporting relationship between the Ombudsperson and the 
Architect;

* continue to improve AOC's approach to financial management by 
developing strategies to institutionalize financial management 
practices that will support budgeting, financial, and program 
management at AOC; and:

* adopt an agencywide approach to information technology management by 
establishing appropriate leadership and developing the policies, 
procedures, and tools needed to effectively and efficiently manage 
information technology resources across the agency.

AOC is taking the first steps towards improving its management 
infrastructure and internal control, though in some cases, additional 
steps need to be taken to fully address the findings of our January 
2003 report. For example, AOC is making important progress in 
addressing our recommendation to develop and implement agencywide human 
capital policies and procedures by (1) drafting its employee absence 
and leave policy, still pending review and approval by the Architect, 
(2) providing guidelines to its workforce for determining eligibility 
for Sunday premium pay, and (3) completing its policy and procedures 
for administering pay flexibilities. The issuance of these policies is 
important to addressing the concerns raised by AOC employees when we 
conducted employee focus groups as part of our January 2003 report. 
AOC's HRMD director told us that managers and supervisors are now being 
held accountable through its employee performance management systems 
for the consistent application of human capital policies and 
procedures, such as leave granting, overtime, and giving employee 
awards. As part of its management and oversight responsibilities of 
human capital policies, it is important that AOC senior management and 
HRMD continually monitor whether supervisors and managers are fairly 
administering the policies concerning leave, rewards, and recognition. 
AOC could also use information gathered during employee focus groups, 
employee satisfaction surveys, and informal feedback from employees to 
monitor employee views on the administration of these policies.

Furthermore, as we recommended, AOC has developed and begun to 
implement strategies designed to institutionalize financial management 
best practices. The Office of the Chief Financial Officer (OCFO) has 
established three broad-based action plans to improve financial 
management practices at AOC: (1) build a foundation of financial 
control and accountability, (2) assess the financial management 
organization's current role in meeting mission objectives and organize 
financial management to add value, and (3) improve forward-looking 
analysis, train managers to understand how to use financial 
information, and improve the partnership between financial management 
and operations. These action plans, if properly carried out, represent 
a reasonable basis for achieving AOC's goal of institutionalizing 
financial management best practices that support the effective delivery 
of programs and services. However, while AOC has established three 
action plans to address our recommendation and begun efforts to 
implement them, none of the individual action items associated with the 
three action plans has been completed, and many are not scheduled for 
completion until fiscal years 2006 and 2007. Furthermore, planning for 
certain items has not yet begun, and for some is not scheduled to begin 
until mid-fiscal year 2004. While AOC has made progress since our 
January 2003 report, much work remains to address unplanned action 
items and complete ongoing planning and implementation efforts.

AOC is also beginning to address its IT investment management 
challenges. We found when preparing our January 2003 report that AOC 
did not have an agencywide, portfolio-based approach to investment 
management. Thus, we recommended that AOC develop a detailed plan to 
guide the development and implementation of such an approach, focusing 
first on controlling existing projects and establishing the management 
structures to implement the portfolio-based project selection process. 
Such an approach helps an organization measure the progress of existing 
projects and continually assess proposed and ongoing projects as an 
integrated and competing set of investment options.

In response, AOC is developing a new IT portfolio management process, 
referred to as its investment framework, which it plans to implement in 
fiscal year 2004. AOC's IT policy, signed by the Architect, states that 
the framework is to provide an effective means to select projects that 
best support the agency's mission. A draft version of the framework, 
completed in October 2003, is organized along a "select, control, and 
evaluate" model. To execute the select, control, and evaluate 
processes, the framework specifies four management structures--an 
architecture and standards committee, a project management board, a 
business systems modernization office, and an investment review board, 
with AOC defining the memberships of each of these entities. In January 
2004, AOC stated that it has begun using the framework to control all 
fiscal year 2004 investments. An agency official also told us that AOC 
intends to fully implement the framework by May 2004.

AOC's actions partially address our recommendation. Specifically, we 
recommended that the agency focus first on detailing and implementing 
processes to control existing investments and that efforts to develop 
and implement these processes be guided by a detailed plan. Although 
AOC states that it has revised its project investment review board to 
include key senior agency leaders, it has not focused first on 
controlling existing IT investments. For AOC to implement effective IT 
investment management processes, it is important that it follow our 
previous recommendation on establishing a foundation for its investment 
management framework. In building on this foundation, AOC needs to take 
additional steps to help it execute the more mature investment 
management processes provided for in our investment management 
guide.[Footnote 7]

Moreover, AOC is taking steps to develop and use an EA. We recommended 
that AOC develop, implement, and maintain an EA, starting with 
developing an architecture policy, establishing executive oversight, 
and designating a chief enterprise architect. Our experience with 
federal agencies has shown that attempting to modernize IT environments 
without an EA to guide and constrain investments often results in 
systems that are duplicative, not well integrated, unnecessarily costly 
to maintain and interface, and ineffective in supporting mission goals. 
The development, implementation, and maintenance of architectures are 
recognized hallmarks of successful private and public organizations 
that effectively exploited IT in meeting their mission goals. In 
contrast, we reported in our January 2003 report that AOC did not have 
an EA or the management foundation needed to successfully develop one.

In response to our recommendation, AOC has issued an EA policy and 
assigned the Office of Information Resource Management (OIRM) 
responsibility for developing and maintaining the architecture. AOC has 
also assigned responsibility for guiding and approving EA development 
to the agency's senior policy committee, which is composed of 
representatives from across the agency. AOC has committed to hire a 
chief enterprise architect and will request funds to do so in its 
fiscal year 2005 budget. AOC has also established a unit to provide 
technical and managerial support, selected a framework to guide 
development, and has prepared initial versions of its existing and 
target architectures and a plan for migrating from its existing to its 
target states. The agency states that the Deputy Chief of Staff has 
recently approved these products.

Despite these steps, much work remains to satisfy our January 2003 
recommendation aimed at establishing the management foundation for 
developing and using an EA. For example, the agency has not yet hired a 
chief enterprise architect and has not ensured that adequate resources 
are devoted to the program, that architecture environments are 
described in terms of performance and security, and that metrics are 
used to measure EA progress. In addition to addressing these 
architecture management foundational needs, AOC will need to take 
additional steps to implement those architecture management practices 
associated with effectively completing, maintaining, and implementing 
an EA that are defined in our architecture management guide.[Footnote 
8]

Improving AOC's organizational internal control will help to support 
its overall management infrastructure, and AOC is doing so by issuing 
consistent agencywide human capital policies and procedures. AOC is 
also improving its overall approach to financial management by 
developing action plans and beginning to implement these plans to 
institutionalize sound financial management practices. AOC has also 
recognized that adopting a corporate approach to IT management is a key 
enabler of its strategy for organizational improvement, and it has 
demonstrated its commitment to do so. However, until AOC completes and 
implements plans for improvement that are consistent with all our 
recommendations, it will be challenged in its ability to optimize the 
contribution of IT to agency mission performance.

Recommendations for Future Action:

We recommend that to further its progress in the management of its 
information technology, the Architect of the Capitol:

* plan for and implement those practices in our IT investment 
management guide associated with corporate, portfolio-based investment 
decision making, such as (1) implementing criteria to select 
investments that will best support the organization's strategic goals, 
objectives, and mission, (2) using these criteria to consistently 
analyze and prioritize all IT investments, (3) ensuring that the 
optimal investment portfolio with manageable risks and returns is 
selected and funded, and (4) overseeing each investment within the 
portfolio to ensure that it achieves its cost, benefit, schedule, and 
risk expectations; and:

* plan for and implement the practices in our architecture management 
guide associated with leveraging an EA for organizational 
transformation, such as (1) ensuring that adequate resources are 
devoted to the program (funding, people, tools, and technology), (2) 
ensuring that the architecture describes both the "as is" and the "to 
be" environments in terms of performance, (3) ensuring that 
architecture business, performance, information and data, applications 
and services, and technology descriptions address security, and (4) 
ensuring that metrics are used to measure EA progress, quality, 
compliance, and return on investment.

AOC is Beginning to Address Long-standing Issues in Worker Safety, 
Project Management, and Recycling:

In our January 2003 report, we made 15 recommendations to help AOC 
address long-standing program issues, worker safety, project 
management, and recycling. We noted that both the strategic management 
and accountability framework and improving management infrastructure 
and other internal controls that support AOC's transformation cut 
across the agency's programs and influence its performance in all areas 
critical to achieving its mission, especially program areas of long-
standing concern to AOC's employees and congressional stakeholders. We 
stated that the Architect declared safety his number one priority; 
nonetheless, relating safety to other pressing priorities and 
developing a clear strategy for how working safely will become the 
cultural norm, was still a work in progress at the AOC. Similarly, we 
reported that AOC had adopted industry best practices for project 
management, but implementation was uneven and could benefit from 
stronger leadership and improvements in performance and financial 
management, priority setting, communication, and strategic management 
of human capital. Finally, although AOC had recently made improvements 
to the House and Senate recycling programs, contamination of recycled 
materials remained high, and the goals for the overall program remained 
unclear. Specifically, we recommended that the Architect of the 
Capitol:

* improve the overall approach to worker safety in identifying 
performance measures, clearly defining policies and procedures for 
reporting hazards, establishing a consistent system for conducting 
investigations and followup, establishing a safety training curriculum, 
assigning clear responsibility for tracking worker safety employee 
training, clarifying the role of the Office of the Attending Physician 
(OAP) in helping AOC to meet its safety goals, and establishing a 
senior management work group to routinely discuss worker compensation 
issues;

* improve its overall approach to project management by developing a 
Capitol Hill complex master plan and completing building condition 
assessments, developing a transparent process to prioritize agency 
capital projects, developing tools to effectively communicate 
priorities and progress of projects, clearly defining project-
management-related measures, and aligning project management staff and 
resources with mission-critical goals; and:

* improve its overall approach to its recycling program by developing a 
clear mission and goals, developing a performance measurement system to 
support accomplishing its recycling program, and examining the roles, 
responsibilities, and accountability of its recycling program staff.

AOC is making progress in addressing long-standing areas of concern, 
though much remains to be done. For example, to address our concern 
regarding the lack of clearly defined and documented policies and 
procedures for reporting hazards, AOC has plans to develop a Hazard 
Assessment and Control policy, but it is not expected to be fully 
implemented across all jurisdictions until May 2006. As a key component 
in developing this, AOC (1) plans to identify hazards associated with 
specific job tasks or Job Hazard Analysis (JHA),[Footnote 9] (2) has 
created a schedule for completing each JHA, and (3) contracted with the 
Public Health Service to identify hazards associated with job tasks in 
each jurisdiction. According to AOC officials, the JHA process has been 
completed for two jurisdictions, the Senate office buildings and the 
Construction Management Division. While a majority of the jurisdictions 
await full development and implementation of the Hazard Assessment and 
Control policy, each jurisdiction continues to rely upon its own hazard 
reporting processes. Also, AOC has established a plan and initiated 
actions to improve the reporting of hazards, though the development and 
implementation of agencywide policy and procedures for hazard reporting 
is expected to take years to complete due to the time needed to develop 
and fully implement this safety policy. Until AOC completes the 
implementation of this policy and subsequent analysis across all 
jurisdictions, it will not be able to develop a comprehensive picture 
of AOC hazards. Additionally, until AOC completes the system-wide 
process for investigating incidents across all jurisdictions, it will 
not be able to develop a comprehensive picture of AOC incidents, 
including their causes.

Additionally, AOC continues to recognize the importance of a 
disciplined project management process and is taking steps to establish 
a framework for better project management and accountability. For 
example, as we recommended, AOC has developed a process to assign 
project priorities that is based on clearly defined, well-documented, 
consistently applied, and transparent criteria. According to the Office 
of Design and Construction Acting Chief, in February 2003, AOC worked 
with a consultant to develop evaluation criteria to set the 
prioritization of building projects. For prioritization purposes, each 
project is evaluated in five areas, (1) preservation, (2) impact on 
mission, (3) economic impact, (4) safety, and (5) security; and 
assigned a score, based on a 100-point scale, in each area. AOC also 
developed a matrix to provide criteria and guidance on how to evaluate 
and score the projects in each of the five areas. AOC has created a 
clearly defined, well-documented, and transparent process for 
evaluating and prioritizing projects. While determining the priority of 
projects will always be somewhat subjective, AOC has developed a 
reasonable approach using a matrix to help raters score projects in 
five areas. The matrix provides clear guidance when scoring projects in 
each of the five rating areas. Since the evaluation criteria have not 
yet been used to determine which projects will be submitted for 
funding, it remains to be seen if it will be consistently applied. 
Using this matrix and documenting the factors used in making the 
priority decisions should help AOC support its capital improvement 
program.

AOC has also made some progress toward adopting a more strategic 
approach to its recycling program. For example, consistent with our 
recommendations, AOC is taking steps to clarify the mission of the 
recycling program and establish program goals as part of its 
environmental program plan. In its March 2003 draft strategic plan, AOC 
states that it plans to develop a long-range environmental program plan 
that will establish program mission, vision, goals, and 
measures.[Footnote 10] The draft strategic plan also states that this 
environmental program plan would include clarifying the mission, goals, 
and measures of the recycling program--a component of pollution 
prevention. Although, according to its draft performance plan, AOC is a 
few months behind its schedule, AOC officials told us that work has 
begun on both of these projects--the baseline assessment and waste 
stream analysis--and both projects will be substantially completed by 
the end of 2003. These AOC officials also advised us that the results 
of the baseline assessment and waste stream analysis would provide a 
basis for establishing program priorities and measuring progress. The 
draft performance plan also provides for stakeholder participation in 
this process both before and after the actual environmental program 
planning process occurs, but this has not yet taken place. According to 
AOC's draft performance plan, stakeholder involvement is scheduled to 
begin in the second quarter of fiscal year 2004, after completion of 
the baseline assessment and waste stream analysis. AOC is taking the 
first steps needed to developing its recycling program mission and 
goals within the broader context of an environmental program plan, 
which is reasonable and consistent with our recommendation.

Concluding Observations:

We noted in our January 2003 report that organizational transformation 
does not come quickly or easily and the changes under way at AOC would 
require a long-term, concerted effort. We stated that by drawing on the 
full potential of its top leadership and management team, AOC could 
begin to take immediate steps on a number of the concerns described in 
our January 2003 report, although we recognized that AOC would be able 
to implement some of these actions more quickly than others. Although 
we have found that AOC is addressing each of our 35 original 
recommendations either through its planning efforts or actions it has 
initiated; a great deal more needs to be done. Moreover, greater effort 
will have to be made if more timely improvements are to occur. 
Sustained commitment and assertive involvement on behalf of AOC 
leadership will be vital to ensure that it completes the many action 
plans and reaches its milestones during the next several years to 
achieve its organizational transformation.

As AOC works to establish its strategic management and accountability 
framework, improve its management infrastructure, and address long-
standing areas of concern, it must continue to demonstrate that 
progress is being made on each of our recommendations to help it 
sustain the momentum needed to accomplish its organizational 
transformation, particularly in improving communications with 
employees and stakeholders and improving its management of information 
technology.

Agency Comments:

We provided a draft of this report on December 17, 2003 to the 
Architect of the Capitol for his review and comment. We received 
written comments from the Architect on January 20, 2004. In response to 
our draft, the Architect generally agreed with our findings, although 
there are some areas of disagreement. Most of the comments were 
technical changes based on information that was either not provided to 
us during our review or related to activities that occurred outside the 
timeframe of our review. We will assess these activities as part of our 
future semi-annual reviews. Where appropriate, we have revised our 
draft report in response to AOC's comments.

In his written comments, the Architect disagreed with our 
characterization or assessment of progress in the areas of information 
technology, worker safety, and recycling. Regarding information 
technology, we reported that AOC had taken a number of steps to 
strengthen investment selection processes but had not focused on 
controlling its existing IT investments, as we had recommended. In 
response, the Architect stated that AOC was now controlling existing 
investments, noting several steps the agency had taken to do so. While 
we do not question whether the agency has taken the steps it cited, our 
position is that those steps either relate to investment selection 
rather than investment control, as defined in our investment framework, 
or the steps were missing necessary details describing how the 
investment control function was being performed. Thus, we believe that 
AOC still needs to focus on investment control.

Regarding worker safety, the AOC commented that GAO did not fully 
capture the progress that has been made in creating an effective worker 
safety and health program. We believe, however, that the information we 
present in the report is an accurate portrayal of the information we 
collected during the period of our review. New information brought 
forth in the AOC's comments to our draft will be considered during the 
next semi-annual review.

Regarding recycling issues, the Architect states that although the 
contaminated materials had resulted in limited revenue generation, the 
recycling contractor separated the contaminated material from the 
recyclable material, and thus waste reduction did occur. We believe 
that the language contained in our January 2003 report about the level 
of waste reduction the AOC had achieved through its recycling efforts 
is accurate as stated.

The Architect's written comments and our response are reprinted in app. 
VIII.

This report is available at no charge on GAO's Web site at 
[Hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov].

If you have further questions about this report, please contact me or 
Steven Lozano at (202) 512-6806 or on [Hyperlink, mihmj@gao.gov]  
[Hyperlink, mihmj@gao.gov] or [Hyperlink, 
lozanos@gao.gov]. Major contributors to this report 
included Justin Booth, Carole Cimitile, John Dale, Terrell Dorn, Maria 
Edelstein, Elena Epps, Brett Fallavollita, V. Bruce Goddard, Carl 
Higginbotham, David Merrill, Susan Pachikara, Masha Pastuhov-Pastein, 
John Reilly, William Roach, Mark Trapani, Kris Trueblood, and Michael 
Volpe.

Signed by:

J. Christopher Mihm: 
Managing Director, Strategic Issues:

Jeanette M. Franzel: 
Director, Financial Management and Assurance:

Randolph C. Hite: 
Director, Information Technology Architecture and Systems Issues:

[End of section]

Appendixes: 

Appendix I: Strategic Management:

Our January 2003 report contained 11 recommendations to help the Office 
of the Architect of the Capitol (AOC) establish its strategic 
management and accountability framework in the areas of strategic 
planning and organizational alignment, communications, development of 
congressional protocols by involving stakeholders, accountability 
reporting through annual performance planning and reporting, customer 
satisfaction, performance measurement, strategic human capital 
management, and establishing action-oriented implementation goals. 
This appendix describes AOC's progress to date in addressing each of 
these recommendations. We provide a brief review of findings that led 
to each recommendation, report the actions that AOC has taken to 
implement the recommendation, and provide our analysis of whether AOC's 
actions address the underlying issues that caused us to make the 
recommendation in our January 2003 report. We also make additional 
recommendations to assist AOC in improving its communications with 
employees and stakeholders.

Recommendation: Improve strategic planning and organizational 
alignment by involving key congressional and other external 
stakeholders in AOC's strategic planning efforts and in any 
organizational changes that may result from these efforts.

Successful organizations ensure that their strategic planning fully 
considers the interests and expectations of Congress and other 
stakeholders. In moving forward with its strategic planning efforts, it 
will be critical that AOC fully engage key congressional and other 
stakeholders in further developing and implementing its strategic plan, 
as well as revisions, to provide a strong foundation for any 
organizational or operating changes that may be needed to implement the 
plan. Key congressional and other stakeholder involvement will be 
especially important for AOC to help it ensure that its efforts and 
resources are targeted at the highest priorities.

Actions Taken by AOC: In March 2003, AOC issued a draft strategic 
plan[Footnote 11] for fiscal years 2003 through 2007 that contained 
AOC's four strategic focus areas and corresponding strategic goals 
described in table 1. AOC also issued a draft performance plan[Footnote 
12] outlining the specific actions and milestones to reach for 
achieving the goals and objectives established in the draft strategic 
plan. The draft strategic plan is to become operational through the 
annual performance planning process, which translates strategic goals 
into objectives, action plans, milestones, and performance measures. 
AOC has developed an overall approach to managing organizational 
performance that includes strategic planning, annual planning and 
accountability reporting, and assessment of AOC's performance based on 
meeting agencywide milestones and measures. AOC staff plans to meet 
with stakeholders to discuss its plan. The draft strategic plan will be 
the cornerstone of this process.

As stated in its draft strategic plan, AOC plans to update the 
strategic plan every two years, annually produce a performance plan and 
performance report, along with action plans supplemented by more 
detailed functional plans developed along the same planning time line 
(fiscal years 2003-2007). In its draft performance plan and based on 
the strategic focus areas in table 1, AOC has developed corresponding 
strategic objectives, action plans, milestones, and target dates to 
help the agency achieve its strategic goals and monitor its progress.

Table 1: AOC's Strategic Focus Areas and Strategic Goals:

Strategic Focus Area: Facilities Management; Strategic Goal: Maintain 
and preserve the National Treasures entrusted to our care by providing 
timely and quality facilities management and related support services.

Strategic Focus Area: Project Management; Strategic Goal: Enhance the 
National Treasures by planning and delivering timely and quality 
projects.

Strategic Focus Area: Human Capital; Strategic Goal: Attract, develop 
and retain diverse, satisfied and highly motivated employees with the 
skills, talents, and knowledge necessary to support the agency's 
mission.

Strategic Focus Area: Organizational Excellence; Strategic Goal: 
Provide the highest quality services to our clients through improved 
business programs, processes, and systems.

Source: March 2003 AOC Draft Strategic Plan.

[End of table]

In addition, AOC is also involving key congressional stakeholders, as 
we recommended, in the development of its agency draft strategic plan 
and is requesting input on the strategic direction of the agency. 
According to AOC's Deputy Chief of Staff, as of May 2003, the Architect 
and other senior AOC officials have met with 16 stakeholders, such as 
Members of Congress, committee staff, and other legislative agency 
staff members, and have scheduled seven meetings with additional 
stakeholders to discuss the agency's draft strategic plan to obtain 
stakeholder input. During these meetings, AOC officials reviewed with 
stakeholders its mission, vision, and core values and the four 
strategic focus areas along with their corresponding strategic goals. 
AOC officials also asked stakeholders to comment on: (1) the positive 
actions they would like to see the agency continue or expand, (2) the 
areas needing improvement or missing entirely, (3) ways that AOC could 
improve its relationship with the stakeholder, and (4) criteria used by 
the stakeholder to judge AOC's performance.

The need for a strong and continuing communications strategy, an 
augmented fire safety strategy, and creating a "living" planning and 
improvement approach that becomes part of AOC's culture, were among the 
important issues raised by congressional stakeholders. AOC planned to 
incorporate the feedback received from stakeholder meetings into its 
agency strategic and performance plans by December 31, 2003.

GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing our recommendation 
by improving its strategic planning process and providing more 
specificity to its strategic goals and objectives, along with 
developing milestone dates and activities to assist the agency in 
monitoring its progress. AOC is also involving key congressional 
stakeholders in the development of its draft agency strategic plan and 
asking for input on the strategic direction of the agency. AOC's high-
level summary of the stakeholder reaction it received demonstrates the 
value of such outreach. Building on these efforts, it is important that 
AOC continue to involve key congressional, as well as other 
stakeholders, in the strategic planning process and keep them informed 
of any operational and organizational changes resulting from this 
planning process.

Recommendation: Develop comprehensive strategy to improve internal and 
external communications by providing opportunities for routine employee 
input and feedback.

We reported that AOC could (1) strengthen its internal communications 
by developing a communications strategy that would help AOC's line 
employees understand the connection between what they do on a day-to-
day basis, AOC's strategic goals, and their individual performance 
expectations, and (2) seek employee feedback and develop goals for 
improvement. We also stated that one way of implementing such a 
communication strategy is to conduct routine employee feedback surveys 
and/or focus groups. As part of our January 2003 report, we used focus 
groups to gather employee and supervisor perceptions about working at 
AOC. These focus groups generated a wealth of valuable information to 
AOC on employees' views on a range of issues including perceptions of 
supervisory favoritism and inconsistency in the way that supervisors 
applied awards, overtime, and leave policies. AOC noted that the use of 
employee focus groups or surveys is one strategy it plans to use to 
help achieve its human capital strategic goal of attracting, 
developing, and retaining diverse, satisfied, and highly motivated 
employees.

Actions Taken by AOC: AOC published its draft agencywide Strategic 
Communications Plan, 2003-2007 on August 29, 2003, and planned to 
obtain comments from its key congressional stakeholders to complete 
this plan by December 31, 2003. The draft communications plan 
recognizes that communicating with employees, stakeholders, and other 
customers is critical to achieving AOC's strategic goals and contains 
three strategies: (1) educating employees on the agency strategic plan 
and the change process AOC will use to achieve its strategic goals, (2) 
communicating the agency strategic plan's goals and agency 
accomplishments with congressional and external audiences, (3) 
continuing to expand communications initiatives by considering the 
development of correspondence policies and guidelines, a media contact 
policy, and other directives to assure a clear line of communication 
and a consistent message. AOC has developed strategies to communicate 
with each of its identified customers and stakeholders, including AOC 
employees, congressional and other public officials, and the visiting 
public, dignitaries, other federal agencies, historians, and others. In 
its communications plan, AOC has also noted that it will be important 
to track the effectiveness and impact of communications initiatives by 
conducting employee feedback surveys, employee focus groups, 
stakeholder and client surveys and meetings, tracking word of mouth 
comments, and correspondence.

According to its draft strategic communications plan, AOC plans to 
initiate several actions to implement this communication strategy. AOC 
plans to:

* publish more frequently the agency's employee newsletter, Shop Talk, 
increasing the number of issues per year from four to six and to 
feature more stories about AOC's strategic plan,

* conduct employee feedback sessions and/or focus groups every two 
years,

* conduct employee site tours of major AOC projects, such as the 
Capitol Visitor Center in fall 2003, and:

* explore sending taped video messages or webcasts from the Architect 
to employees.

Additionally, according to the Deputy Chief of Staff, AOC will follow 
up on the Architect's commitment, stated in his May 23, 2002 memorandum 
to employees, to conduct employee focus groups, beginning in fiscal 
year 2005. According to AOC's Deputy Chief of Staff, the need to 
conduct an employee focus group was identified as part of AOC's draft 
performance plan. However, the Deputy Chief of Staff stated that funds 
to conduct AOC's employee focus groups or surveys were requested after 
the fiscal year 2004 budget submission in early December 2002. 
Therefore, AOC plans to conduct its employee focus groups or surveys in 
fiscal year 2005, with the final analysis of these focus groups to be 
issued in fiscal year 2005.

AOC also plans to communicate with congressional stakeholders and other 
public officials by continuing to publish its Highlights Report and 
begin producing an annual financial report and a quarterly capital 
project report to congressional leaders and key staff, as well as 
conducting continuous outreach to congressional press secretaries.

GAO Analysis: AOC is partially addressing our recommendation. The 
development of its draft agencywide strategic communications plan is a 
positive step towards improving and coordinating communication with its 
internal and external audiences. Because people are the drivers of any 
organizational transformation, it is vital to monitor their 
attitudes.[Footnote 13] However, it is most important for employees to 
see that top leadership not only listens to their concerns, but also 
takes action and makes appropriate adjustments to the transformation in 
a visible and timely way. However, AOC does not plan to hold employee 
focus groups until fiscal year 2005, even though it is important that 
AOC leadership obtain employee feedback on its transformation in a 
timely manner. While AOC cites budget limitations as preventing them 
from conducting employee focus groups or surveys earlier than fiscal 
year 2005, our own experience at GAO when we obtained employee views, 
such as through focus groups, showed us it need not be a resource 
intensive effort. In any case, the benefits often far exceed the 
incremental costs.

Additional Recommendation: We recommend to the Architect of the Capitol 
that AOC gather and analyze employee feedback from focus groups or 
surveys before fiscal year 2005, as well as communicate how it is 
taking actions to address any identified employee concerns.

Recommendation: Develop a comprehensive strategy to improve internal 
and external communications by completing the development of 
congressional protocols by involving stakeholders.

In our January 2003 report, we noted that AOC drafted an initial set of 
congressional protocols that would help ensure that AOC deals with its 
congressional customers using clearly defined, consistently applied, 
and transparent policies and procedures. At that time, AOC noted that 
these protocols needed to be made consistent with the approach for 
AOC's draft strategic plan, finalized, and distributed. We also stated 
that AOC must continually involve its stakeholders in the development 
of these protocols.

Actions Taken by AOC: AOC completed its draft congressional protocols 
on June 30, 2003 and plans to meet with congressional stakeholders in 
the subsequent few months to discuss these protocols. AOC officials 
stated that it may be challenging to implement these congressional 
protocols because the agency's clients have become accustomed to 
receiving immediate service and using an informal means of interacting 
with AOC staff when requesting such services. AOC plans to issue its 
final protocols by March 31, 2004.

GAO Analysis: AOC is partially addressing our recommendation. The 
purpose of agency protocols is to help create a basic understanding 
between AOC and its stakeholders about how AOC's efforts and resources 
can be targeted at the highest priorities, as well as transparency 
about how decisions and tradeoffs can be made and services deployed 
given the competing demands that confront AOC, and how those demands 
and resources require careful and continuous balancing. AOC needs to 
discuss with its stakeholders how the use of these protocols will help 
AOC to balance immediate customer needs with the achievement of overall 
agency strategic goals. In our January 2003 report, we noted that we 
had worked closely with Congress on the development of our own 
congressional protocols, along with careful pilot testing, and then 
implemented our final protocols in 1999. A pilot test would provide AOC 
and its customers an opportunity to test the application of the 
protocols to the various types of customer needs the AOC confronts and 
to revise those protocols based on feedback obtained during the pilot.

Additional Recommendation: We recommend that AOC conduct a pilot of its 
congressional protocols in one or more of its jurisdictions to 
determine how well its protocols would work in addressing customer 
requests for service, while balancing the need of multiple requests 
with the strategic plan and corresponding project priorities of the 
agency.

Recommendation: Develop a comprehensive strategy to improve internal 
and external communications by improving accountability reporting 
through annual performance planning and reporting.

In our January 2003 report, we noted that AOC could adopt the reporting 
elements of the 1993 Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) to 
strengthen accountability and transparency by annually reporting 
program performance and financial information. This is consistent with 
the approach that we have taken with our own performance planning and 
accountability reporting. Such results-oriented accountability 
reporting would help AOC communicate what it has accomplished, as well 
as its plans for continued progress, to its external stakeholders.

Actions Taken by AOC: According to AOC's draft strategic plan, the 
agency plans to produce an annual performance plan at the beginning of 
each fiscal year that outlines the specific actions, associated 
milestones, and performance measures planned for the upcoming fiscal 
year. In addition, as stated in the AOC draft strategic plan, this plan 
is scheduled to be updated every 2 years, and at the end of each fiscal 
year, AOC will publish an annual performance report that outlines 
progress towards meeting agency goals, as well as the individual 
performance measures. AOC also plans to integrate its performance 
reporting cycle into the budget cycle, so that congressional 
appropriators and other key stakeholders can use the information for 
planning and resource decisions. In addition, AOC plans to provide an 
annual financial report to congressional leaders and key staff.

AOC also plans to monitor its progress against the measures and 
achievements of milestones through monthly assessment meetings with 
agency senior executives and senior management team. AOC held its first 
assessment meeting on June 23, 2003, to gather its progress on 
milestones to date. According to the draft performance plan, AOC had 
planned to report progress to stakeholders on September 30, 2003. 
However, according to AOC officials, because the draft strategic and 
performance plans had not yet been approved by the Chief Operating 
Officer (COO), and thus the milestone activities were also not 
approved, a September 30 meeting was not held with stakeholders.

GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing our recommendation. 
According to the AOC draft strategic and performance plans, AOC is 
committed to implementing a strategic management framework including 
issuing a strategic plan every 2 years, developing an annual 
performance plan, and an annual performance report that discusses how 
AOC is progressing on meeting its goals, as well as mid-year status 
briefings. Meeting with congressional and other stakeholders to discuss 
progress on the accomplishment of its milestones periodically is an 
important part of establishing an annual reporting structure, as well 
as communicating effectively with stakeholders to help AOC build its 
management and accountability framework. Once the agency draft 
strategic and performance plans are approved, AOC will be in a position 
to hold its mid-year status briefings as indicated in its annual 
performance plan.

Recommendation: Develop a comprehensive strategy to improve internal 
and communications by continuing to regularly measure customer 
satisfaction AOC-wide.

In our January 2003 report, we reported that in June 2002, AOC made a 
concerted effort to gather the views of some of its clients through a 
building services customer satisfaction survey for the Senate, House 
Capitol building, and Library of Congress and planned to continue 
conducting this survey annually. The purpose of the survey was to 
obtain valuable feedback from AOC customers about the services 
received. We recommended that AOC's continuing efforts to routinely 
measure customer satisfaction AOC-wide with both its congressional 
customers as well as other customers, such as visitors to the Capitol 
Hill complex, would help AOC identify its service quality strengths, 
performance gaps, and improvement opportunities.

Actions Taken by AOC: According to documents we reviewed, as a result 
of conducting the June 2002 building services customer survey, AOC 
reported back to each jurisdiction in March 2003 the actions it had 
taken to improve building services. In June 2003, AOC administered its 
second building services customer satisfaction survey for the Senate, 
House, Capitol building, and Library of Congress jurisdictions. 
According to its draft performance plan and letters accompanying the 
second customer satisfaction survey, AOC expected to report the final 
results of this second building services customer satisfaction survey 
in December 31, 2003. The Architect also stated in these letters that 
AOC will use the results of these customer satisfaction surveys to 
identify service improvement initiatives and priorities for action that 
will be incorporated into the AOC business plan, as well as monitor the 
quality of AOC services and the progress of improvement initiatives. 
According to the Deputy Chief of Staff, AOC is planning to conduct its 
customer survey annually.

GAO Analysis: AOC has fulfilled our recommendation because it has taken 
actions based on the 2002 customer satisfaction survey, continues to 
measure customer satisfaction in 2003, and plans to conduct an annual 
customer survey.

Recommendation: Strengthen performance measurement and strategic human 
capital management by developing annual goals and measuring 
performance.

Measuring performance enables an organization to track its progress in 
achieving its goals, gives managers crucial information on which to 
guide their organizational and management decisions, creates powerful 
incentives to influence organizational and individual behavior, and 
helps to assure accountability. Developing annual performance goals 
that provide a connection between the long-term strategic goals in the 
strategic plan and the day-to-day activities of managers and staff 
members will help AOC establish a management and accountability 
framework and reporting system that is needed for organizational 
transformation.

Actions Taken by AOC: According to its draft strategic plan, AOC's 
performance measurement approach is to adopt specific strategies and 
practices to move towards business decision making that is supported by 
performance data, using both qualitative and quantitative performance 
measures to demonstrate progress towards achievement of its strategic 
goals and objectives. AOC has identified a number of high-level 
agencywide performance measures to monitor and evaluate the success of 
its work corresponding to its four strategic focus areas: facilities 
management, project management, human capital, and organizational 
excellence. AOC plans to adopt specific strategies and practices to 
move towards decision-making that is supported by performance data, 
using both qualitative and quantitative performance measures to 
demonstrate progress towards its strategic goals and objectives. 
According to AOC's draft strategic plan, the performance measures to be 
developed will serve as the basis for the annual performance goals that 
connect its strategic goals to the day-to-day work of AOC employees. 
The high-level agencywide measurement areas used to monitor AOC's 
success, and for which AOC leaders will be held accountable, have been 
identified as follows: client satisfaction, employee satisfaction, 
projects on-time, projects on-budget, project quality, facility 
maintenance, asset preservation, employee safety, clean audit, 
recycling, and budget execution. According to the AOC draft strategic 
plan, the targets will establish standards for desired performance on 
each measure. However, the specific metrics and the methodology to 
obtain data for each of these areas, as well as the targets for each 
measure, have not yet been developed. In July 2003, AOC hired a 
management analyst to help create more specific program-level measures, 
corresponding to agency-level performance measures described 
previously, that will form the basis of an agencywide performance 
measurement system.

GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing our recommendation. 
AOC has begun to institutionalize important elements of its strategic 
management and accountability framework by developing annual goals and 
issuing its strategic and performance plans. As such, AOC has taken its 
first steps towards identifying high-level agencywide measures and has 
committed to creating a more specific performance measurement system to 
help the agency track its own progress in meeting its strategic goals 
and keeping key stakeholders informed. The creation of a performance 
measurement system will be essential to helping AOC track and report on 
its agencywide performance measures. Our analyses in Appendixes V, VI, 
and VII that assess AOC's key program issues, worker safety, project 
management, and recycling cite the lack of specific performance 
measures as continuing critical issues for AOC to address.

Recommendation: Strengthen performance measurement and strategic human 
capital management by creating a line of sight by linking AOC's senior 
executive and employee performance management systems to mission-
critical goals.

Effective performance management systems can be strategic tools for 
organizations to drive internal change and achieve external results. 
These systems align individual performance expectations with 
organizational goals.[Footnote 14] High performing organizations align 
performance expectations of top leadership with goals and then cascade 
those expectations down to lower levels. In our January 2003 report, we 
noted that AOC had instructed its senior executives to incorporate the 
agency's draft strategic or mission-critical goals and responsibilities 
into their performance requirements, which describe how an individual's 
work contributes to organizational goals and results. We recommended 
that AOC align its employee performance management system, Performance 
Communication Evaluation System (PCES), with its senior executive 
performance management system, Performance Review Process (PRP), to 
strengthen individual accountability for organizational goals.

Actions Taken by AOC: As of July 1, 2003, AOC reported that it 
completed its PRP. Each senior executive is to be held accountable for 
the following four performance requirements: leadership and management, 
customer satisfaction, safety, and human capital management. Senior 
executives are to identify the critical actions that pertain to these 
performance requirements and support the achievement of specific 
milestones as outlined in the agency's draft performance plan.

AOC's director of the AOC Human Resources Management Division (HRMD) 
told us that when the recently appointed COO completes and reviews the 
strategic plan and the agency's strategic goals, AOC will be able to 
incorporate these strategic goals into PRP and subsequently link these 
goals into PCES. This is to be completed by January 2005. According to 
the HRMD director, to align PCES with PRP, AOC will need to coordinate 
its multiple rating cycles into one cycle. The Senior Policy Committee 
met on June 24, 2003, to discuss coordinating the performance rating 
cycles and agreed to implement one standard performance rating cycle 
beginning in January 2005 from January 1 to December 31 of each year.

GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing our recommendation. 
AOC is working to create the line of sight needed to link senior 
executive performance with agency strategic goals by identifying 
performance requirements for senior executives that are intended to 
contribute to the achievement of the agency's draft strategic plan. 
While consolidating the jurisdictional employee performance management 
cycles would be helpful in the administration of performance reviews at 
AOC, AOC need not wait for this consolidation to make important 
progress in integrating its strategic goals into PCES. As AOC's 
performance management effort moves forward, it will be important that 
AOC adopt additional performance management practices that leading 
organizations have used to enhance performance and ensure 
accountability.[Footnote 15]

Recommendation: Strengthen performance measurement and strategic human 
capital management by establishing agencywide core and technical 
competencies and holding employees accountable for these competencies 
as a part of the performance management system.

In our January 2003 report, we recommended that AOC consider developing 
core and technical competencies as the basis for its performance 
management systems. Agencywide core and technical competencies can 
serve as guidance for employees as they strive to meet organizational 
expectations. The core competencies should be derived from AOC's 
strategic plan and workforce planning efforts and reflect AOC's core 
values. All employees should be held accountable for achieving core 
competencies as AOC moves to transform its culture. We also suggested 
that as AOC develops a cadre of managerial and professional employees, 
the development of specific technical competencies can assist the 
agency in creating and developing a successful leadership and 
managerial team.

Actions Taken by AOC: AOC's HRMD director told us that AOC is creating 
a leadership development program that identifies competencies for 
senior executives and agency managers. In addition, this draft 
leadership program will identify training to match those competencies 
and provide alternative training options to meet the program 
requirements. According to the HRMD director, in September 2003, this 
draft leadership development program was submitted for management 
consideration by the Senior Policy Committee and is still pending 
approval. The Director also told us that the identification of 
competencies for all employees in a defined framework would begin after 
the Office of Workforce Planning and Management (WFPM) is 
established.[Footnote 16] AOC is also revising existing competencies 
for shop supervisors. According to the HRMD director, she will be 
working with the heads of the Office of Design and Construction and the 
Procurement Division in fall 2003 to identify technical competencies 
for project managers and contracting officers, respectively.

GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing our recommendation. 
AOC is taking the initial steps towards establishing competencies for 
its senior managers and also developing the training opportunities to 
help its managers achieve those competencies. Given the designated 
organizational purpose of WFPM, it is appropriate that AOC plans to use 
this office to help assess the competencies needed for employees, as we 
noted in our January 2003 report that competencies can help form the 
basis for an organization's selection, promotion, training, performance 
management, and succession planning initiatives--all traditional 
functions of a strategic workforce planning approach. We have found 
that successful organizations include human capital professionals 
acting together with agency leaders and line managers to develop 
strategic and program plans to accomplish agency goals.[Footnote 17] 
Through this joint action, agency and human capital leaders and their 
staffs share accountability for successfully integrating strategic 
human capital approaches into the planning and decision-making of the 
agency. As WFPM is established, it is important that AOC adopt such an 
approach.

AOC is also making progress towards the development of technical 
competencies by working with its respective offices in developing 
competencies for its project managers and contracting officers. 
However, it is important that AOC continue the development of both its 
technical and core competencies for all employees and ensure that these 
competencies are tied to the agency's strategic plan. Part of the 
typical competency development process is the validation phase, which 
allows employees an opportunity to validate the accuracy of the defined 
competencies. This validation process is critical to capturing the 
competencies accurately and also gaining employee ownership and 
acceptance of the competencies for incorporation into the performance 
management system.

Recommendation: Strengthen performance measurement and strategic human 
capital management by developing the capacity to collect and analyze 
workforce data.

Collecting and analyzing data are fundamental building blocks for 
measuring the effectiveness of human capital approaches in support of 
the mission and goals of an agency. The ability to collect and analyze 
data will greatly enhance AOC's ability to acquire, develop, and retain 
talent, while allowing it to effectively plan for the needs of its 
workforce. AOC needs to develop a fact-based, comprehensive approach to 
the collection and analysis of accurate and reliable information across 
a range of human capital activities.

Actions Taken by AOC: AOC has created WFPM as described above, but has 
not yet established the ability to collect and analyze workforce data. 
According to the HRMD director, AOC does not plan to purchase any 
system until WFPM is staffed, although AOC has been reviewing possible 
vendor systems designed to help it collect workforce data.

GAO Analysis: AOC's plans are addressing our recommendations. However, 
until the office is established and additional actions are undertaken, 
we cannot fully assess its actions in response to this recommendation. 
Moreover, AOC does not need to wait until it contracts with a vendor to 
begin to identify and establish reliable data sources and collection 
methods that will help to support its workforce planning and management 
process. Early development of reliable data provides a baseline that an 
agency can use to identify current workforce problems. Regular updating 
of the data enables agencies to plan for improvements, manage changes 
in the programs and workforce, and track the effects of changes on 
achieving program goals. To ensure a data-driven, performance-oriented 
approach to human capital management, senior agency officials, 
including both program leaders and human capital leaders, can provide 
oversight and accountability for the integration and alignment of the 
agencies' human capital approaches. As shown in figure 1, federal 
agencies collect and analyze a variety of information to support their 
specific workforce planning efforts.

Figure 1: Examples of Workforce Data That Are Collected and Analyzed by 
Other Federal Agencies:

[See PDF for image]

[End of figure]

Recommendation: Strengthen performance measurement and strategic human 
capital management by identifying current and future workforce needs 
and developing strategies to fill gaps.

AOC can benefit from strategically identifying its current and future 
workforce needs and then creating strategies to fill any gaps. 
Workforce planning efforts linked to strategic program goals and 
objectives can help the organization better identify needs such as 
ensuring a diverse labor force, succession planning for scarce skill 
sets, and other competencies needed in the workforce.

Actions Taken by AOC: In our January 2003 report, we stated that AOC 
recognized the need to strategically plan for its workforce and had 
requested funding for four positions in its fiscal year 2003 budget to 
create an organization and workforce management team reporting to the 
Deputy Chief of Staff within the Office of the Architect. According to 
AOC officials, AOC hired the Director of WFPM and filled one staff 
position on October 7, 2003 and is recruiting for the remaining 
workforce planning and management analyst positions. The Deputy Chief 
of Staff told us that the COO would work collaboratively with WFPM to 
focus on the assessment of AOC's skill mix, resource needs, and 
succession planning for the agency.

GAO Analysis: AOC's plans are addressing our recommendations, but until 
the office is established and additional actions are undertaken, we 
cannot fully assess its action in response to this recommendation. It 
is encouraging that AOC is working to establish this office that will 
allow the agency to conduct workforce planning and analysis. As AOC's 
workforce planning efforts move forward, AOC will naturally need to 
develop an approach that best meets its organizational needs. Our work 
looking at strategic workforce planning suggests that there are certain 
principles that an organization should address irrespective of the 
context in which planning is done. We have issued several reports that 
discuss the following common core principles of workforce 
planning.[Footnote 18]

* Involve top management, employees, and other stakeholders in 
developing, communicating, and implementing the strategic workforce 
plan,

* Determine the critical skills and competencies that will be needed to 
achieve future programmatic results,

* Develop strategies tailored to address gaps in number, deployment, 
and alignment of human capital approaches that enable and sustain the 
contributions of all critical skills and competencies,

* Build the capability needed to address administrative, educational, 
and other requirements important to support workforce strategies, and:

* Monitor and evaluate the agency's progress towards its human capital 
goals and the contribution that human capital results have made towards 
achieving programmatic goals.

Recommendation: Establish action-oriented implementation goals over 
the long term and a time line with milestone dates to track the 
organization's progress towards achieving those implementation goals:

Our January 2003 report stated that AOC faces many challenges as it 
transforms to become a more results-oriented, matrixed, client-focused, 
and proactive organization. Making such fundamental changes in AOC's 
culture will require a long-term, concerted effort. We also noted that 
our recommendations covered a broad landscape of issues confronting 
AOC, such as strategic planning, communications, strategic human 
capital, financial management, information technology, as well as long-
standing issues in worker safety, project management, and recycling. 
Establishing a strategic management and accountability framework and 
developing management infrastructure and internal controls would help 
AOC achieve its organizational transformation. Thus, it was important 
to craft a comprehensive and integrated approach addressing AOC's 
challenges and setting appropriate priorities, even though by necessity 
it would have to be phased in over time.

Therefore, we recommended that it was essential AOC work with key 
congressional and other stakeholders to establish action-oriented, 
implementation goals over the long term, and a time line with milestone 
dates to track the organization's progress towards achieving those 
implementation goals. We also suggested to Congress that it consider 
ways in which to elevate, integrate, and institutionalize 
accountability for addressing management issues and leading 
organizational transformation at AOC; one option was to create a 
statutory COO or similar position for AOC to improve its executive 
decision-making capacity and accountability.

Actions Taken by AOC: In the legislation that mandated we undertake a 
general management review of the AOC, Congress also required that AOC 
respond to our review by preparing a management improvement plan 
addressing our study.[Footnote 19] To satisfy this congressional 
requirement to create a management improvement plan addressing our 
management review recommendations and our specific recommendation that 
AOC create action-oriented implementation goals and a time line with 
milestone dates to track AOC's progress towards achieving its goals, 
AOC issued its draft performance plan in March 2003 for fiscal years 
2003-2007 with a particular emphasis on fiscal years 2003-2004. This 
draft performance plan includes specific action plans developed along 
the same planning time line as the AOC draft strategic plan, as well as 
the tactical-level actions, performance targets, and milestone dates 
necessary to carry out agency-level strategies to achieve its mission-
critical goals. In the 2003 Legislative Branch Appropriations 
Act,[Footnote 20] Congress created the COO position at AOC, and the 
Architect of the Capitol appointed its first COO, who began on July 28, 
2003.

GAO Analysis: AOC has fulfilled our recommendation by issuing its draft 
performance plan, which establishes action-oriented implementation 
goals over the long term and a time line with milestone dates to track 
the organization's progress towards achieving those implementation 
goals. The implementation of these two recommendations in tandem (1) 
the creation of AOC's management improvement plan and (2) the 
appointment of the COO position to help AOC elevate, integrate, and 
institutionalize accountability for addressing management issues and 
leading its transformation, allow AOC to address issues across the 
agency's programs and influence performance in all areas critical to 
achieving its mission. Moving forward, it is critical that AOC complete 
its draft performance plan and then use it as a basis for managing the 
agency, provide progress reports to Congress, and assure AOC's 
accountability.

[End of section]

Appendix II: Strategic Human Capital Management:

We made three recommendations in our January 2003 report to help the 
Office of the Architect of the Capitol (AOC) improve its management 
infrastructure and internal controls by strengthening its human capital 
policies, procedures, and processes by developing a consistent 
agencywide leave policy, comprehensively collecting and analyzing data 
from its employee relations offices, and establishing a direct 
reporting relationship between the Ombudsperson and the Architect. This 
appendix describes AOC's progress to date in addressing each of these 
recommendations. We provide a brief review of why we made each 
recommendation, report the actions that AOC has taken to implement the 
recommendation, and provide our analysis of whether AOC's actions 
address the underlying issues that caused us to make the recommendation 
in our January 2003 report.

Recommendation: Strengthen AOC's human capital policies, procedures, 
and processes by continuing to develop and implement agencywide human 
capital policies and procedures and holding management and employees 
accountable for following these policies and procedures.

Effective organizations establish clear and consistent human capital 
policies with clearly stated expectations for both employees and 
supervisors and ensure that there is accountability for following these 
procedures accordingly. As mentioned, we conducted focus groups as part 
of our management review and found that a majority of the focus group 
participants perceived that AOC's supervisors applied awards, overtime, 
and leave policies inconsistently and suspected supervisory favoritism 
in making these decisions. Some focus group participants stated that 
supervisors determined on their own when an employee was entitled to 
sick or annual leave and inconsistently decided when some employees 
could take off time from work. Further, a majority of focus group 
participants felt that the Architect's Awards Program was not applied 
consistently across jurisdictions and shifts for all employees.

Actions Taken by AOC: Since our January 2003 report, AOC has drafted an 
agencywide absence and leave policy to "assure consistent treatment of 
employees through the establishment of uniform procedures for the 
administration of leave."[Footnote 21] This policy covers most types of 
employee leave, such as annual, sick, family and medical, and absence 
without pay. In September 2003, AOC submitted its draft leave policy to 
the Architect for his review and approval. AOC has submitted its policy 
and procedures for administering various pay flexibilities, such as 
recruitment bonuses and retention allowances, superior qualification 
appointments, and pre-employment travel expense reimbursements to the 
AOC Office of Employment Counsel for review. On June 15, 2003, AOC 
issued its final guidelines to supervisors and employees for 
determining when employees are eligible to receive Sunday premium 
pay.[Footnote 22]

In our January 2003 report, we reported that, in March 2002, AOC had 
issued a policy containing responsibilities and procedures for 
administrating its employee rewards and recognition program. The Human 
Resources Management Division (HRMD) director told us that managers and 
supervisors are held accountable for the consistent application of the 
human capital policies and procedures, such as granting leave, 
overtime, and employee awards in the Performance Communication 
Evaluation System (PCES) within the performance requirement of 
Supervision and Management.

GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing our recommendation 
of developing and implementing agencywide human capital policies and 
procedures by issuing an absence and leave policy, providing guidelines 
to its workforce for determining eligibility for Sunday premium pay, 
and completing its policy and procedures for administering pay 
flexibilities. AOC must continue to hold management and employees 
accountable for following these policies and procedures through the 
performance requirements in its performance management systems. As part 
of its management and oversight responsibilities of human capital 
policies, it is important that AOC senior management and HRMD 
continually monitor whether supervisors and managers are fairly 
administering the policies concerning leave, rewards, and recognition. 
AOC could use information gathered during employee focus groups, 
employee satisfaction surveys, and informal feedback from employees to 
monitor employee views on the administration of these policies.

Recommendation: Strengthen AOC's human capital policies, procedures, 
and processes by assessing ways in which AOC management could better 
gather and analyze data from the various employee relations offices and 
employee advisory council while maintaining employee confidentiality.

AOC has a number of offices, such as the Equal Employment Opportunity 
and Conciliation Program Office, the Office of the Ombudsperson, as 
well as an employee group, the Employee Advisory Council (EAC) formerly 
known as the Architect's Work Team, whose function is to interact 
directly with employees and can gather information regarding employee 
concerns. In addition to the roles that these offices fill in resolving 
the concerns of individual employees, each of these offices can also be 
a valuable source for identifying general issues of agencywide employee 
concerns. During our management review, we found that it was not clear 
whether there was a coordinated approach to track patterns of 
agencywide employee relations issues among these offices and EAC. If 
this information could be collected and analyzed by AOC's senior 
managers, it could be useful for alerting management to issues 
affecting employee relations. We also noted that an agencywide tracking 
method needed to be balanced to maintain employee confidentiality.

Actions Taken by AOC: According to the Deputy Chief of Staff and HRMD 
director, there is a new objective in the AOC Human Capital Plan, 
issued in December 2003 that allows for additional input into the 
policy development review process from employee groups, such as EAC. In 
addition, the HRMD director told us that in August and October 2003 
representatives from the Offices of Labor Relations, Equal Employment 
Opportunity and Conciliation Program, Human Resources, and the Office 
of Employment Counsel met to discuss how to best shape information on 
possible trends in employee relations issues among employees. According 
to the HRMD director, this discussion centered on how to best share 
information among these offices and what will be done with the 
information when a trend is noted. AOC plans to establish a defined 
process for a trial period on how best to share and examine employee 
relations data and then reevaluate this process.

GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing our recommendation 
by holding meetings with the program offices that can provide employee 
relations data and assessments of employee concerns at the agency and 
by including an objective in its Human Capital Plan to solicit 
additional feedback from its EAC. It is important that AOC continue 
holding these meetings to discuss ways in which it can systematically 
gather and analyze information about general employee concerns, while 
maintaining employee confidentiality, and regularly bring these 
concerns to the attention of senior management.

Recommendation: Establish a direct reporting relationship between the 
Ombudsperson and the Architect consistent with professional standards.

Our January 2003 report assessed the ombudsperson position at AOC to 
determine whether it adhered to the standards of practice for 
ombudspersons established by professional organizations, including 
embracing the core principles of independence, neutrality, and 
confidentiality. We found that the AOC Ombudsperson reported to the 
Administrative Assistant to the Architect of the Capitol or his or her 
authorized designate, but not directly to the Architect. The Ombudsman 
Association Standards of Practice define independence as functioning 
independently of line management with the ombudsman reporting to the 
highest authority in an organization. Furthermore, the American Bar 
Association's ombudsman standards for independence state that the 
ombudsman's office must be and appear to be free from interference in 
order to be credible and effective.[Footnote 23] We recommended that if 
the AOC Ombudsperson were to directly report to the Architect and not 
through another senior manager, the core principle of independence 
would be strengthened.

Actions Taken by AOC: The Deputy Chief of Staff told us that in the 
future the Ombudsperson and Architect would have a direct reporting 
relationship and plan to meet directly to discuss the Ombudsperson's 
monthly status reports, though these meetings have not yet taken place. 
He also told us in November 2003 that the current contract with the AOC 
Ombudsperson expired September 30, 2003, and AOC is hiring another 
contractor for the position and expects to fill the position in the 
next few months. AOC officials also stated that the Architect may 
choose to share the Ombudsperson's monthly report findings with the 
Chief Operating Officer and other selected senior managers in AOC, such 
as the Chief of Staff or her Deputy, as a followup to the 
Ombudsperson's report.

GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing our recommendation 
to adhere to the standard of independence for the office of an 
ombudsman, though these meetings have not yet taken place. We 
recommended that AOC establish a direct reporting relationship between 
the Ombudsperson and the Architect to be consistent with professional 
standards, which suggests that the Ombudsperson report directly with 
the highest authority in the agency, in this case the Architect. It is 
appropriate for the Architect to also include the Chief Operating 
Officer, as another one of the highest authorities in the agency, 
during these monthly status meetings. According to the Ombudsman 
Association's model job description under reporting guidelines for an 
organizational ombudsman, "the ombudsman function is independent of and 
separate from the human resource and other existing administrative 
structures… and typically reports directly to the chief executive 
officer or chief operating officer, with access to the board of 
directors, if applicable." It is also appropriate for the Architect to 
share the Ombudsperson's report with selected senior managers in the 
organization. According to Ombudsman Association standards, the 
ombudsman "may prepare periodic reports, either verbally or in writing, 
on organizational trends and activities based on anonymous aggregate 
data. These reports may also identify patterns or problem areas in the 
organization's policies and practices and may recommend revisions or 
improvements, and may assess the climate of the organization and can be 
communicated in a general way to the organization's senior 
management."

[End of section]

Appendix III: Financial Management:

In our January 2003 report, we made one recommendation to help the 
Office of the Architect of the Capitol (AOC) continue to improve its 
financial management by institutionalizing sound financial management 
practices. This appendix describes AOC's progress to date in addressing 
our recommendation. We provide a brief review of why we made this 
recommendation, report the actions that AOC has taken to implement the 
recommendation, and provide our analysis of whether AOC's actions 
address the underlying issues that caused us to make the recommendation 
in our January 2003 report.

Recommendation: Continue to improve AOC's approach to financial 
management by developing strategies to institutionalize financial 
management practices that will support budgeting, financial, and 
program management at AOC.

In our January 2003 report, we noted that AOC's Chief Financial Officer 
(CFO) had adopted our executive guide on world-class financial 
management as a road map for improving financial management. According 
to the CFO, the financial management component of AOC's March 2003 
draft performance plan presents AOC's proposed actions, in response to 
our January 2003 recommendation, to institutionalize financial 
management best practices that support the effective delivery of 
programs and services. Specifically, the Office of the Chief Financial 
Officer (OCFO) has established three broad-based action plans to 
respond to this recommendation:

* build a foundation of financial control and accountability,

* assess the financial management organization's current role in 
meeting mission objectives and organize financial management to add 
value, and:

* improve forward-looking analysis, train managers in understanding how 
to use financial information, and improve the partnership between 
financial management and operations.

Build a foundation of financial control and accountability.

A foundation of financial control and accountability provides a system 
of checks and balances and needed assurances that transactions are 
appropriately recorded and reported, assets are protected, established 
policies and procedures are followed, and resources are used 
economically and efficiently for the purposes intended. In this regard, 
this action plan involves leveraging audit resources and the financial 
statement audit process to issue auditable financial statements, 
developing an approach for assessing and improving internal controls, 
and establishing inventory management and control procedures to ensure 
accurate and useful information. The plan also includes developing 
accurate operating and capital budget requests and related plans to 
properly evaluate the execution of programs, as well as processes and 
procedures needed to prepare financial and performance reports for 
major programs and business segments.

Actions Taken by AOC: OCFO reports that planning for the issuance of 
auditable financial statements has been completed, and implementation 
is underway to issue an audited balance sheet for fiscal year 2003 and 
a complete set of audited financial statements for subsequent fiscal 
years. AOC has established an audit committee to oversee the audits and 
has hired an external auditor to perform the initial audit and report 
on related internal control issues. In addition, OCFO reports that 
values have been established for property, plant, and equipment, and 
that reconciliation procedures have been developed for all major 
accounts. Various additional actions are planned by OCFO to support the 
fiscal year 2003 audit of the balance sheet, including an automated 
close of the accounting records and automated extraction of the 
financial statements. Current completion dates are mid-fiscal year 2004 
for issuance of the fiscal year 2003 financial statements (including an 
audited balance sheet) and mid-fiscal year 2006 to receive an 
unqualified audit opinion on the complete set of fiscal year 2005 
financial statements.

About internal controls, OCFO reports that policies and procedures have 
been developed for all major activities of the Accounting and Budget 
Division, including guidance on funds control administration. Key 
controls will be reviewed as part of the fiscal year 2003 financial 
statement audit. AOC plans to respond to the auditor's report on 
internal controls and issue a policy statement on internal controls by 
September 30, 2004.

Concerning inventory management and control procedures, OCFO reports 
that AOC has implemented an inventory accounting policy, developed 
interim policies and procedures for inventory management and control, 
and received bids for the purchase of a new inventory control system. 
AOC plans to implement its new inventory system during fiscal year 
2004.

About budgeting, OCFO reports that AOC has implemented operating and 
capital budget processes for the development of the fiscal year 2005 
budget estimates submission to Congress. These processes include (1) a 
new capital planning program that standardizes and prioritizes capital 
project submissions, (2) a budget screening process that incorporates 
comparisons of prior-year spending trends for recurring programs, (3) a 
stakeholder review that examines all budgets to the lowest 
(suballotment) level, and (4) final review and approval by the 
Architect. AOC's current planned date for having a budget approved as 
submitted is September 30, 2007.

With regard to financial reports for major programs and business 
segments, OCFO reports that coding needed to facilitate the preparation 
of jurisdiction financial reports has been completed. AOC plans to 
generate automated financial reports for fiscal year 2003 and quarterly 
financial reports starting in fiscal year 2004. Actions needed to 
develop and issue annual performance reports for major programs and 
business segments, however, are not as far along. OCFO reports that 
planning is expected to begin in mid-fiscal year 2004, once AOC's 
performance plan is finalized. Currently, OCFO projects that it will 
issue the initial annual performance report in fiscal year 2007.

Assess the financial management organization's current role in meeting 
mission objectives and organize financial management to add value.

A financial management organization that meets its mission objectives 
and adds value does so by providing products and services that directly 
support strategic decision making and improving overall performance. To 
build such an organization, this action plan calls for revising OCFO's 
internal operating plan, developing a long-term workforce strategy to 
ensure that financial managers have necessary data analysis skills, and 
benchmarking OCFO processes against industry leaders and other federal 
agencies to facilitate reengineering of costly, inefficient processes.

Actions Taken by AOC: According to OCFO, planning has begun on the 
revision of the OCFO internal operating plan, which is currently 
scheduled for completion by the end of fiscal year 2004. By mid-fiscal 
year 2004, OCFO plans to begin developing long-term workforce 
strategies to ensure that AOC financial managers have appropriate 
financial analysis skills and to start reviewing and benchmarking 
financial transactions and processes as a basis for streamlining and 
reengineering financial processes. AOC plans to complete both of these 
action items by the end of fiscal year 2005.

OCFO plans to issue a report on benchmarking efforts that will be used, 
beginning in fiscal year 2006, to eliminate, streamline, and reengineer 
costly and inefficient financial processes. Financial process changes 
are expected to be ongoing at the end of fiscal year 2007, the cut-off 
date for the 5-year performance plan.

Improve forward-looking analysis, train managers in understanding how 
to use financial information, and improve the partnership between 
financial management and operations.

Equipping managers with the skills and capabilities needed to 
effectively use financial information in prospective analysis improves 
the opportunity for meaningful partnerships between financial 
management and operations. To this end, this action plan seeks to 
establish a link between financial management and operations that helps 
to provide meaningful information for managing and measuring cost and 
performance. Specifically, this plan involves:

* integrating AOC's financial and operating systems to facilitate 
annual program reviews,

* training managers to use financial information to improve operational 
planning and decision-making,

* implementing a cost accounting system for financial reporting,

* placing financial managers in jurisdictions,

* stabilizing financial management system upgrades, and:

* developing a long-term operating plan.

Actions Taken by AOC: OCFO reports that planning has begun to (1) 
integrate financial and operating systems to equip decision-makers with 
relevant information and tools to perform ad hoc analysis, (2) 
establish expectations and procedures for conducting annual program 
reviews, (3) train managers to use financial information to improve 
operational planning and decision-making, and (4) acquire and install a 
cost accounting system for financial reporting.

Once financial and operating systems are integrated and expectations 
and procedures for the annual reviews are established, OCFO will be 
able to conduct its first annual program review. The review is 
currently planned for fiscal year 2004; however, due to potential key 
system integration issues, OCFO is currently considering rescheduling 
the review for fiscal year 2006.

OCFO reports that many financial and procurement managers in the 
jurisdictions and central office have been trained in appropriations 
law, with further appropriations law training planned as an ongoing 
program. Additionally, OCFO anticipates that planning for other 
training can begin in mid-fiscal year 2004, with courses conducted 
later in the fiscal year. Letters of authority to properly trained 
managers authorizing them to conduct various financial activities are 
currently scheduled for distribution by the end of fiscal year 2004.

AOC acquisition and installation of a cost accounting system is 
currently scheduled for September 30, 2005; however, according to OCFO, 
this step needs to be moved to fiscal year 2006 because AOC has 
requested fiscal year 2005 funding for determining how it should 
perform cost allocation, and for support in system set-up and testing.

OCFO reports that planning has been completed on efforts to establish 
financial managers in jurisdictions, and the hiring of the first group 
of these managers is underway with completion expected by the end of 
fiscal year 2006.

With regard to financial management systems, OCFO reports that AOC 
continues to make progress in implementing major phases of its 
financial management system implementation plan, with the contracting 
module and inventory system--the final two phases--planned for 
production operations in October 2004. AOC's upgrade of the financial 
management system is also scheduled for October 2004, with future 
upgrades of major releases scheduled annually.

While plans are underway to revise OCFO's existing internal operating 
plan, as discussed previously, efforts have not yet begun to develop 
and issue a long-term operating plan. Completion of the long-term plan 
is currently scheduled for September 30, 2007.

GAO Analysis: Since January 2003, AOC has made progress in addressing 
our recommendation. It has developed and begun to implement three 
broad-based action plans that are intended to accomplish AOC's goal of 
institutionalizing financial management best practices that support the 
effective delivery of programs and services. These action plans, if 
properly carried out, represent a reasonable basis for achieving AOC's 
goal.

However, none of the individual action items associated with the three 
action plans has been completed, and many are not scheduled for 
completion until fiscal years 2006 and 2007. Furthermore, planning for 
certain items has not yet begun, and for some is not scheduled to begin 
until mid-fiscal year 2004. With regard to the length of time needed to 
complete individual action items, AOC management noted that they 
represent a measured approach to improving financial management while 
the agency's other processes and systems mature. While AOC has made 
progress since our January 2003 report, much work remains in beginning 
to address unplanned action items and complete ongoing planning and 
implementation efforts.

OCFO has made progress in planning and implementing actions designed to 
build a foundation of control and accountability. These efforts, most 
of which are associated with preparing AOC's first auditable financial 
statements, are well underway. OCFO also reports progress in planning 
and implementing action items related to improving the partnership 
between financial management and operations. However, OCFO reports only 
limited progress on efforts to assess the role of AOC's financial 
management organization in meeting mission objectives and to organize 
financial management so that it adds value to the organization. The CFO 
and his management team must ensure that proper planning begins where 
needed and ongoing planning and implementation is completed to achieve 
the goal of institutionalizing financial management best practices. In 
addition, because many completion dates are not scheduled until fiscal 
years 2006 and 2007, the use of interim dates by AOC for monitoring 
progress would be beneficial. We will continue to monitor and evaluate 
OCFO's progress in carrying out the actions needed to achieve this goal 
and to fully address our recommendation.

[End of section]

Appendix IV: Information Technology:

In our January 2003 report, we made five recommendations to help the 
Office of the Architect of the Capitol (AOC) adopt an agencywide 
approach to IT management. These recommendations are (1) establishing a 
chief information officer position, (2) developing and implementing 
effective investment management processes, (3) developing, 
implementing, and maintaining an enterprise architecture, (4) defining 
and implementing effective systems development and acquisition 
processes, and (5) establishing an effective information security 
program. This appendix describes AOC's progress to date in addressing 
each of our recommendations. It also provides a brief explanation of 
why we made each recommendation, describes the actions that AOC has 
taken to implement each recommendation, and provides our analysis of 
whether AOC's actions address the underlying issues that caused us to 
make the recommendation in our January 2003 report. It also provides 
additional recommendations relative to investment management and 
enterprise architecture management.

Recommendation: Establish a chief information officer or comparable 
senior executive, with the responsibility, authority, and adequate 
resources for managing IT across the agency, who is a full participant 
in AOC's senior decision-making processes and has clearly defined 
roles, responsibilities, and accountabilities.

Our research of private-and public-sector organizations that 
effectively manage IT shows that these organizations have adopted an 
agencywide management approach under the leadership of a chief 
information officer, or comparable senior executive, who has the 
responsibility and authority for managing IT across the agency. AOC had 
a decentralized approach to management and spending in which each 
organizational component controlled its IT assets.

Actions Taken by AOC: AOC has issued a centralized IT management 
policy[Footnote 24] that assigns the OIRM director responsibility and 
authority for managing IT across the agency and makes the director a 
key participant in executive decision making, serving as the principal 
advisor to the Architect in applying IT to improve business processes. 
Also, the director's roles and responsibilities include controlling the 
AOC IT budget and chairing the IT Project Management Board, which is 
the project oversight body for OIRM projects. The director is 
organizationally positioned to report to the agency's Deputy Chief of 
Staff, who is a member of AOC's senior policy committee and also the 
chairman of the investment review board, which is the approval body for 
new IT investments beginning in fiscal year 2004. The director's roles, 
responsibilities, and accountabilities also include overseeing and 
guiding the development, management, and use of IT throughout the 
agency.

GAO Analysis: AOC has fulfilled our recommendation. First, AOC has 
established a senior executive (the OIRM director) with the 
responsibility, authority, and resources for managing IT across the 
agency. Second, by having the OIRM director's supervisor chair the 
investment review board and sit on the senior policy committee, and by 
giving the IT director budget control, the agency has made the director 
a participant in senior decision-making. Third, AOC has defined in its 
IT policy the director's roles, responsibilities, and accountabilities.

Recommendation: Develop and implement IT investment management 
processes with the full support and participation of AOC's senior 
leadership. Specifically, the Architect must develop a plan for 
developing and implementing the investment management processes, as 
appropriate, that are outlined in our IT investment management 
guide.[Footnote 25] At a minimum, the plan should specify measurable 
tasks, goals, time frames, and resources required to develop and 
implement the processes. The Architect should focus first on the 
management processes associated with controlling existing projects and 
establishing the management structures to effectively implement an IT 
management process.

On the basis of research of private-and public-sector organizations 
that effectively manage their IT investments, our IT investment 
management guide outlines a corporate, portfolio-based approach to 
investment decision making. This approach requires that a sound 
investment management process be able to (1) measure the progress of 
existing projects and (2) continually assess proposed and ongoing 
projects as an integrated and competing set of investment options. AOC 
had not satisfied the components of either of these two major steps 
and, as a result, did not have an agencywide, portfolio-based approach 
to investment management.

Actions Taken by AOC: AOC is developing a new IT portfolio management 
process--called an investment framework--and plans to implement it in 
fiscal year 2004. AOC's IT policy, signed by the Architect, states the 
framework is to provide an effective means to select projects that best 
support the agency's mission. The current version of the framework, 
completed in October 2003, is organized along a "select, control, and 
evaluate" model. In January 2004, AOC stated that it has begun using 
the framework to control existing IT investments, using part of the 
framework--the process used to score proposed investments' value and 
risk--on all fiscal year 2004 investments. An agency official told us 
that AOC intends to fully implement the framework by May 2004. To 
execute the select, control, and evaluate processes, the framework 
specifies four management structures--an architecture and standards 
committee, a project management board, a business systems modernization 
office, and an investment review board, and AOC has defined the 
memberships of each.

GAO Analysis: AOC is partially addressing our recommendation. AOC's 
draft investment management framework focuses on investment selection. 
However, consistent with our IT investment management guide, we 
recommended that the agency focus first on detailing and implementing 
processes to control existing investments and that efforts to develop 
and implement these processes be guided by a detailed plan. AOC does 
not have a documented plan, with the associated tasks, goals, time 
frames, and resources needed to implement the framework. Also, the 
agency has not focused first on controlling existing IT investments. 
According to our guide, to control existing investments, AOC should be 
(1) operating an IT investment board responsible for controlling 
investments that includes both senior IT and business representatives, 
(2) providing effective oversight for ongoing IT projects throughout 
all phases of their life cycle, (3) identifying, tracking, and managing 
IT resources; and (4) ensuring that each IT project supports the 
organization's business needs. In January 2004, AOC stated that it has 
begun operating its project investment review board that has recently 
been revised to include senior agency leaders (e.g., chief financial 
officer and superintendents). AOC's framework addresses project 
oversight but does not specify how it will identify, track, and manage 
IT resources or ensure that projects support agency business needs. 
Further, although it intends to fully implement its IT investment 
management process by May 2004, AOC does not have a plan to do so that 
focuses on controlling existing IT projects and fully defining and 
implementing more mature investment management processes. Having such a 
plan would be consistent with our IT investment management guide and 
our recommendation for having a road map for achieving needed 
investment management maturity progression.

Additional Recommendation: We reiterate our recommendation that AOC 
develop and implement a plan that is consistent with our IT investment 
management guide and thus focus first on the practices associated with 
controlling existing IT investments. We also recommend that AOC plan 
for and implement those practices in our IT investment management guide 
associated with corporate, portfolio-based investment decision-making, 
such as (1) implementing criteria to select investments that will best 
support the organization's strategic goals, objectives, and mission, 
(2) using these criteria to consistently analyze and prioritize all IT 
investments, (3) ensuring that the optimal investment portfolio with 
manageable risks and returns is selected and funded, and (4) overseeing 
each investment within the portfolio to ensure that it achieves its 
cost, benefit, schedule, and risk expectations.

Recommendation: Develop, implement, and maintain an enterprise 
architecture (EA) to guide and constrain IT projects throughout AOC. 
The Architect should implement the practices, as appropriate, as 
outlined in the Chief Information Officer Council's architecture 
management guide.[Footnote 26] As a first step, the Architect should 
establish the management structure for developing, implementing, and 
maintaining an EA by implementing the following actions:

* developing an agencywide policy statement providing a clear mandate 
for developing, implementing, and maintaining the architecture;

* establishing an executive body composed of stakeholders from AOC 
mission-critical program offices to guide the strategy for developing 
the EA and ensure agency support and resources for it; and:

* designating an individual who serves as a chief enterprise architect 
to develop policy, lead the development of the EA, and manage it as a 
formal program.

Our experience with federal agencies has shown that attempting to 
modernize IT environments without an EA to guide and constrain 
investments often results in systems that are duplicative, not well 
integrated, unnecessarily costly to maintain and interface, and 
ineffective in supporting mission goals. The development, 
implementation, and maintenance of architectures are recognized 
hallmarks of successful private and public organizations that 
effectively exploited IT in meeting their mission goals. At the time of 
our initial review, AOC did not have an EA or the management foundation 
needed to successfully develop one.

Actions Taken by AOC: AOC's centralized IT policy commits to 
developing, implementing, and maintaining an EA and gives OIRM 
responsibility for developing and maintaining it. AOC has also assigned 
responsibility for guiding EA development and approving it to the 
agency's senior policy committee, which is composed of representatives 
from across the agency. According to the AOC Deputy Chief of Staff and 
the OIRM director, a chief enterprise architect position was requested, 
but not approved, in the fiscal year 2004 budget request, but the 
position has been included in the fiscal year 2005 budget request. In 
the interim, AOC has established a business systems modernization 
office in OIRM to provide technical and managerial support for 
architectural development. The agency also reports it has selected an 
architecture framework, the federal EA framework; hired a consultant to 
provide an architecture methodology and perform EA development work, 
and selected an automated tool to support development. Thus far, AOC 
has initiated activities to develop EA products, including completing 
the initial version of the existing, "as is," and the target, "to be," 
architectures--as well as a plan that will map out the transition from 
the "as is" to the "to be," in September 2003. AOC reports that the 
Deputy Chief of Staff has since approved these products. The agency 
also stated that it has developed a detailed plan addressing resource 
needs for its EA effort, although we have not yet received a copy of 
the plan. AOC's goal is to implement the target architecture by 
September 30, 2009.

GAO Analysis: AOC is partially addressing our recommendation. AOC has 
issued a policy on developing, implementing, and maintaining an EA; 
established an executive board to oversee EA development, and assigned 
responsibility to develop, implement, and maintain the architecture to 
AOC's Chief Technology Officer until a chief enterprise architect is 
hired. Thus, AOC has largely implemented our recommendations for 
launching the architecture effort but needs to execute the next steps 
toward completing, implementing, and maintaining an EA as detailed in 
our guide.[Footnote 27]

Additional Recommendation: We recommend that AOC complete ongoing steps 
associated with developing its EA and implement additional steps to 
complete, maintain, and implement the architecture. In particular, we 
recommend that AOC plan for and implement the practices in our 
architecture management guide associated with leveraging an EA for 
organizational transformation, such as (1) ensuring that adequate 
resources are devoted to the program (funding, people, tools, and 
technology), (2) ensuring that the architecture describes both the "as 
is" and the "to be" environments in terms of performance, (3) ensuring 
that architecture business, performance, information and data, 
applications and services, and technology descriptions address 
security; and (4) ensuring that metrics are used to measure EA 
progress, quality, compliance, and return on investment.

Recommendation: Require disciplined and rigorous processes for managing 
the development and acquisition of IT systems and implement the 
processes throughout AOC. Specifically, these processes should include 
the following:

* quality assurance processes, including developing a quality assurance 
plan and identifying applicable process and product standards that will 
be used in developing and assessing project processes and products;

* configuration management processes, including establishing a 
repository or configuration management system to maintain and control 
configuration management items;

* risk management processes, including developing a project risk 
management plan, identifying and prioritizing potential problems, 
implementing risk mitigation strategies, as required, and tracking and 
reporting progress against the plans; and:

* contract tracking and oversight processes, including developing a 
plan for tracking contractor activities, measuring contractor 
performance and conducting periodic reviews, and conducting internal 
reviews of tracking and oversight activities.

Our experience with federal agencies has shown that not having and 
following rigorous and disciplined development and acquisition 
processes can lead to systems that do not perform as intended, are 
delivered late, and cost more than planned. OIRM's existing information 
system life-cycle guidance defined some of the key development and 
acquisition processes, but did not address either risk management or 
contract tracking and oversight, and only partly addressed quality 
assurance and configuration management. Moreover, these processes had 
not been adopted and implemented agencywide.

Actions Taken by AOC: AOC awarded a contract in June 2003 to develop a 
new agencywide information systems life-cycle methodology that is to 
incorporate processes consistent with the Software Engineering 
Institute's Capability Maturity Model® Integration.[Footnote 28] The 
contract requires delivery of the methodology by January 31, 2004. OIRM 
plans to pilot test the new life-cycle processes, obtain feedback from 
these tests, and refine the processes as necessary before issuing 
guidance and beginning implementation as an AOC-wide standard starting 
March 31, 2004.

GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing our recommendation. 
By contracting for a new life-cycle methodology consistent with the 
Software Engineering Institute's Capability Maturity Model® 
Integration, AOC has taken action aimed at defining disciplined and 
rigorous processes for managing the development and acquisition of IT 
systems, including quality assurance, configuration management, 
contract tracking and oversight, and risk management. AOC still needs 
to ensure that it obtains a well-defined set of processes and that 
these processes are in fact implemented by March 31, 2004, as planned.

Recommendation: Establish and implement an information security 
program. Specifically, the Architect should establish an information 
security program by taking the following steps:

* designate a security officer and provide him or her with the 
authority and resources to implement an agencywide security program;

* develop and implement policy and guidance to perform risk assessments 
continually;

* use the results of the risk assessments to develop and implement 
appropriate controls;

* develop policies for security training and awareness and provide the 
training; and:

* monitor and evaluate policy and control effectiveness.

Our research of private-and public-sector organizations[Footnote 29] 
recognized as having strong information security programs shows that 
their programs include (1) establishing a central focal point with 
appropriate resources, (2) continually assessing business risks, 
(3) implementing and maintaining policies and controls, (4) promoting 
awareness, and (5) monitoring and evaluating policy and control 
effectiveness. Although AOC had taken important steps to establish an 
information security program, much remains to be done, including hiring 
an information security officer and an information security specialist, 
before this program satisfies recognized best practices.

Actions Taken by AOC: AOC has filled its information security officer 
position and, on May 30, 2003, issued a policy[Footnote 30] that gives 
this official the responsibility and authority to establish and 
implement an agencywide information security program. According to AOC, 
most of the necessary security resources (staff) were in place to begin 
the program as of October 9, 2003, and the agency has since filled the 
remaining position with contract resources. Further, AOC has drafted 
two additional policies, one mandating periodic risk assessments to 
determine information system vulnerabilities 
and use the results to institute appropriate controls,[Footnote 31] and 
another mandating security awareness and training for all AOC system 
users.[Footnote 32] According to AOC, issuance of these policies is 
scheduled for March 31, 2004, and the agency plans to begin awareness 
training by April 2004. In addition, the agency stated that its 
comprehensive IT security plan is being revised and estimates that this 
work will be completed in June 2004. Also, AOC plans to contract out 
the development of audit and review procedures to monitor and evaluate 
policy and program effectiveness; use AOC, contractor, and inspector 
general staff to conduct risk assessments and audits; and contract for 
an independent security audit of AOC systems by September 30, 2004.

GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing our recommendation. 
AOC has laid some of the foundation for establishing an effective 
security program, such as designating an information security officer 
and giving this official the authority to implement an agencywide 
security program; but work remains to first define and then execute 
this program. The key is for AOC to follow through on stated 
commitments to provide proper resources for the program, finalize its 
security policies, define processes for implementing the policies, and 
implement them.

[End of section]

Appendix V: Worker Safety:

In our January 2003 report, we made seven recommendations to help the 
Office of the Architect of the Capitol (AOC) improve its overall 
approach to worker safety by identifying performance measures, clearly 
defining policies and procedures for reporting hazards, establishing a 
consistent system for conducting investigations and followup, 
establishing a safety training curriculum, assigning clear 
responsibility for tracking worker safety employee training, clarifying 
the role of the Office of the Attending Physician (OAP) in helping AOC 
to meet its safety goals, and establishing a senior management work 
group to routinely discuss worker compensation issues. This appendix 
describes AOC's progress to date in addressing each of our 
recommendations. We provide a brief review of why we made each 
recommendation, report the actions that AOC has taken to implement the 
recommendation, and provide our analysis of whether AOC's actions 
address the underlying issues that caused us to make the recommendation 
in our January 2003 report.

Recommendation: Identify performance measures for safety goals and 
objectives, including measures for how AOC will implement the 43 
specialized safety programs[Footnote 33] and how superintendents and 
employees will be held accountable for achieving results.

At the time of our management review, 15 of AOC's 43 safety policies 
had been written and approved by the Architect. However, the standard 
operating procedures for these policies had not been approved, and 
several jurisdictions were using separate standard operating procedures 
that were unique to each jurisdiction. In addition, AOC had not yet 
developed performance measures or interim milestones that could be used 
to assess the implementation of these policies. Finally, AOC had not 
fully linked senior manager and employee performance with the 
achievement of its safety goals.

Actions Taken by AOC: According to AOC officials and documents we 
reviewed, a number of steps have been taken to address this 
recommendation. First, the number of safety policies has been reduced 
from 43 to 34 to better reflect the type of activities conducted at 
AOC. Second, AOC has drafted an Occupational Safety and Health Program 
(OSH) Plan, which establishes the objectives, actions, and milestones 
necessary to achieve the agency's safety and health goals. One 
objective is to establish additional policies and procedures to ensure 
AOC complies with Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) 
regulations and protects employee health. Third, within the draft OSH 
plan, AOC has created a schedule for developing and implementing all 34 
safety policies. Fourth, AOC is creating a standard template that 
identifies the critical elements, such as the tools and training 
requirements, for each policy.AOC is using the standard template to 
help ensure that the safety policies are consistently implemented 
across the 11 jurisdictions. Fifth, AOC has identified broader program 
goals that demonstrate its commitment to worker safety. AOC is 
establishing performance measures for each of the 34 safety policies to 
demonstrate progress toward the safety program goals and objectives. In 
addition, AOC has requested increases in the jurisdictional training 
budget for AOC employees. Finally, AOC is using a safety performance 
requirement within its PRP, senior employee performance management 
system, and its PCES, employee performance management system, to hold 
all senior managers and employees accountable for safety results.

GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing our recommendation. 
The draft OSH plan recognizes that implementation of AOC's 34 safety 
policies will require an agencywide cultural transition that will take 
a number of years of focused commitment to attain, including additional 
resource commitments. While implementation of all 34 safety policies 
had been targeted for completion by fiscal year 2005, this date has 
been extended to fiscal year 2007.[Footnote 34] As of the beginning of 
fiscal year 2004, no safety policy has been fully implemented.

The draft OSH plan identifies performance measures for some safety and 
health objectives. For example, the draft OSH plan indicates a 
performance measure for the objective "enhance employee awareness of 
and involvement in all aspects of safety and health" and includes 
publicizing the minutes from monthly meetings of jurisdictions to 
discuss safety and health. However, this performance measure is not 
fully developed or results oriented. To its credit, the draft OSH plan 
does indicate that performance measures for many of the 34 safety 
policies will be determined as each policy is developed, though many 
of the safety policies will not be developed for a number of years.
[Footnote 35]

Implementation of the 34 safety policies, even under the extended time 
frame, could be jeopardized according to AOC officials, if the 
increased staff and funding needs to accomplish the plan are not met. 
Four of the five jurisdictional superintendents we interviewed said 
they would need additional staff to fully implement the safety 
policies. In addition, both jurisdictional and central AOC officials 
said the jurisdictional training budgets would need to be increased to 
meet the training objectives established in the draft Occupational 
Safety and Health Program Plan. Moreover, one AOC jurisdictional 
official stated that if the request for additional staff members were 
not approved, the implementation plan would likely be delayed beyond 
fiscal year 2007. To the extent that AOC establishes a sound business 
case for additional staff and funding, having the appropriate resources 
in place to implement the safety policies will help AOC meet its time 
frames.

AOC has been unable to meet the original targeted time frame (fiscal 
year 2005) due to the need to revise the methodology for developing the 
safety policies.[Footnote 36] This was mainly due, according to AOC 
officials, to insufficient staff resources in the jurisdictions, as 
well as the need for consistency across jurisdictions. Specifically, 
AOC headquarters is developing a standard template for jurisdictions to 
use rather than relying upon jurisdictions to create their own standard 
operating procedures for each safety policy. While two of the safety 
policy standard templates have been drafted, neither has been released 
because the agency needs to make the procedures more user friendly for 
front-line employees.

Although AOC has stated it intends to link performance measures to each 
of the 34 safety policies, the data needed to successfully identify 
individual measures have not been collected. In addition, training 
needs identified in the draft OSH plan are dependent upon approval of 
additional funding requests, if negative service effects are to be 
avoided, according to AOC. Moreover, AOC officials stated the updated 
time frame for full implementation of the safety policies may need to 
be further extended to meet the training commitments identified in the 
draft OSH plan.

AOC's efforts to further develop and use performance management systems 
to help clarify accountability for safety results is an encouraging 
sign. However, the system for evaluating front-line employees does not 
yet contain specific objective standards and criteria for evaluating 
individuals on safety issues. Including these would help ensure that 
employees will be encouraged to report hazards, that supervisors will 
take those reports seriously, and that senior managers will be 
accountable for acting on these reports.

Recommendation: Establish clearly defined and documented policies and 
procedures for reporting hazards similar to those that apply to injury 
and illness reporting.

During our management review, we found that although AOC had a number 
of mechanisms for involving employees in its safety program and 
encouraged employees to report injuries and hazards, AOC lacked a 
hazard reporting mechanism and moreover, some employees were hesitant 
to report hazards to management because they were not sure how 
seriously their supervisors would treat these reports. As a result, AOC 
could not ensure that there was a complete reporting of hazards.

Actions Taken by AOC: First, AOC plans to develop a Hazard Assessment 
and Control policy, one of its 34 safety policies, beginning October 
2003 through June 2004 and fully implement the policy by May 2006. 
Second, as a key component in developing its Hazard Assessment and 
Control policy, AOC plans to identify hazards associated with specific 
job tasks. AOC calls this task a Job Hazard Analysis (JHA).[Footnote 
37] AOC has created a schedule for completing each JHA. In addition, 
AOC has contracted with the Department of Health and Human Services 
Public Health Service (PHS) to identify hazards associated with job 
tasks in each jurisdiction. For all potentially hazardous conditions 
identified, the job hazard analysis will include appropriate use of 
personal protective equipment, medical surveillance, training, and 
engineering controls.According to AOC officials, the JHA process has 
been completed for two jurisdictions--the Senate and the Construction 
Management Division. Lastly, while a majority of the jurisdictions 
awaits full development and implementation of the Hazard Assessment and 
Control policy and the Facility Management Assistant (FMA) system, 
jurisdictions continue to rely upon their own hazard reporting 
processes. The FMA system will (1) track and analyze the number and 
types of hazards and (2) identify follow-up corrective actions to 
ameliorate hazards. In addition, AOC plans to expand the capacity of 
the FMA system by purchasing an incident investigation module. This 
will allow AOC to track the investigation of incidents following 
injuries, illnesses, fatalities, and near misses. The FMA system is 
commercially available and contains a suite of software components. AOC 
officials reported that these processes vary across jurisdictions and 
involve formal reporting procedures and mechanisms, such as submission 
of standard forms for reporting hazards, as well as informal measures, 
such as e-mail messages and periodic employee meetings. In addition, 
AOC officials discuss hazards as well as other safety and health issues 
at meetings convened by AOC employee and managerial committees.

GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing our recommendation. 
While AOC has established a plan and initiated actions to improve 
reporting of hazards, the development and implementation of AOC-wide 
policy and procedures for hazard reporting is expected to take years to 
complete due to the time needed to develop and fully implement this 
safety policy. Notably, the Hazard Assessment and Control policy is not 
expected to be fully implemented until 2006.

AOC has made some strides in its efforts to initiate a comprehensive 
survey of hazards. Until AOC completes the implementation of this 
policy and subsequent analysis across all jurisdictions, it will not be 
able to develop a comprehensive picture of AOC hazards. Additionally, 
until AOC completes the system-wide process for investigating incidents 
across all jurisdictions, it will not be able to develop a 
comprehensive picture of AOC incidents, including their causes.

Recommendation: Establish a consistent AOC-wide system for conducting 
investigations and follow-up.

During our management review, we found that although AOC had a number 
of mechanisms to obtain employee involvement and encourage employees to 
report incidents, accidents, and illnesses, the existing control 
mechanisms could not ensure that all reports were treated consistently 
across AOC. As a result, AOC could not ensure that there was a complete 
investigation of incidents, accidents, and illnesses.

Actions Taken by AOC: AOC plans to develop an incident reporting 
policy, one of its 34 safety policies, to be fully implemented by May 
2005. A key component of this policy is an incident investigation 
module. The module is expected to track--in electronic form--data on 
injuries, near misses, and property damage following an incident. AOC 
officials told us they expect to purchase the module, as well as 
complete the policies and procedures pertaining to incident reporting, 
by March 2004.Beginning in March 2004, AOC plans to have one 
jurisdiction test the incident reporting policy.

As mentioned previously, the incident investigation module will be a 
component of AOC's integrated FMA system. Pending development of the 
incident investigation module of the FMA system, jurisdictions will 
continue to rely upon their own incident investigation methods. These 
processes vary across jurisdictions and include formal reporting 
procedures and mechanisms, such as submission of standard forms for 
reporting injuries and illnesses, safety hotlines, and accident 
investigation teams.

GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing our recommendation. 
While AOC has established a plan and initiated actions to improve the 
reporting of incidents, the development and implementation of AOC-wide 
policy and procedures for incident reporting is expected to take at 
least a year to complete due to the need to fully develop a reporting 
system that will track incidents. Until this occurs, jurisdictions will 
continue to use separate systems for identifying and reporting 
incidents. Additionally, until AOC completes the systemwide process for 
investigating incidents, it will not be able to develop a comprehensive 
picture of AOC incidents, including their causes, across all 
jurisdictions. While the system takes an extended time to develop, 
important information positioning the agency to develop proactive 
strategies to avoid incidents is left untapped. Moreover, central 
office safety staff will be able to view cross-jurisdictional data. 
However, officials in two of the five jurisdictions we interviewed said 
they could benefit from increased access to incident data from other 
jurisdictions, beyond the limited information currently provided by 
central office safety staff.

Finally AOC does not, at this time, have a definitive strategy to 
integrate the FMA system with the system to generate work orders to 
correct identified hazards. The lack of a hazard identification work 
order generation link could lead to a missed opportunity to 
strategically manage hazard reporting and the identification of 
abatement actions. Furthermore, some jurisdiction officials told us 
that having separate systems for reporting and abatement creates more 
work for them. Having separate systems could discourage use of the FMA 
system, thereby defeating its purpose. However, a senior AOC official 
stated that further linkages between these separate systems are 
possible as part of AOC's EA efforts.

Recommendation: Establish a safety training curriculum that fully 
supports all of the goals of the safety program and further evaluate 
the effectiveness of the training provided.

During our management review, we found that although AOC uses a 
compliance-based approach to providing safety training, it would 
benefit from targeting its safety awareness training to better motivate 
employees at all levels to incorporate safety into all aspects of their 
work.

Actions Taken by AOC: According to AOC documents we reviewed and 
officials we interviewed, the agency has developed a Safety Training 
Plan to provide guidance to all managers and employees to properly 
identify and select training courses to ensure compliance with policy 
requirements. The plan contains a training matrix that lists the 
training for each safety policy with a training requirement, including 
the list of courses, frequency of training, and target audiences (e.g., 
employees working in the electrical and masonry shops) for each safety 
policy. The plan states that it is not intended to replace or supercede 
specific training requirements that are delineated in individual safety 
policies. In some cases, the course content is specifically tailored to 
an individual jurisdiction and target audience, which will assist 
supervisors and participants with relating the training to their work 
environment. However, such tailoring has not been completed for all 
courses. In addition, AOC uses formal methods to evaluate training, 
such as a participant evaluation form, as well as informal methods, 
such as following up with participants' supervisors to obtain feedback 
on training sessions. Also, Safety Policy Managers audit courses and 
provide feedback to course designers and instructors. Finally, the 
fiscal year 2005 training budget request will include funds for 
additional staff that AOC believes are necessary to support front-line 
work while employees fulfill their training requirements.

GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing our recommendation. 
While AOC has taken some concrete steps to change the culture of 
workplace safety through training, measures to assess the actual 
effectiveness of these training courses on employee behavior have not 
been developed. A senior AOC official also recognized the need to 
better evaluate AOC's training system. AOC officials believe that if 
the agency's fiscal year 2005 budget request for additional staff is 
not met, then (1) the timeline for all employees meeting their training 
requirements, as identified in the draft OSH plan, may need to be 
extended or (2) AOC could experience a loss in productivity while 
employees receive training. Finally, the FMA system, which will be used 
to track and identify corrective actions for hazards and incidents, 
will not be aligned to the training system to help identify and target 
training needs to address high-risk areas.

Recommendation: Assign clear responsibility for tracking and recording 
training received by AOC employees, including maintaining an inventory 
of employees' certifications and licenses.

During our management review, we found that the procedures and 
responsibilities for monitoring training requirements for the safety 
program were not well defined. In addition, AOC safety and HRMD 
officials had not established a systematic process to identify training 
needs for individual employees to help ensure the safety program's 
success.

Actions Taken by AOC: Although senior officials in the jurisdictions 
are responsible for monitoring employee training needs, they cannot 
access HRMD's database of AOC-sponsored training courses and employees 
training attendance. According to AOC officials we interviewed, some 
jurisdictions continue to track training information on their own, 
which may create inconsistencies in reporting and lead to duplicative 
record-keeping. In addition, we found that although AOC's draft Safety 
Master Plan[Footnote 38] noted that an electronic reminder tool--called 
a tickler--would be added to HRMD's training database to identify 
training needs for individual employees, it has yet to be developed. A 
senior AOC official told us that funds have currently been made 
available to research the requirements needed to develop the electronic 
reminder tool--now referred to as a data management system. The 
official stated that the data management system will track whether 
requirements in training, licensing, certifications, and medical 
surveillance for employees have been met. AOC expects this system to be 
operational by fiscal year 2005. AOC indicated that as part of its 
effort to integrate agency goals and multiple data systems under its EA 
plan, it intends at some point to develop an agencywide system that 
will identify employees' training needs, including certification and 
licensing requirements.

GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing our recommendation. 
Procedures and responsibilities for monitoring training requirements 
for the safety program, while beginning to move in the right direction, 
remain poorly defined. Although HRMD's database tracks and records 
employee training, including training to meet licensing and 
certification requirements, the database (1) does not proactively 
identify training needed to maintain employees' licensing and 
certification requirements and (2) is not accessible to the 
jurisdictions. As a result, several jurisdictions had created and 
continue to use separate systems to track employee training and 
maintain certification and licensure requirements.Although AOC plans to 
address employee training requirement gaps through the development of 
its EA plan, it has yet to take any substantial steps to do so.

Recommendation: Clarify and explore the possibility of expanding the 
role of the Office of the Attending Physician (OAP) in helping AOC meet 
its safety goals, consistent with the broad responsibilities laid out 
in the 1998 Memorandum of Understanding between AOC and OAP.

During our management review, we found that although OAP provides 
important health and safety assistance to AOC, such as conducting OSHA-
mandated medical examinations on employees exposed to hazardous 
substances, the role of OAP could be more clearly defined and expanded. 
In particular, the 1998 Memorandum of Understanding between OAP and AOC 
allows a broader role for OAP in several areas, such as providing trend 
information on the results of medical examinations.

Actions Taken by AOC: Over the past 6 months, an OAP representative has 
been attending AOC's Safety, Health and Environmental Council (SHEC) 
and Jurisdiction Occupational Safety and Health (JOSH) meetings and has 
been involved in reviewing and commenting on AOC's development of 34 
safety policies, particularly the policy concerning medical 
examinations required for employees exposed to known hazards. In 
addition, OAP has been reviewing recommendations for injured employees 
who are attempting to return to work on "light-duty.":

GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing our recommendation. 
While AOC has taken worthwhile steps to involve OAP in the development 
of safety policies and the discussion of safety issues, it has not 
identified or pursued other key areas where OAP could play a 
significant role in enhancing efforts to ensure worker safety. For 
example, AOC has not taken any concrete steps to obtain data or 
analyses from OAP medical examinations that might identify health-
related trends. While AOC officials told us that confidentiality issues 
might interfere with such efforts, no steps have been taken to address 
and overcome this concern.

Recommendation: Establish a senior management work group that will 
routinely discuss workers' compensation cases and costs, and develop 
strategies to reduce these injuries and costs.

A senior management work group would provide staff in HRMD, the central 
office, and the jurisdictions with a forum to discuss new and ongoing 
claims and facilitate the exchange of information to further control 
workers' compensation costs. At the time of our last review, HRMD used 
injury data primarily for processing workers' compensation costs, and 
central staff did not systematically analyze the data. Jurisdiction 
staff, on the other hand, did not routinely receive data on costs 
associated with injuries.

Actions Taken by AOC: Rather than create a separate work group, AOC 
officials discuss workers' compensation costs at the SHEC meetings. 
SHEC meetings are held each quarter and participants include senior 
managers from HRMD, the central office, and the jurisdictions, as well 
as JOSH representatives, an OAP representative, and a senior council 
member. During the meeting, HRMD and its Workers' Compensation Program 
Unit provide relevant data on workers' compensation issues, including 
discussions on best practices that can be used to lower workers' 
compensation costs.

GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing our recommendation, 
which was intended to ensure that senior management and other key 
stakeholders routinely discuss data on workers' compensation. AOC plans 
to develop new approaches to reduce workers' compensation costs based 
upon these discussions. However, no solutions or new approaches to 
address workers' compensation costs have thus far been developed.

[End of section]

Appendix VI: Project Management:

In our January 2003 report, we made five recommendations to help the 
Office of the Architect of the Capitol (AOC) improve its overall 
approach to project management by developing a Capitol Hill complex 
master plan and completing building condition assessments, developing a 
transparent process to prioritize agency capital projects, developing 
tools to effectively communicate priorities and progress of projects, 
clearly defining project-management-related measures, and aligning 
project management staff and resources with mission-critical goals. 
This appendix describes AOC's progress to date in addressing each of 
our recommendations. We provide a brief review of why we made each 
recommendation, report the actions that AOC has taken to implement the 
recommendation, and provide our analysis of whether AOC's actions 
address the underlying issues that caused us to make the recommendation 
in our January 2003 report.

Recommendation: Develop a Capitol Hill complex master plan and complete 
condition assessments of all buildings and facilities under the 
jurisdiction of AOC.

Master planning is necessary to help AOC establish long-term 
priorities, but progress has been slow. In July 2001, the Senate 
Committee on Appropriations expressed concern that AOC needed to 
develop a master plan for the Capitol Hill complex. Over a year later 
the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) held a planning workshop for AOC 
to determine the scope of a Capitol Hill complex master plan. A key 
component of a master plan is building condition assessments (BCA), 
which are systematic evaluations of an organization's assets. When 
conducted, BCAs must be carried out consistently across all 
jurisdictions to help ensure that all assets are evaluated in the same 
manner and that AOC-wide priorities can be set. We reported in our 
January 2003 report that AOC had recently formed a condition assessment 
team to develop a detailed statement of work for conducting BCAs.

Actions Taken by AOC: According to the Acting Chief for AOC Office of 
Design and Construction (ODC), AOC received the NAS report in June 2003 
and is developing the requirements for the Capitol Hill complex master 
plan.[Footnote 39] The NAS study provided guidance on developing a 
scope of services for a master plan. Based on more detailed work that 
AOC has done in developing the scope for the master plan, AOC revised 
its schedule to show the consultant being selected in February 2004 and 
the final master plan being completed in December 2006.

AOC's Acting Chief of ODC said that AOC is completing the statement of 
work for the BCAs. He said that AOC plans to award BCA contracts for 
its three largest jurisdictions--the House, Capitol, and Senate--in 
2003. According to AOC, the statements of work for the Capitol and 
Senate BCAs have now been completed, and it expected to award the 
contracts in December 2003. These building assessments are expected to 
take about one year to complete. The Acting Chief of ODC said that the 
BCAs for the other buildings under AOC management would be awarded in 
fiscal years 2004 and 2005.

GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing our recommendation, 
although, in its March 7, 2003, draft performance plan, AOC showed that 
it planned to publish the final Capitol Hill complex master plan on 
April 1, 2006. In addition, the current schedule shows the final plan 
being completed 8 months later in December 2006. AOC's schedule shows 
that most of the additional time, 6 months, was added so AOC can obtain 
and incorporate comments and finalize the plan.

Completion of the BCAs is also behind the tentative schedule developed 
in March 2003. The first BCAs were to be completed March 31, 2004. But 
since not all BCA contracts are expected to be awarded until December 
2003, and the work is expected to take about 1 year, it appears that 
the initial BCAs for the three largest jurisdictions will not be 
completed until the fall of 2004. Completion of the other BCAs will 
depend on when funding is received. Since the BCAs are a key component 
of the master plan, AOC will need to push to get these completed as 
soon as possible so they can be integrated into the master plan. It is 
important to recognize that once the BCAs are completed they should be 
updated on a regular schedule.

Recommendation: Develop a process for assigning project priorities that 
is based on clearly defined, well documented, consistently applied, and 
transparent criteria.

During our management review, the lack of a transparent process to 
prioritize projects was identified as a major weakness at AOC. 
Priorities were determined on the subjective decisions made by 
jurisdiction officials and not on predefined criteria. The only day-to-
day prioritization that was used was a "hot projects" list. Projects 
were subjectively placed on this list based on time sensitivity and 
high dollar volume; however, the process for placing projects onto this 
list was neither formal nor consistently applied. We reported in our 
January 2003 report that AOC lacked a process that can communicate, 
both internally and externally, the trade-offs in prioritizing one 
project over another or how individual projects fit within a broader 
AOC framework.

Actions Taken by AOC: According to the ODC Acting Chief, in February 
2003, AOC worked with a consultant to develop evaluation criteria to 
prioritize building projects. For prioritization purposes, each project 
is evaluated in five areas and assigned a score, based on a 100-point 
scale, in each area. The areas that building projects are evaluated in 
are:

1. preservation--preservation of historic or legacy buildings and the 
importance of the Architect's stewardship role,

2. impact on mission--impact on mission/client urgency/ accommodating 
new or changed mission,

3. economic impact--payback, cost savings, or cost avoidance,

4. safety--fire and life safety and other code, regulatory, or 
statutory requirements,

5. security--physical security.

In working with its consultant, AOC developed a matrix to provide 
criteria and guidance on how to evaluate and score the projects in each 
of the defined areas. For example, when evaluating a project in the 
area of preservation, 80 points may be given to a project that includes 
the preservation of a highly significant historical feature, while only 
20 points may be given to a project with less historical significance. 
Projects are ranked based on the total number of points they receive in 
all five areas. These criteria were developed after the fiscal year 
2005 projects were submitted for the proposed budget, but according to 
the AOC Deputy Director of Engineering, they then applied this criteria 
to prioritize those projects. The prioritized list of projects was then 
shared with the superintendents who validated the results of the 
prioritization. For the fiscal year 2005 projects, the prioritization 
was not used to determine which projects would be included in the 
budget request, but only the order in which they would be done. He said 
that in the future, when the prioritization is used to determine which 
projects would be submitted for funding, there may be more discussion 
about why projects were scored in a particular way.

GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing this recommendation. 
AOC has created a clearly defined, well-documented, and transparent 
process for evaluating and prioritizing projects. While determining the 
priority of projects will always be somewhat subjective, AOC has 
developed a reasonable approach using a matrix to help raters score 
projects in five areas. The matrix provides clear guidance and 
specifies issues to consider when scoring projects in each of the five 
rating areas. Since the evaluation criteria have not yet been used to 
determine which projects will be submitted for funding, it remains to 
be seen if they will be consistently applied. Using this matrix and 
documenting the factors used in making the priority decisions should 
help AOC support its capital improvement program.

Recommendation: Develop tools to effectively communicate priorities and 
progress of projects, as a part of a broader communication strategy.

At the time of our management review, AOC lacked the tools to 
communicate its priorities internally to staff and externally to 
clients and provide details on how related projects are linked to one 
another. AOC officials said that the Project Information Center (PIC) 
system, the database of all project-related information, was used to 
prioritize work and ascertain the progress of projects, but it was not 
capable of producing a unified document that shows schedules of active 
projects, their interrelationships, and required staff. Without a 
resource-loaded project master-planning capability, it is difficult to 
determine the effect of priority changes and to quantify project 
manager staffing requirements. In addition, the information in PIC was 
not consistently updated nor was it systematically reviewed to 
determine its accuracy. While AOC used the PIC system to prepare a 
quarterly capital projects report that provided the status of all 
ongoing capital projects, the report did not highlight projects that 
were behind schedule, over budget, or otherwise of interest to clients.

Actions Taken by AOC: AOC has worked to improve the capabilities of its 
PIC system and the format of its quarterly report on capital projects. 
AOC has improved the capabilities of PIC by adding links to the 
financial management system and building/project drawings. According to 
AOC officials, AOC has identified a software package capable of 
producing a unified schedule that shows staff resources and a purchase 
order has been issued for the software and supporting consulting to 
accomplish proper installation of the application.

To improve the accuracy and timeliness of PIC data, the Director of the 
Technical Support Division told us that AOC has verbally and in writing 
reemphasized the importance of timely and accurate data. He also said 
that two people review the data monthly looking for inaccuracies and 
missing data.

AOC has revised the quarterly report format to make it more user 
friendly. The quarterly report is color coded so the user can quickly 
identify those projects that are behind schedule or need additional 
funding. The report also includes summary information and highlights 
projects of particular interest for reasons such as not being on 
schedule or requiring additional funding. The report also discusses the 
resolution of issues related to projects highlighted in the previous 
report.

GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing our recommendation. 
It is encouraging that AOC has made improvements to PIC, but AOC will 
continue to have difficulty managing schedules and workload until it is 
able to produce a unified schedule to show the status of the projects 
and the responsible project managers. We did not verify the accuracy of 
the PIC data but the Director of the Technical Support Division said 
that they are focusing on improving data accuracy and completeness.

While the usefulness of the quarterly report has improved, our analysis 
shows that the project schedule charts can still be confusing. For 
example, the "work on schedule" bar on the chart shows that the work is 
on schedule when it has not yet begun, which can make it appear that a 
large percentage of AOC's projects is on schedule when actually 
projects have not yet begun. It would also be helpful if the individual 
project summaries indicated when a project's schedule has been changed 
and why the schedule was changed. In addition, the report indicates 
when additional project funding is being requested, but it is not 
always clear if the requested funding is for cost overruns or if the 
funding request was planned and is for a new phase of the project.

Recommendation: Define project-management-related performance measures 
to achieve mission-critical strategic and annual performance goals.

During our management review, we found that AOC needed to work with its 
stakeholders to determine its long-term strategic goals and annual 
performance goals for project management. The development of annual 
performance goals that provide a connection between long-term goals and 
day-to-day activities would enable AOC to track its progress, provide 
critical information for decision-making and foster individual 
accountability.

Actions Taken by AOC: AOC's draft strategic plan and draft performance 
plan identify some measures and processes that will be used to monitor 
and evaluate AOC's success. The measures identified in the draft 
strategic plan are (1) projects executed and delivered on time and on 
budget and (2) client satisfaction. In June 2003, AOC defined uniform 
operating procedures for conducting customer satisfaction surveys. As 
defined in these procedures, the purpose of such a customer 
satisfaction survey is to assess the gap between the services provided 
by AOC and the needs of its customers. These procedures generically 
apply to the process of developing, administering, and managing the 
data from any customer satisfaction survey.

AOC's draft performance plan also identified the following new 
assessments (1) evaluation of design teams' performance, (2) evaluation 
of architects', engineers' (A/E), and general contractors' (GC) 
performance, and (3) post-occupancy evaluations of buildings to 
evaluate design and standards performance over time. In July 2003, AOC 
issued operating procedures for conducting project design satisfaction 
surveys. The purpose of these surveys is to provide internal customers 
an open platform to express appreciation or concern about their design 
activity. According to the procedures, the surveys will be done on an 
ad hoc basis upon completion of a design project. According to an AOC 
official in the Office of the Administrative Assistant, the draft 
survey is being reviewed within AOC.

As part of the AOC's Design and Construction Office ongoing best 
practices initiative, it had hired a consultant to evaluate five 
recently completed construction projects to identify lessons learned 
that could be applied to other projects. Key participants in the 
projects were surveyed about how the projects performed in the 
following areas (1) organization/teamwork, (2) planning process, (3) 
design process, (4) procurement process, and (5) construction process. 
The consultant reported on "why projects went right," identified areas 
for improvement, and made recommendations in each of the areas. 
According to the report, upgrades were recommended to AOC project 
manager's manual and standards and these recommendations were 
incorporated into the project manager training held in the spring 2003.

GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing our recommendation. 
While AOC's draft strategic plan has identified types of performance 
measures, it has yet to formally define specific measurable performance 
goals. The Acting Chief for ODC told us that he believes that the 
performance goal for this division is for all projects to be delivered 
on time and on budget, but this is not specifically written as a goal. 
In addition, clarity is needed for how and when a project's schedule 
and budget benchmarks are established and when they can be changed. For 
example, if a project's schedule is based on receiving funding during 
the current year, yet it does not receive the funding until the next 
year, we understand that AOC will change the project's schedule 
benchmark. It is not clear that this decision is documented in the 
project summary in the quarterly report to Congress.

As part of obtaining stakeholder input for project management, AOC's 
draft performance plan identifies a number of surveys that will be used 
to monitor and evaluate projects. While AOC has developed procedures 
for conducting the project design satisfaction surveys, the actual 
survey, which was tentatively scheduled to be ready on June 30, 2003, 
is still being finalized within AOC. The A/E and GC surveys are not 
scheduled to be ready for distribution until spring 2004, and the 
process for developing post-occupancy evaluations will not be completed 
until fall 2005.

The lessons learned report that sought feedback from stakeholders and 
participants on five recently completed projects to make specific 
recommendations on how to improve performance on future projects is 
also an important development.

Recommendation: Align project management staff and resources with AOC's 
mission-critical goals.

At the time of our management review, AOC recognized that the current 
approach of assigning mostly architects and engineers as project 
managers was ineffective. Project managers said that they were being 
asked to wear "too many hats," which often distracted them from their 
primary duty of managing projects. AOC officials responsible for 
project management had proposed the creation of a new and independent 
Project Management Division. However, we noted that such realignment 
must support the agency meeting its mission-critical goals and 
objectives and would require a determination as to which individuals 
have the skills to be dedicated project managers and who would 
supervise the project managers. We also reported that AOC had not 
developed project management-specific technical competencies and 
defining these competencies would be important for ensuring that the 
right people are employed in the right positions and that they are 
routinely held accountable for their work. We noted that as a next 
step, AOC could also identify and implement training programs that are 
linked to the core and technical competencies required of project 
managers.

Actions Taken by AOC: ODC has begun to make some organizational changes 
that are awaiting approval by the COO. These changes include the 
creation of a Project Management Division, which is currently staffed 
by a director and three project managers. AOC is hiring five additional 
project managers using position descriptions specifying the duties and 
knowledge required for the position. The project manager's duties 
include providing life-cycle project management expertise and 
coordination from the planning stage through post-occupancy evaluation. 
AOC will also be providing all project managers with training based on 
AOC's new project management manual. Project managers are expected to 
be dedicated to a project for its duration and will report to the 
Director of Project Management. They will be responsible for 
multidisciplined capital improvement projects with budgets of $250,000 
or more, while projects budgeted at less than $250,000 or involving a 
single discipline, such as lighting retrofits, will continue to be 
managed by architects or engineers.

The new Director of Project Management has systematically determined 
the number of project managers needed by estimating the length of time 
it takes to perform each task defined in AOC's project management 
guide. This enabled him to determine how many projects one project 
manager should be able to manage concurrently.

The Director of AOC's HRMD told us that she is working with ODC to 
identify competencies for project managers to help ensure that project 
managers have the skills needed to effectively perform their jobs.

GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing our recommendation. 
While the new organization chart for AOC's ODC is still pending 
approval by the COO, AOC is creating a Project Management Division led 
at the director level with attendant dedicated project manager 
positions. It is also important that AOC is using a systematic approach 
to determine project workload and develop a request for additional 
project manager positions. AOC's systematic approach may help justify 
AOC's need for additional project managers and manage expectations of 
its stakeholders for projects based on the number of available project 
managers. However, as noted, AOC still does not have the capability of 
producing a unified schedule showing staff resources, which will make 
it difficult to manage staffing levels. AOC is taking the first steps 
to ensure that the right people are employed in the right positions by 
starting to identify competencies for its project management staff, 
creating position descriptions based on those competencies, and using 
those position descriptions as a basis for recruiting and hiring staff.

[End of section]

Appendix VII: Recycling:

In our January 2003 report, we made three recommendations to help the 
Office of the Architect of the Capitol (AOC) improve its overall 
approach to its recycling program by developing a clear mission and 
goals, developing a performance measurement system to support 
accomplishing its recycling program, and examining the roles and 
responsibilities of its recycling program staff. This appendix 
describes AOC's progress to date in addressing each of our 
recommendations. We provide a brief review of why we made each 
recommendation, report the actions that AOC has taken to implement the 
recommendation, and provide our analysis of whether AOC's actions 
address the underlying issues that caused us to make the recommendation 
in our January 2003 report.

Recommendation: Develop a clear mission and goals for AOC's recycling 
program with input from key congressional stakeholders as part of its 
proposed environmental master plan. AOC may want to establish 
reasonable goals based on the total waste stream--information it plans 
to obtain as part of its long-term environmental management plan--that 
could potentially be recycled.

During our management review, we found that AOC had established neither 
a clear mission statement nor goals for its recycling program. Various 
program-related documents made indirect references to two different 
missions for the program. One mission was to reduce the total amount of 
solid waste sent to landfills, and the other mission was to generate as 
much revenue as possible from the sale of its recyclable materials to a 
recycling contractor. Similarly, we found that AOC had not established 
any measurable goals for its recycling programs. The absence of AOC 
recycling goals did not allow measures to be linked to a desired level 
of performance, and thus AOC could not demonstrate the extent to which 
performance is achieved. We also stated that establishing meaningful 
goals would require collection of certain other information, including 
information obtained from a waste stream analysis.

We concluded that the high levels of contamination present in the 
materials collected in both the Senate and House recycling programs had 
not allowed AOC to achieve either substantial waste reduction or 
revenue generation it might have otherwise achieved.[Footnote 40] By 
clarifying the mission of the program, AOC could design recycling 
programs to achieve better results. We also suggested that, consistent 
with the communications strategy we discussed in our January 2003 
report, AOC should involve its congressional stakeholders in the 
process of developing the mission statement for its recycling 
programs. We recommended that AOC develop a clear mission and goals 
for its recycling program with input from key congressional 
stakeholders as part of its proposed environmental master plan.

Actions Taken by AOC: In its March 2003 draft strategic plan, AOC 
states that it plans to develop a long-range environmental program plan 
that will establish program mission, vision, goals, and 
measures.[Footnote 41] The strategic plan also states that this 
environmental program plan would include clarifying the mission, goals, 
and measures of the recycling program--a component of pollution 
prevention. Although, according to its performance plan, AOC is a few 
months behind its scheduled time frame for this work. AOC has begun 
work on both of these projects--the baseline assessment and waste 
stream analysis--and AOC program officials told us that both projects 
will be substantially completed by the end of 2003. These AOC officials 
also advised us that the results of this baseline assessment and waste 
stream analysis would provide a basis for establishing program 
priorities and measuring progress. The performance plan also provides 
for stakeholder participation in this process both before and after the 
actual environmental program planning process occurs; but this has not 
yet taken place. According to AOC's performance plan, stakeholder 
involvement is scheduled to begin in the second quarter of fiscal year 
2004, after completion of the baseline assessment and waste stream 
analysis.

GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing our recommendation 
by taking the first steps toward developing a mission and goals for its 
recycling program. Collecting information through its baseline 
assessment and waste stream analysis will provide the factual 
information AOC needs as a basis for establishing those mission and 
goal statements. In addition, this information will be used in the 
development of its environmental program plan. Also, according to AOC's 
draft performance plan, its stakeholders will be involved both before 
and after actual development of the environmental program plan, 
scheduled to begin in the third quarter of fiscal year 2004. AOC's 
approach to developing its recycling program mission and goals within 
the broader context of an environmental program plan, as discussed in 
its draft strategic and performance plans, is reasonable and consistent 
with our recommendation.

Recommendation: Develop a performance measurement, monitoring, and 
evaluation system that supports accomplishing AOC's recycling mission 
and goals.

In our January 2003 report, we stated that as AOC revisited its program 
mission, goals, and design, the agency would have an opportunity to 
reexamine its recycling performance measurement system efforts to 
ensure that it had the right type of performance measures to support 
program monitoring and decision making. In addition, we stated that 
monitoring performance against goals would enable AOC program managers 
to identify where performance is lagging, investigate potential causes, 
and identify actions designed to improve performance. We also suggested 
that to support the accomplishment of AOC's recycling mission and 
goals, the performance measurement system developed should (1) show the 
degree to which the desired results were achieved, (2) be limited to 
the few vital measures needed for decision-making, (3) be responsive to 
multiple priorities, and (4) establish accountability for results.

Actions Taken by AOC: AOC stated in its draft strategic and performance 
plans that it would clarify the mission, goals, and measures of the 
recycling program as part of its environmental program planning 
process, which is scheduled to begin in the third quarter of fiscal 
year 2004 and is expected to be complete by the end of calendar year 
2004. According to the Safety and Environmental Division (SED) 
director, AOC currently measures and tracks several key performance 
indicators, such as tonnage collected for multiple recycling streams 
and the quantity of material collected for recycling that does not meet 
specifications for reimbursement. The SED director also told us that 
additional action to revise existing and establish new measures is 
underway, including gathering and analyzing data as part of the waste 
stream analysis study. The results from this effort will be used to 
establish performance goals and additional performance measures that 
are appropriate to the program. This effort is part of a broader AOC 
initiative to develop the environmental program plan.

According to the SED director, AOC plans to develop the environmental 
program plan internally with the option of obtaining consultant 
services if, during the course of the planning process, it finds 
certain expertise is needed but not available on staff. Also according 
to the SED director, AOC has taken steps to increase environmental 
staffing and contract for technical resources necessary to address a 
variety of environmental issues to support the development of the 
environmental program plan, such as a completed best management 
practices review, a waste stream analysis and pollution prevention 
planning initiative in progress, an environmental baseline assessment 
nearly completed, and an electronic waste recycling study. In addition, 
the SED director also told us that to minimize delays in obtaining 
consultant support, the Environmental Branch has obtained funding in 
the fiscal year 2004 budget to establish an environmental contract 
allowing AOC to more quickly procure consultant services.

GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing our recommendation. 
In addition to recommending that AOC develop a recycling performance 
measurement, monitoring, and evaluation system, our January 2003 report 
also suggested certain criteria and processes AOC could follow in 
establishing the recycling performance measures. For example, we 
suggested that AOC take certain steps in developing its performance 
measurement system, such as making sure the recycling measures 
developed show the degree to which the desired results were achieved 
and that AOC use a General Services Administration guide for federal 
agencies that describes the steps an agency could use to measure and 
monitor recycling efforts.[Footnote 42] However, the development of 
reasonable performance measures can also consider certain other 
sources, such as government or industry benchmarks for recycling 
programs as well as feedback from congressional stakeholders.

We agree that AOC should not establish performance measures until it 
has obtained the information it needs from the results of the 
environmental baseline and waste stream analysis that will help to 
establish the performance goals of the recycling program. Because AOC 
has not yet identified the performance measures it will use to assess 
the progress of its overall environmental program plan, we cannot 
assess at this time whether the resulting measures will be consistent 
with the elements of a performance measurement system as discussed in 
our January 2003 report. It is important that AOC specify the steps it 
will take and the information sources it will use to develop its 
recycling program performance measures.

Recommendation: Examine the roles and responsibilities of AOC's 
recycling program staff to ensure that they are performing the right 
jobs with the necessary authority, and holding the staff accountable 
for achieving program and agency results through AOC's performance 
management system.

The roles and responsibilities of AOC's recycling program staff members 
have evolved in recent years, without the guidance of a clearly defined 
mission and goals. We reported in our January 2003 report that AOC had 
recently changed the responsibilities of its recycling program 
management positions to provide a greater focus on program planning and 
evaluation. However, these program managers reported that much of their 
time was spent on day-to-day program implementation activities, leaving 
little time to fulfill their expanded roles.

In addition, we found that the existing structure did not provide a 
clear mechanism to determine individual accountability for achieving 
results. Under the existing structure, jurisdictional recycling program 
managers are accountable only to their jurisdictional management, i.e., 
the Senate and House office buildings superintendents. The AOC Resource 
Conservation Manager, responsible for AOC-wide recycling programs, had 
no authority over either the jurisdictional managers or the recycling 
program managers in those jurisdictions. In addition, we stated in our 
January 2003 report that approximately 875 bargaining unit and trade 
union employees, such as the recycling workers and custodial staff that 
collect recyclable materials, were not covered by AOC's employee 
performance management system, PCES.

Actions Taken by AOC: AOC has created two new positions, an 
Environmental Branch Manager and Environmental Technician within SED 
that have duties and responsibilities related to the recycling program. 
In addition to these positions in SED, AOC has also filled a previously 
vacant Assistant Recycling Program Manager position within the House 
office-building jurisdiction. AOC officials said that these new 
positions would provide additional resources for improved planning and 
evaluation of the recycling program.

In addition, each jurisdiction reported that it evaluated respective 
recycling operations and made changes in staffing and organization 
plans, some of which have been implemented. The Senate jurisdiction 
examined its recycling function and determined in May 2003 that the 
jurisdiction's recycling staff, then assigned to one of three different 
organizational units, should be consolidated into one division 
reporting to the Recycling Program Manager. In the justification for 
making the change, the Superintendent for the Senate jurisdiction 
stated that, because of the diluted span of control and lack of 
accountability that existed under the present organizational structure, 
his jurisdiction could not achieve the desired level of program 
performance and execution. The Senate jurisdictional proposal also 
included adding four positions to the recycling collection staff. In 
addition, according to the Senate recycling program manager, this 
proposal has been submitted to AOC management and is pending approval.

Similarly, to address staffing and organization issues, management in 
the House jurisdiction decided to replace its part-time recycling 
collection staff--plagued by a high turnover rate and consequently a 
constant need to fill vacancies and train new staff--with full-time 
staff. This staffing change was accomplished using the same number of 
full-time equivalent positions as provided under the prior staffing 
plan. The House jurisdiction also implemented a pilot program to 
evaluate the feasibility of using the designated recycling staff to 
collect both recyclable materials and garbage from the House office 
buildings. According to the Deputy Superintendent of the House Office 
Buildings, based on the results of this pilot program, the House 
jurisdictional management decided to permanently implement the changes 
tested in the pilot program.

These changes, however, did not affect the supervisory and reporting 
relationships between the recycling program manager and the collection 
staff. In the House jurisdiction, the collection staff reports through 
line supervisors to a night House superintendent that provides direct 
line supervision of employees who carry out various housekeeping, 
janitorial, and emergency maintenance functions during nonbusiness 
hours. The House Recycling Program Manager has no direct authority over 
the collection staff, but stated that she conducts regular inspections 
of the recycling collection operations, including both individual 
office compliance with the level of source separation implemented in 
those offices and the collection workers' performance of their duties. 
She stated further that she has a good working relationship with the 
collection workers' direct line supervisors and reports any problems 
she identifies during the course of her inspections to them. The House 
Deputy Superintendent affirmed the relationship between the House 
Recycling Program Manager and the collection workers' direct line 
supervisors and told us that the House jurisdiction management has no 
current plans to change the reporting relationship between the House 
Recycling Program manager and the collection staff.

The House jurisdiction does plan to take action that could provide 
increased accountability for achieving recycling program results. The 
Deputy House Superintendent told us that a recycling program element is 
now included in the Performance Communication Evaluation System (PCES) 
of the staff that directly supervise the recycling collection workers, 
holding them accountable for the collection of recyclables by their 
staff. Even with these changes, full accountability for achieving 
recycling program results cannot be established because, in both the 
Senate and House jurisdictions, the collection workers are bargaining 
unit and trade union employees and are not covered by PCES. According 
to AOC's HRMD director, AOC is currently negotiating with the unions to 
include these employees within PCES.

GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing our recommendation 
by evaluating the roles and responsibilities of its recycling program 
staff and increasing accountability for program results through its 
employee performance management system. The two positions AOC has 
filled should make more time available for recycling program planning 
and evaluation activities. The staffing and organization evaluations 
completed in the Senate and House jurisdictions and the actions taken 
by AOC as a result of those evaluations may improve the recycling 
programs operation in those jurisdictions.

Moreover, the proposed Senate reorganization of its reporting 
relationship between the recycling program manager and staff will 
provide more direct accountability for achieving AOC's organizational 
goals in its recycling program by providing a direct line of 
supervision between recycling program management and the staff 
responsible for the collection and processing of recyclable materials. 
Through the added element now incorporated into PCES for House 
recycling supervisors, AOC is working to increase accountability for 
achieving recycling program results.

[End of section]

Appendix VIII: Comments from the Architect of the Capitol:

The Architect of the Capitol: 

Washington, DC 20515:

January 20, 2004:

Mr. J. Christopher Mihm, Director:

Strategic Issues:

U.S. General Accounting Office:

441 G St. NW:

Washington, DC 20548:

Dear Mr. Mihm:

Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the U.S. General 
Accounting Office (GAO) January 2004 draft report "Architect of the 
Capitol Status Report on Implementation of Management Review 
Recommendations." As your report reflects, we have been making steady 
progress in addressing the recommendations contained in the original 
report. We are committed to successfully bringing about the 
organizational transformation we jointly envision. As you know, we are 
tracking the action items for this initiative as part of our Strategic 
Plan and have incorporated specific milestones to address the GAO 
recommendations in our Performance Plan. 

Our review of the draft report indicates that for the most part, it is 
consistent with the information we have exchanged throughout the 
follow-up review. Our comments and some updated information are 
attached. We look forward to continuing to work with you on this path 
of change, recognizing as you do, that this organizational 
transformation will take several years to fully accomplish. 

Please give Hector Suarez a call (228-1205) if you have any questions 
or need additional information. 

Sincerely,

Signed by:

Alan M. Haniman, FAIA:

Architect of the Capitol:

Strategic Management: GAO Finding(s) and AOC Response:

Page Number(s): 2, 7, 20; Recommendation: The Architect of the Capitol 
gather and analyze employee feedback from focus groups or surveys 
before fiscal year 2005, as well as communicate how it is taking 
actions to address any identified employee concerns.

AOC Response: Agree with recommendation. Employee survey will be 
completed this fiscal year. Will provide firm date as schedule is 
worked out.

Page Number(s): 6; Finding: Building on its strategic planning efforts, 
it is important that AOC continues to involve key congressional, as 
well as other stakeholders, in its strategic planning process, and 
keeps them informed of any operational and organizational changes 
resulting from this planning process.

AOC Response: Agree with recommendation. Architect and COO have 
incorporated congressional and other stakeholder meetings as part of 
their scheduled meetings. COO also has this as an action item in the 
COO Action Plan submitted to Congress.

Page Number(s): 7; Finding: AOC needs to discuss with its stakeholders 
how the use of these protocols will help AOC to balance immediate needs 
with the achievement of overall agency strategic goals.

AOC Response: We have revamped the draft protocols that were developed 
using the GAO model. As a result of our analysis for the process we 
have re-focused the protocols to ensure better tracking and prompt 
response to Congressional requests. We will be testing the process 
internally and will discuss implementation with appropriate 
Congressional staff.

Strategic Management of Human Capital: GAO Finding(s) and AOC Response:

Page Number(s): 2, 6, 24-25; Finding: AOC is also strengthening 
individual accountability for organizational goals through its senior 
executive performance management systems, but more progress can be made 
with aligning employee performance management systems with agency 
strategic goals.

AOC Response: The AOC has developed a comprehensive approach to 
redesigning its Employee Performance Management System. Changes include 
technical content and process, linkage to the strategic plan, and 
consolidation to one rating cycle. While this approach requires some 
time for development and implementation, it will provide greater 
stability to the workforce by implementing one comprehensive change 
rather than two or three major changes to Employee Performance 
Management System in a 12-18 month period. Our plan incorporates 
employee groups to review the linkages to ensure they are 
understandable by the workforce and a comprehensive communication 
strategy to deliver the message to the workforce. The revised Employee 
Performance Management System, including linkages to the Strategic 
Plan, will be implemented within a year.

Page Number(s): 26-27; Finding: It is important that AOC continue the 
development of both its technical and core competencies for all 
employees and ensure that these competencies are tied to the agency's 
Strategic Plan.

AOC Response: With the establishment of the Office of Workforce 
Planning and Management (WFPM), we will be developing strategies for 
identifying core competencies for AOC positions. Training strategies 
will be developed for bridging gaps in employee competencies. This will 
be a joint effort between Human Resources and Workforce Planning 
Staffs. System requirements are currently being defined for capturing 
the data.

Page Number(s): 26-27; Header: Develop the capacity to collect and 
analyze workforce data.

AOC Response: Workforce Planning and Management Staff identified data 
sources and data collection methodologies for analyzing workforce data. 
This data would be imported from the National Finance Center (NFC) 
database and from the AVUE system (which houses critical workforce 
information on positions and employees). In addition, data would be 
collected from employees through surveys, Official Personnel Files, and 
interviews. We are in the process of identifying a systematic approach 
for analyzing data to assist with our overall workforce planning 
initiatives. In addition, we have purchased a statistical software 
system (SPSS) and will soon begin producing statistics on AOC's 
workforce.

Page Number(s): 28; Finding: To date, AOC has established the function, 
but not yet hired the Director of OWPM or two designated workforce 
planning and management analysts.

AOC Response: The Director and one staff position have been hired and 
are on-board. The new Director was hired on October 7, 2003, and has 
been recruiting for the remaining workforce planning and management 
analyst positions.

Page Number(s): 34; Finding: It is important that AOC continue holding 
these meetings to discuss ways in which it can systematically gather 
and analyze information about general employee concerns, while 
maintaining employee confidentiality, and regularly bring these 
concerns to the attention of senior management.

AOC Response: As discussed during the review, we have been holding 
meetings among with the staffs that address employee relations issues. 
These will continue. In addition we have developed a broad matrix 
report for the senior management staff.

Page Number(s): 35; Recommendation: We recommended that AOC establish a 
direct reporting relationship between the Ombudsperson and the 
Architect to be consistent with professional standards, which suggests 
that the Ombudsperson report directly with the highest authority in the 
agency, in this case the Architect.

AOC Response: We communicated our agreement to this recommendation 
numerous times during the review.

Financial Management: GAO Finding(s) and AOC Response:

Page Number(s): 9; Findings: AOC is beginning to develop sound 
financial management practices. The Office of the Chief Financial 
Officer (OCFO) has established three broad-based action plans to 
improve financial management practices at AOC: (1) build a foundation 
of financial control and accountability, (2) assess the financial 
management organization's current role in meeting mission objectives 
and organize financial management to add value, and (3) improve 
forward-looking analysis, train managers to understand how to use 
financial information, and improve the partnership between financial 
management and operations.

AOC Response: We concur that we have established and taken many 
positive steps against three broad based plans to improve financial 
management. To be consistent within the GAO document, recommend that 
the reference state: "continue to improve AOC's approach to financial 
management" rather than using the word "beginning.":

Page Number(s): 39; Findings: None of the underlying action items 
associated with these action plans has been completed, and many are not 
scheduled for completion until fiscal years 2006 and 2007. Furthermore, 
planning for certain items has not yet begun, and for some is not 
scheduled to begin until mid-fiscal year 2004.

AOC Response: GAO is correct that many of our action plans are 
scheduled for completion in fiscal years 2006 and 2007 and it should be 
noted that no milestone has been missed. Our plans consider many of 
underlying steps that it takes for a financial organization to go 
beyond the audit opinion toward (1) establishing seamless systems and 
processes, (2) routinely generating reliable cost and performance 
information and analysis, (3) undertaking other value-added activities 
that support strategic decision making and mission performance, and (4) 
building a finance team that supports the agency's mission and goals. 
GAO points out many of our interim successes (the first ever audit of 
the AOC, preparing the FY05 budget in a structured method and 
implementing a major FMS system) we have taken in parts of its report. 
It would be appropriate to state this throughout the document to be 
consistent with Appendix III. Many steps have been taken to get to 
these successes - GAO should reconsider the choice of words - none and 
furthermore, in regards to the many steps AOC Financial team has taken 
to get to the noted successes as indicated in the GAO report. As for 
the milestone dates, we believe that a measured approach for improving 
financial management is prudent as our Agency's other processes and 
systems mature.

Page Number(s): 39; Finding: OCFO reports that all financial managers 
and procurement officers in the jurisdictions and central office have 
been trained in appropriations law...

AOC Response: Recommend that this statement be changed to indicate, 
that while many of the financial managers and procurement managers have 
been trained in appropriation law, the program is an on-going program. 
This will represent the information we provided more accurately.

Financial Management: GAO Finding(s) and AOC Response:

Page Number(s): 39; Finding: According to OCFO, AOC is in the process 
of hiring the first group of jurisdiction finance managers. Regarding 
system upgrades, AOC has implemented the first phases of a plan. 
Implementation of the contracting module and inventory system are both 
planned for production operations in October 2004. AOC's upgrade of the 
financial management system is also scheduled for October 2004, with 
future upgrades of major releases scheduled annually.

AOC Response: Recommend that this statement be changed, so that the 
first sentence ("According to OCFO, AOC is in the process of hiring 
first group of jurisdiction financial managers") is placed at the end 
of the previous paragraph. And recommend change "AOC has implemented 
the first phases of a plan" to "AOC has implemented the major phases of 
the financial system implementation plan with the final two phases 
planned for October 2004" to better reflect the information we 
provided.

Information Technology: GAO Finding(s) and AOC Response:

Page Number(s): 4; Finding: GAO collected from AOC documentation of the 
organization's implementation of our recommendations, which we used to 
assess the progress made in addressing the issues underlying these 
recommendations. For example, we reviewed documents such as AOC's draft 
strategic and performance plans, draft communications plan, IT 
investment framework, centralized IT management policy, drafts of 
initial EA products, occupational safety and health program plan, 
master safety plan, project management evaluation and screening matrix, 
and pollution prevention planning initiative, among others, as well as 
documentation that policies had been changed and meetings had taken 
place.

AOC Response: The documents GAO reviewed were not drafts, they were 
fully completed version 1 documents. GAO received a hard copy of the 
version 1 products (baseline architecture, target architecture, program 
management plan, technical reference model, EA goals and objectives, EA 
principles, BSMO charter, and BSMO goals and objectives) after the Oct 
23, 2003, exit interview. Version I has since been approved by the 
Deputy Chief of Staff.

Information Technology: GAO Finding(s) and AOC Response:

9-10; Finding: AOC has not focused first on controlling existing IT 
investments and its project investment review board does not include 
key senior agency leaders. For AOC to implement effective IT investment 
management processes, it is important that it follow our previous 
recommendation on establishing a foundation for its investment 
management framework. In building on this foundation, AOC needs to take 
additional steps to help it execute the more mature investment 
management processes provided for in our investment management guide.

AOC Response: AOC is focusing on controlling its existing investments. 
Upon completion of the pilot framework, the first step taken to 
implement the framework was to score and rank FY2004 projects based on 
the value and risk criteria identified in the framework. In addition, 
the four boards in the framework have been formed and are beginning to 
evaluate IT investments.

As part of the piloting of the investment framework, the Investment 
review board composition has been revised and now includes key senior 
agency leaders (Deputy Chief of Staff, CFO, Superintendents, Strategic 
Planner, Director OIRM, Management Analyst).

Page Number(s): 10; Finding: The agency has not yet hired a chief 
enterprise architect and has not ensured that adequate resources are 
devoted to the program, that architecture environments are described in 
terms of performance and security, and that metrics are used to measure 
EA progress.

AOC Response: A Chief Enterprise Architect position has been requested 
in the AOC's FY2005 budget. In the interim, a contractor has been 
working with the members of the Business Systems Modernization Office 
to assist with the EA effort. OIRM put together a detailed plan 
addressing resources.

Information Technology: GAO Finding(s) and AOC Response:

Page Number(s): 10; Recommendation: GAO recommend that to further its 
progress in the management of its information technology, the Architect 
of the Capitol (2 recommendations):

AOC Response: Point 1 is part of the investment framework. Strategic 
objectives are included in the value factors used to score proposed 
projects (see Appendix B of the Investment Management Framework, OIRM 
Order 2-2). The evaluation criteria used to score and rank projects 
includes Value Criteria [Efficiency, Strategic Match, Client Impact, 
Employee Commitment, Management Information, and Requestor] as well as 
Risk Criteria [Organization Risk, Definitional Uncertainty, Technical 
Uncertainty, IS Infrastructure Risk, and External Risk (Security Risk 
has been incorporated since the release of the initial framework)]. 
Points 1-4 are addressed in the Investment Management Framework that is 
currently being used to score, prioritize and monitor FY2004 projects.

This is the first time that GAO has recommended following their 
architecture management guide (U.S. General Accounting Office, 
Information Technology: A Framework for Assessing and Improving 
Enterprise Architecture Management, GAO-03-584G Washington, D.C.: 
April 2003). Previous recommendations have focused on the Chief 
Information Officers Council, A Practical Guide to Federal Enterprise 
Architecture, version 1.0: Feb. 2002. This is a new requirement by GAO 
and as such, OIRM will need to develop a plan to map to GAO's EA 
framework.

Page Number(s): 41; Finding: The director is organizationally 
positioned to report to the agency's Deputy Chief of Staff (who is a 
member of AOC's senior policy committee) and also has been made the 
chairman of the investment review board, which is the approval body for 
new IT investments beginning in fiscal year 2004.

AOC Response: The Director of OIRM was listed as the Chair of the IRB 
in the October 2003 release of the investment framework. As the 
framework has been implemented it has been revised to name the Deputy 
Chief of Staff as the Chair of the IRB. The Director of OIRM now chairs 
the IT Project Management Board (PMB).

Information Technology: GAO Finding(s) and AOC Response:

Page Number(s): 42-43; Finding: Develop and implement IT investment 
management processes with the full support and participation of ADC's 
senior leadership. Specifically, the Architect must develop a plan for 
developing and implementing the investment management processes, as 
appropriate, that are outlined in our IT investment management guide. 
At a minimum, the plan should specify measurable tasks, goals, time 
frames, and resources required to develop and implement the processes. 
The Architect should focus first on the management processes associated 
with controlling existing projects and establishing the management 
structures to effectively implement an IT management process.

Finding: According to that official, the agency is currently testing 
part of the framework-the process used to score proposed investments' 
value and risk-on a few existing investments.

AOC Response: All existing FY2004 projects have been scored on value 
and risk.

AOC is focusing on controlling its existing investments. Upon 
completion of the pilot framework, AOC took the following steps: 1) 
Scored and ranked FY2004 projects based on the value and risk criteria 
identified in the framework. 2) Charged the PMB with measuring the 
progress of existing projects. In addition to the PMB, OIRM has a bi-
weekly status meeting where managers review all project progress and 
issues. This has been in place for almost two years. 3) Formed the four 
boards in the framework and began to evaluate IT investments. 4) As 
part of the piloting of the investment framework, the Investment review 
board composition was revised and now includes key senior agency 
leaders (Deputy Chief of Staff, CFO, Superintendents, Strategic 
Planner, Director, OIRM, and OIRM's Management Analyst).

To directly address the four statements made in the referred GAO report 
paragraph, 1) AOC is operating an IT investment board that includes 
senior IT and business representatives, 2) OIRM is overseeing ongoing 
IT projects through its PMB and status meetings, 3) OIRM is in the 
process of gathering requirements for an automated solution to 
identify, track and manage resources, and 4) we are ensuring that each 
IT project supports the organization's business needs by interviewing 
stakeholders during the development of the agency's IT budget each year 
and also by evaluating projects on value and risk criteria that include 
customer needs and strategic match.

OIRM will continue to work with GAO and other agency subject matter 
experts in IT investment management to create a more detailed plan for 
implementing our investment management framework.

Information Technology: GAO Finding(s) and AOC Response:

Page Number(s): 43; Recommendation: We reiterate our recommendation 
that AOC develop and implement a plan that is consistent with our IT 
investment management guide and thus focus first on the practices 
associated with controlling existing IT investments. We also recommend 
that AOC plan for and implement those practices in our IT investment 
management guide associated with corporate, portfolio-based investment 
decision-making, such as (1) implementing criteria to select 
investments that will best support the organization's strategic goals, 
objectives, and mission; (2) using these criteria to consistently 
analyze and prioritize all IT investments; (3) ensuring that the 
optimal investment portfolio with manageable risks and returns is 
selected and funded; and (4) overseeing each investment within the 
portfolio to ensure that it achieves its cost, benefit, schedule, and 
risk expectations.

AOC Response: AOC is focusing on controlling its existing investments. 
Upon completion of the pilot framework, AOC took the following steps: 
1) Scored and ranked FY2004 projects based on the value and risk 
criteria identified in the framework. 2) Charged the PMB with measuring 
the progress of existing projects. In addition to the PMB, OIRM has a 
bi-weekly status meeting where managers review all project progress and 
issues. This has been in place for almost two years. 3) Formed the four 
boards in the framework and began to evaluate IT investments. 4) As 
part of the piloting of the investment framework, the Investment review 
board composition was revised and now includes key senior agency 
leaders (Deputy Chief of Staff, CFO, Superintendents, Strategic 
Planner, Director, OIRM, and OIRM's Management Analyst).

Page Number(s): 44; Finding: Thus far, AOC has initiated activities to 
develop EA products, including the existing, "as is," and the target, 
"to be," architectures-as well as a plan that will map out the 
transition from the "as is" to the "to be." Drafts of the initial 
version of the existing and target architectures, as well as the 
transition plan, were completed in September 2003, and are awaiting 
approval by the senior policy committee. These architecture products 
describe the "as is" and "to be" environments. AOC plans to implement 
the target architecture starting in October 2003, with an estimated 
completion date of September 30, 2007.

AOC Response: Version 1 of the baseline architecture, target 
architecture, program management plan and technical reference model 
were completed on schedule (September 30, 2003) and have been approved 
by the Deputy Chief of Staff.

The estimated completion date is now FY2008/FY2009. OIRM put together a 
detailed plan addressing resources. OIRM's request for FY2005 funding 
was not approved. The Chief Enterprise Architect position has not yet 
been filled but has been requested again in the FY2005 budget.

Information Technology: GAO Finding(s) and AOC Response:

Page Number(s): 44-45; Recommendation: GAO recommends that AOC complete 
ongoing steps associated with developing its EA and implement 
additional steps to complete, maintain, and implement the architecture. 
In particular, we recommend that AOC plan for and implement the 
practices in our architecture management guide associated with 
leveraging an EA for organizational transformation, such as (1) 
ensuring that adequate resources are devoted to the program (funding, 
people, tools, and technology); (2) ensuring that the architecture 
describes both the "as is" and the "to be" environments in terms of 
performance; (3) ensuring that architecture business, performance, 
information and data, applications and services, and technology 
descriptions address security; and (4) ensuring that metrics are used 
to measure EA progress, quality, compliance, and return on investment.

AOC Response: This is the first time that GAO has recommended following 
their architecture management guide (U.S. General Accounting Office, 
Information Technology: A Framework for Assessing and Improving 
Enterprise Architecture Management, GAO-03-584G Washington, D.C.: 
April 2003). Previous recommendations have focused on the Chief 
Information Officers Council, A Practical Guide to Federal Enterprise 
Architecture, version 1.0: Feb. 2002. This is a new requirement by GAO 
and as such, OIRM will need to develop a plan to map to GAO's EA 
framework.

Page Number(s): 46; Finding: AOC still needs to ensure that it obtains 
a well-defined set of processes and that these processes are in fact 
implemented by March 31, 2004, as planned.

AOC Response: When the completed methodology is delivered to AOC on 
January 31, 2004, a two month pilot will be used to refine the 
processes for their implementation as an agencywide standard on March 
31, 2004.

Supporting documentation will be developed during the pilot and will 
include:

* Policy statements:

* Standards and Practices * Worksheets and Checklists * Templates:

Information Technology: GAO Finding(s) and AOC Response:

Page Number(s): 46-47; Finding: Establish and implement an information 
security program. Specifically, the Architect should establish an 
information security program by taking the following steps (see 
bullets):

Finding: The key is for AOC to follow through on stated commitments to 
provide proper resources for the program, finalize its security 
policies, define processes for implementing the policies, and implement 
them.

AOC Response: 1) The needed staffing resources for this program have 
been provided through contract resources. 2) We are completing the 
review of 19 IT Security policies. Target date for issuance is March 
31, 2004. 3) The comprehensive IT Security Plan is being revised. The 
plan will define the processes needed to implement the policies. The 
revised plan will include the IT Security SDLC Process. 4) Once the 
comprehensive plan is revised (target June 2004), we will implement the 
elements of the plan in a judicious and logical manner.

Worker Safety: GAO Finding(s) and AOC Response:

Page Number(s): 7; Recommendation: To further progress in developing 
its strategic management and accountability framework and improve 
communications agencywide, we recommend that the Architect of the 
Capitol take the following actions:

* gather and analyze employee feedback from focus groups or surveys 
before fiscal year 2005, as well as communicate how it is taking 
actions to address any identified employee concerns:

AOC Response: The AOC is currently developing a Safety Communication 
Plan, with the assistance of DuPont Safety Resources. As part of the 
development process, a communication survey has been distributed AOC-
wide, and follow-up focus groups are planned to clarify trends and 
issues identified. Completion of this effort is targeted for April 
2004.

Worker Safety: GAO Finding(s) and AOC Response:

Page Number(s): 13; Finding: While a majority of the jurisdictions 
await full development and implementation of the Hazard Assessment and 
Control policy, each jurisdiction continues to rely upon its own hazard 
reporting processes. Until the policy is fully implemented, 
jurisdictions will continue to use separate systems for identifying and 
reporting incidents. Also, AOC has established a plan and initiated 
actions to improve the reporting of hazards, though the development and 
implementation of an agencywide policy and procedures for hazard 
reporting is expected to take years to complete due to the time needed 
to develop and fully implement this safety policy. Until AOC completes 
the implementation of this policy and subsequent analysis across all 
jurisdictions, it will not be able to develop a comprehensive picture 
of AOC hazards.

AOC Response: This text confuses requirements under the Hazard 
Assessment and Control policy and the Incident Investigation policy. It 
also overlooks that a major component of the Hazard Assessment and 
Control policy is the JHA process, which is being consistently 
implemented throughout the AOC - completed in five jurisdictions and 
underway in the remaining ones.

Also omitted from GAO consideration in this section is the recent 
completion of a comprehensive baseline safety and environmental 
assessment. The baseline assessment provides details of deficiencies 
identified in both operations and infrastructure. Data from this effort 
has been entered into the FMA data management system to allow an 
analysis of deficiencies by location, jurisdiction, and policy area; It 
also allows for prioritization of issues by risk and permits the AOC to 
track the status of these issues through abatement.

Page Number(s): 14; Finding: Although, according to its draft 
performance plan, AOC is a few months behind its schedule, AOC 
officials told us that work has begun on both of these projects-the 
baseline assessment and waste stream analysis-and both projects will be 
substantially completed by the end of 2003.

AOC Response: Both were completed before December 31, 2003.

Page Number(s): 14; Finding: The draft performance plan also provides 
for stakeholder participation in this process both before and after the 
actual environmental program planning process occurs, but this has not 
yet taken place.

AOC Response: The AOC has developed a schedule of activities for 
developing the Environmental Program Plan. The schedule includes early 
stakeholder input (scheduled for completion by 1/16/04) and two 
additional opportunities during development for stakeholder input. SFEP 
scheduled 10 stakeholder input sessions; the first one was held 12/12/ 
03 and the 10TH session was held on 1/15/04.

Worker Safety: GAO Finding(s) and AOC Response:

Page Number(s): 49; Finding: In addition, AOC has requested significant 
and permanent increases in the training budget for AOC employees.

AOC Response: AOC has not determined whether the increase in the 
training budget is permanent. The training request is based on 
identified requirements. Training costs should decrease after policy 
implementation is complete as refresher training is less costly as 
compared to initial training.

Page Number(s): 49; Finding: As of the beginning of fiscal year 2004, 
no safety policy has been fully implemented.

AOC Response: While no policy has been fully implemented AOC-wide, 
there has been significant progress in a number of policy areas and 
Jurisdictions, including, but not limited to:

* Permit Required Confined Spaces: provided training and conducted a 
Capitol Complex Confined Space Survey for all jurisdictions Blood borne 
Pathogens (BBP): A majority of AOC employees requiring training have 
been trained and a majority of the AOC jurisdictions have purchased BBP 
equipment required by the policy.

* Fall Protection: A majority of AOC employees that require training 
have been trained. A majority of all AOC Jurisdiction have purchased 
fall protection equipment. A fall protection survey has been conducted 
in approximately 50% of all jurisdictions.

* Respiratory Protection: Training and SOP have been completed in the 
Construction Management, House and Senate Office Buildings 
jurisdictions.

* Scaffolding: A majority of AOC employees that need to use scaffolding 
equipment have been trained.

Page Number(s): 49; Finding: The draft OSH plan indicates a performance 
measure for the objective "enhance employee awareness of and 
involvement in all aspects of safety and health" and includes 
publicizing the minutes from jurisdictions' monthly meetings to discuss 
safety and health. However, this performance measure is not fully 
developed or results oriented.

AOC Response: The report does not mention one of the key indicators, 
the official I&I rate. Since FY2000, the AOC has reduced this rate each 
year and, for FY2003, the rate is 7.87. This is a 56% reduction from 
the FY2000 rate.

Worker Safety: GAO Finding(s) and AOC Response:

Page Number(s): 49; Finding: AOC has been unable to meet the original 
targeted time frame (fiscal year 2005) due to the need to revise the 
methodology for developing a standard operating procedure template for 
each safety policy.

AOC Response: The schedule could not be met due to insufficient staff 
resources in the Jurisdictions. The SOP Template was developed as part 
of the solution to reduce the manpower burden of implementation (and 
enhance consistency). The revision of the template played no role in 
the meeting the targeted timeframe.

Page Number(s): 50; Finding: While two of the safety policy standard 
templates have been drafted, neither has been released because the 
agency needs to make the procedures more user friendly for front-line 
employees.

AOC Response: The first approved SOP template was signed on 1218103, 
and several others are undergoing final review for approval.

Page Number(s): 51; Finding: The FMA system, which is partially 
functional at this time.

AOC Response: The FMA inspection module is fully functional, as it is 
designed as stand-alone software. We plan to add an incident 
investigation module and are looking at data-sharing capabilities with 
CAFM; however, these are additions to the system. This effort to 
improve system integration and overall capabilities does not correlate 
with the system being "partially functional".

Page Number(s): 51; Finding: The FMA system will (1) track and analyze 
the number and types of hazards using JHA data.

AOC Response: This is incorrect. JHA data is not part of the FMA 
System. JHA data is managed and utilized through a Microsoft Access-
based program developed by PHS.

Worker Safety: GAO Finding(s) and AOC Response:

Page Number(s): 50-51; Finding: First, AOC plans to develop a Hazard 
Assessment and Control policy, one of its 34 safety policies, beginning 
October 2003 through June 2004 and fully implement the policy by May 
2006. Second, as a key component in developing its Hazard Assessment 
and Control policy, AOC plans to identify hazards associated with 
specific job tasks (AOC calls this task a Job Hazard Analysis (JHA)).3s 
AOC has created a schedule for completing each JHA. In addition, AOC 
has contracted with the Department of Health and Human Services' Public 
Health Service (PHS) to identify hazards associated with job tasks in 
each jurisdiction. For all potentially hazardous conditions identified, 
the job hazard analysis will include appropriate use of personal 
protective equipment, medical surveillance, training, and engineering 
controls. According to AOC officials, the JHA process has been 
completed for two jurisdictions-the Senate and the Construction 
Management Division. Lastly, while a majority of the jurisdictions 
await full development and implementation of the Hazard Assessment and 
Control policy and the Facility Management Assistant (FMA) system, they 
continue to rely upon their own hazard reporting processes. The FMA 
system, which is partially functional at this time, will (1) track and 
analyze the number and types of hazards using JHA data, (2) identify 
follow-up corrective actions to ameliorate hazards, and (3) track the 
investigation of incidents following injuries, illnesses, fatalities, 
and near misses. The FMA system is commercially available and contains 
a suite of software components. AOC officials reported that these 
processes vary across jurisdictions and involve formal reporting 
procedures and mechanisms, such as submission of standard forms for 
reporting hazards, as well as informal measures, such as e-mail 
messages and periodic employee meetings. In addition, AOC officials 
discuss hazards as well as other safety and health issues at meetings 
convened by AOC employee and managerial committees.

AOC Response: No reference to the safety and environmental baseline 
assessment, which identified deficiencies with our compliance with 
applicable OSHA regulations - both with operational issues and 
infrastructure issues. Jurisdictions are working to correct 
deficiencies.

JHAs have been completed for five jurisdictions, the Senate, 
Construction Management Division, Capitol, House, and Supreme Court. 
JHAs are well underway in the remaining jurisdictions.

Page Number(s): 52; Finding: Moreover, data from the FMA system will 
only be viewable by central office safety staff.

AOC Response: This is incorrect. Jurisdictions also have login accounts 
in FMA. As clarification, they are limited to data for their own 
Jurisdictions; central staff has data access AOC-wide.

Worker Safety: GAO Finding(s) and AOC Response:

Page Number(s): 52; Finding: These processes vary across jurisdictions 
and include formal reporting procedures and mechanisms...

* jurisdictions will continue to use separate systems for identifying 
and reporting incidents.

* it will not be able to develop a comprehensive picture of AOC 
incidents, including their causes, across all jurisdictions.

AOC Response: The AOC currently utilizes the Workers Compensation 
Tracking System (WCTS), supplemented with an integrated OSHA 300 log 
data entry, for recording and tracking injuries and illnesses. The WCTS 
has been operational for years; the OSHA 300 log module has been 
operational since January 2003. This is a centralized system with 
access by both jurisdiction and central staff.

Page Number(s): 52; Finding: AOC does not, at this time, have plans to 
integrate the FMA system with the system to generate work orders to 
correct identified hazards.

AOC Response: This is an FY04-funded initiative. OlRM is working on 
this issue to establish a linkage between FMA and CAFM. However, many 
operational deficiencies are corrected without the use of a work order 
(such as employee not wearing PPE, correcting a training deficiency, 
etc. ). Other deficiencies may be grouped together on one work order 
(correcting several GFCI findings with one work order). Because of 
these, and other, issues, this linkage will not result in automatic 
work order generation.

Page Number(s): 53; Finding: AOC uses formal methods to evaluate 
training, such as a participant evaluation form, as well as informal 
methods, such as following up with participants' supervisors to obtain 
feedback on training sessions.

AOC Response: SOHB safety policy managers also audit courses and 
provide review/feedback to HRMD T&ED. Methods include: participant 
evaluation forms, and audits of instruction of first offerings by 
Safety Specialists from the Safety, Fire and Environmental Programs, as 
well as informal methods mentioned above.

Page Number(s): 53; Finding: The FMA system, which will be used to 
track and identify corrective actions for hazards and incidents, will 
not be aligned to the training system to help identify and target 
training needs to address high-risk areas.

AOC Response: Practically speaking, there is limited need for alignment 
of these systems, as they track independent information. However, the 
needs analysis review to be conducted by OIRM (discussed in response to 
a comment on page 54) includes a review of the FMA data elements to 
determine what linkage, if any, is necessary.

Worker Safety: GAO Finding(s) and AOC Response:

Page Number(s): 53; Finding: Although senior officials in the 
jurisdictions are responsible for monitoring employee training needs, 
they cannot access HRMD's database of AOC sponsored training courses 
and employees' training attendance.

AOC Response: One of the 2 pilot initiatives underway with the Library 
Buildings and Grounds addresses training data identified as a need by 
LOC management.

Page Number(s): 54-55; Finding: AOC has not taken any concrete steps to 
obtain data or analyses from OAP medical examinations that might 
identify health-related trends. While AOC officials told us that 
confidentiality issues might interfere with such efforts, no steps have 
been taken to address and overcome this concern.

AOC Response: The data management system, discussed above, will permit 
the sharing of data between AOC and OAP, subject to medical 
confidentiality restrictions.

Page Number(s): 55; Finding: AOC plans to develop new approaches to 
reduce workers' compensation costs based upon these discussions. 
However, no solutions or new approaches to address workers' 
compensation costs have thus far been developed.

AOC Response: AOC has taken action on a number of fronts, including, 
continued emphasis on preventing injuries and illnesses (56% reduction 
over 3 years), better coordination between HRMD and Jurisdiction safety 
specialists on questionable cases (underway and continuing to be 
refined), and increased emphasis on limited-and light-duty assignments.

The main way to control workers' compensation costs is through 
prevention of injuries and there are significant efforts underway to 
reduce injuries. In addition, AOC assertively reviews claims and, when 
appropriate, controverts the claim to the Department of Labor. In 
addition, AOC has hired investigators on a limited basis when there is 
reason to believe suspect circumstances exist regarding the payment of 
workers' compensation benefits.

Page Number(s): 62; Finding: AOC is taking the first steps to ensure 
that the right people are employed in the right positions by starting 
to identify competencies for its project management staff, and creating 
position descriptions based on those competencies and using those 
position descriptions as a basis for recruiting and hiring staff.

AOC Response: Project Management staff, Procurement Division staff, and 
Human Resources staff are working collaboratively and have identified 
technical competencies for project managers and acquisition personnel. 
A draft program is ready for final review by senior management.

Project Management: GAO Finding(s) and AOC Response:

Page Number(s): 57; Finding: AOC is making progress in addressing our 
recommendation, although, in its March 7, 2003, draft performance plan, 
AOC showed that it planned to publish the final Capitol Hill complex 
master plan April l, 2006. In addition, the current schedule shows the 
final plan being completed 8 months later in December 2006. ADC's 
schedule shows that most of the additional time, 6 months, was added to 
the time AOC expects it to take to obtain and incorporate comments and 
finalize the plan. Completion of the BCAs is also behind the tentative 
schedule developed in March 2003. The first BCAs were to be completed 
March 31, 2004. But since all BCA contracts are not expected to be 
awarded until December 2003, and the work is expected to take about 1 
year, it appears that the initial BCAs for the three largest 
jurisdictions will not be completed until the fall of 2004. Completion 
of the other BCAs will depend on when funding is received. Since the 
BCAs are a key component of the master plan, AOC will need to push to 
get these completed as soon as possible so they can be integrated into 
the master plan. It is important to recognize that once the BCAs are 
completed they should be updated on a regular schedule.

AOC Response: The original schedule in the March 7, 2003, Draft 
Performance Plan to which GAO refers, and against which the AOC is said 
to be many months behind, was developed before the Planning and 
Programming Division was established, before the current Division 
Director was hired, before division staff were hired (including the 
Project Manager for the plan), before a Scope of Work was developed, 
and before it was determined that GSA would serve as contracting 
agency. Following the hiring of the Planning and Programming staff, an 
updated schedule was developed in April 2003, and since that time, the 
AOC has remained on schedule. In November 2003, a determination was 
made by the Architect to utilize GSA as contracting agency. This 
decision has added approximately 2 months to those steps leading up to 
contract award, but through streamlining, the final completion date has 
remained the same.

The BCA initiative was not moving at the required pace through the 
spring and early summer of 2003. In early August, the Planning and 
Programming Division was assigned to manage these efforts. While the 
BCAs are a number of months behind the original schedule, they are now 
proceeding toward contract award in February 2004. In addition, we are 
still on track to receive Form 1391 s as deliverables in time to 
include appropriate projects in the FY 2006 LICP.

Project Management: GAO Finding(s) and AOC Response:

Page Number(s): 59; Finding: According to the Director of ADC's 
Technical Support Division, AOC has identified software packages 
capable of producing a unified schedule that shows staff resources. The 
Director is waiting for one particular vendor to complete a software 
package that should produce a unified schedule and would work with 
ADC's current software. He is scheduled to meet with this software 
vendor in fall 2003 to determine if the software package can produce 
the unified schedule that AOC needs.

AOC Response: A more accurate statement would be: "The AOC has 
identified a software package capable of producing a unified schedule 
that shows staff resources. A Purchase Order has been issued for the 
software and for supporting consulting to accomplish proper 
installation of the application.":

Recycling: GAO Finding(s) and AOC Response:

Page Number(s): 63; Findings: GAO concluded that the high levels of 
contamination present in the materials collected in both the Senate and 
House recycling programs had not allowed AOC to achieve either 
substantial waste reduction or revenue generation it might have 
otherwise achieved.

AOC Response: The above is not accurate; Off spec material is separated 
by the recycling contractor and the recyclable portion of this material 
is recycled. While it does limit revenue generation, it is recycled. 
Also the amount of off-spec material generated by the Senate has 
dropped dramatically, and the degree to which House off spec material 
is contaminated (although still off-spec) has also declined 
significantly.

Page Number(s): 67; Findings: The Senate jurisdictional proposal also 
included adding four positions to the recycling collection staff. 
According to the Senate recycling program manager, this proposal has 
been submitted to AOC management and is pending approval.

AOC Response: The four new positions have been filled.

GAO Comments:

1. AOC agrees with our recommendation and agrees to take appropriate 
follow-up actions.

2. AOC agrees with this finding and agrees to take appropriate follow-
up actions.

3. See comment 1.

4. AOC plans are consistent with our findings and have provided 
additional information on its recent plans and actions that we will 
assess in our subsequent semi-annual reviews.

5. See comment 4.

6. See comment 4.

7. The text has been modified to reflect AOC's response.

8. See comment 1.

9. See comment 4.

10. AOC's comments concerning our draft report's treatment of AOC's 
action on our financial management recommendation were technical in 
nature, and, as appropriate, changes were made to the final report.

11. See comment 10.

12. See comment 10.

13. See comment 10.

14. We have modified our report to reflect AOC's position that the 
cited documents are not draft.

15. We agree with AOC's comment, and state in our report that AOC's 
first step to implementing the framework was to score and rank projects 
for fiscal year 2004. However, this scoring and ranking of projects for 
the upcoming fiscal year are project selection, not control, practices. 
Further, while we do not question AOC's statement in its comments that 
its investment management boards are beginning to evaluate IT 
investments, AOC's comments did not address what these evaluations 
entail; and, our review showed that AOC's IT investment management 
framework does not specify how the agency will identify, track, and 
manage IT resources or ensure that projects support agency business 
needs, both of which are key IT investment control activities. 
Therefore, our position remains that AOC is focusing first on 
selecting, rather than controlling, investments.

We support AOC's cited recent revision to the composition of its 
investment review board, and have recognized AOC's statement in our 
report. We look forward to receiving a revision of the board's charter 
reflecting this membership change.

16. We agree that a chief enterprise architect position has been 
requested in AOC's fiscal year 2005 budget, and that it has been using 
contractor assistance in developing an enterprise architecture. Our 
report recognizes both of these facts. Also, while we do not question 
AOC's statement that it has developed a detailed plan addressing 
resources, we have not received a copy of this plan.

17. We agree that AOC's IT investment framework contains the evaluation 
criteria specified in AOC's comment. However, our recommendation is for 
the agency to implement practices in our IT investment management guide 
associated with a corporate portfolio-based investment management 
process for controlling and selecting all proposed and ongoing IT 
investments. As discussed in comment 15, AOC has thus far focused on 
selecting among proposed new investments, to the exclusion of ongoing 
projects, and it has yet to define how it is controlling ongoing 
projects.

We agree that our previous recommendation did not reference our 
architecture management maturity guide, but rather the Chief 
Information Officer's Council practical guide. However, our maturity 
guide is based on the content of the practical guide, arranging this 
content into a series of five maturity levels. Further, our previous 
recommendation was intended to provide AOC with the basis for taking 
the first step toward architecture management maturity, and coincides 
with the first stage of our maturity framework. Our new recommendations 
build on and complement our previous recommendation, and thus we agree 
that AOC will need to evolve its architecture plans to progress beyond 
this initial step.

18. We have modified our report to reflect this clarification.

19. We do not question that AOC has taken the eight steps it cites 
since completing its IT investment framework, but do not agree that the 
agency has focused on controlling its existing investments for the 
following reasons. With respect to step 1, AOC's scoring and ranking of 
then proposed fiscal year 2004 projects are project selection, not 
control, practices. Regarding steps 2 and 3, while we do not question 
AOC's statements that it has assigned its project management board 
responsibility for measuring project progress and that its investment 
management boards are beginning to evaluate IT investments, AOC's 
comments did not address the extent of these project reviews. Our 
review showed that AOC's IT investment management framework does not 
specify how the agency will identify, track, and manage IT resources, a 
key IT investment control activity. With respect to the biweekly status 
meetings that AOC states have been occurring for almost two years, we 
reported in 2003 that the agency had not developed the processes needed 
to manage and oversee all AOC existing projects.[Footnote 43] 
Concerning step 4, we support AOC's cited recent revision to the 
composition of its investment review board, and have recognized AOC's 
statement in our report.

With regard to the fifth step cited by AOC, we do not question that AOC 
is operating its IT investment board, but it is important to note that 
the AOC IT investment framework describes the project management board 
as the control and oversight board for ongoing investments. Concerning 
step 6, the nature and extent of AOC cited oversight of ongoing 
projects is unknown because AOC's comments did not address what is 
entailed in the project management board and the biweekly status 
meetings, and the framework does not specify how the agency will 
identify, track, and manage IT projects. Regarding step 7, we support 
the use of tools to identify, track and manage IT resources. Concerning 
the last step AOC cited, we view the interviewing of stakeholders as a 
positive step toward ensuring that each IT project supports the 
organization's business needs.

20. See comments 15 and 19.

21. As mentioned in comment 14, we have modified our report to reflect 
AOC's position that the architecture products are not draft and have 
been approved by the Deputy Chief of Staff. We have also recognized the 
statement that a detailed resource plan has been developed, as well as 
the revised date for implementing the architecture. Our report already 
addressed the status of the additional funding request.

22. See comment 17.

23. We do not question these statements and note that our report 
already includes this information.

24. We have modified our report to reflect the recent steps AOC's 
comments state that it has taken to begin establishing and implementing 
an information security program.

25. The Safety Communication Plan was not raised during interviews with 
AOC officials. AOC has provided additional information that we will 
assess in our subsequent semi-annual reviews.

26. The text has been modified to reflect AOC's response.

27. Our report does not overlook the Job Hazard Analysis (JHA) process 
within the Hazard Assessment and Control Policy and states that the JHA 
process is, in fact, a key component of this policy. During our data 
collection period, AOC had only completed a JHA in two jurisdictions. 
AOC has provided additional information that we will assess in our 
subsequent semi-annual reviews.

28. The baseline safety and environmental assessment mentioned by AOC 
was not brought forth during our data collection and analysis period. 
However, we do recognize in the draft that the Hazard Assessment and 
Control policy will identify hazards associated with job tasks, as well 
as identify corrective actions taken to abate these hazards.

29. This comment refers to the recycling appendix. These actions were 
taken outside the timeframe of our review and will be assessed in our 
subsequent semi-annual reviews.

30. See comment 29.

31. Information provided by AOC officials during our data collection 
period was that they had requested significant and permanent increases 
in their training budget. The text has been modified to reflect AOC's 
response.

32. AOC's response does not change our assessment that no safety policy 
has been fully implemented. New information provided to us was not 
raised during our review period and therefore will be assessed in 
subsequent semi-annual reviews.

33. We continue to believe that the performance measure identified in 
the report for the objective "enhance employee awareness of and 
involvement in all aspects of safety and health"--publication of 
meeting minutes--is not results oriented. A good metric to assess 
employee awareness would necessarily be based upon employee responses. 
In fact, AOC recognized that its performance measures in assessing its 
safety policies are immature. The text has been modified to include the 
AOC's Injury and Illness rate for FY2003.

34. The text has been modified to clarify the need for extending the 
original time frame to implement the safety policies.

35. These actions were taken outside the timeframe of our review and 
will be assessed in our subsequent semi-annual reviews.

36. The text has been modified to clarify the added functions AOC may 
purchase for the FMA system in order to expand its capabilities.

37. The text has been modified to reflect the current uses of the FMA 
system.

38. See comment 28.

39. During our data collection period, the AOC had completed a JHA in 
two jurisdictions. These actions were taken outside the timeframe of 
our review and will be assessed in our subsequent semi-annual reviews.

40. The text has been modified in order to clarify FMA system access 
issues.

41. Our finding focuses on the need to report illnesses and injuries 
among jurisdictions in a comprehensive and consistent manner. Indeed, 
through its development of its Incident Investigation Module, AOC 
underscores the need for such a reporting system that tracks data 
across jurisdictions. We acknowledge that AOC has a Workers 
Compensation Tracking System for recording and tracking injuries and 
illnesses.

42. These actions were taken outside the timeframe of our review and 
will be assessed in our subsequent semi-annual reviews. The text has 
been modified to clarify AOC's current initiatives in this area.

43. The text has been modified to include additional methods used to 
evaluate training.

44. We encourage the AOC to move strategically towards an integrated 
system that links identification of hazards with employee training 
needs.

45. We encourage the AOC to strategically identify data access issues 
related to employee training records.

46. During our review, AOC management informed us that medical 
information obtained from Office of the Attending Physician (OAP) exams 
were not being shared with AOC officials because of confidentiality 
issues. The sharing of these data, while addressing confidentiality 
issues, could benefit AOC in its efforts to identify and combat health-
related trends among AOC employees.

47. AOC's response does not indicate that the Safety, Health and 
Environmental Council (SHEC) have identified strategies to reduce 
workers' compensation costs. We continue to believe that the SHEC 
offers opportunities to identify strategies to address this issue.

48. We reported this information in our strategic human capital 
management and project management appendixes in our discussion of 
competencies.

49. In August 2003, AOC provided us with an update to their original 
schedule for the Master Plan. We compared this updated schedule to the 
original schedule in the March 2003 draft performance plan and used 
this information for our analysis. AOC did not provide us with any 
other schedule information against which to analyze their progress. 
Therefore, we presented the information made available to us as of 
November 2003.

50. We have made the appropriate change in the text.

51. While we recognize that the recycling contractor separates the 
material collected from AOC and recycles the recyclable portion, it is 
also true that office paper including both white (high grade) paper and 
mixed grade (both white and colored office paper) that is contaminated 
with wet waste (primarily food and beverage waste) can no longer be 
recycled and must be sent to a landfill.

52. In addition to stating that the Senate jurisdiction proposal 
included adding four positions to the recycling collection staff, we 
also stated in our draft that the proposal recommended consolidating 
the recycling positions into one organizational unit to address the 
diluted span of control and lack of accountability that existed under 
the present organizational structure. AOC did not comment on whether it 
had approved the proposed reorganization. Increasing accountability for 
obtaining recycling goals was the principal point of our discussion and 
increasing staff without changing the organizational structure would 
not improve accountability.

(450225):

FOOTNOTES

[1] U.S. General Accounting Office, Architect of the Capitol: 
Management and Accountability Framework Needed for Organizational 
Transformation, GAO-03-231 (Washington, D.C.: Jan. 17, 2003).

[2] Section 1203 of Division H, Title I, Pub. L. No. 108-7, Feb. 20, 
2003 (Consolidated Appropriations Resolution, 2003).

[3] H.R. Conf. Rep. No. 108-10, at 1225 (2003).

[4] At the time of our review, the COO had not approved the agency's 
draft strategic and draft performance plans. We received notification 
that the COO had approved and finalized AOC's strategic and performance 
plans on January 13, 2004. Therefore, throughout our report, we refer 
to the strategic and performance plans as draft because at the time of 
our review, these documents were not yet approved.

[5] U.S. General Accounting Office, Results-Oriented Cultures: Creating 
a Clear Linkage between Individual Performance and Organizational 
Success, GAO-03-488 (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 14, 2003).

[6] U.S. General Accounting Office, Results-Oriented Cultures: 
Implementation Steps to Assist Mergers and Organizational 
Transformations, GAO-03-669 (Washington, D.C.: Jul. 2, 2003).

[7] U.S. General Accounting Office, Information Technology Investment 
Management: A Framework for Assessing and Improving Process Maturity, 
Version 1, GAO/AIMD-10.1.23 (Washington, D.C.: May 2000).

[8] U.S. General Accounting Office, Information Technology: A Framework 
for Assessing and Improving Enterprise Architecture Management, GAO-03-
584G (Washington, D.C.: April 2003).

[9] AOC's Occupational Safety and Health Program Plan splits the 
development and implementation of the Hazard Assessment and Control 
policy into two segments, one dealing with completion of the JHA and 
the other dealing with implementation of the operational aspects of 
this policy. The time frames we cite here apply to the operational 
segment of the policy. The JHA segment is scheduled to be fully 
implemented by the end of calendar year 2004.

[10] According to the AOC draft strategic plan, the environmental 
program plan, to be completed in 2004, will address a wide spectrum of 
environmental management initiatives including environmentally 
sensitive planning and design, compliance with applicable provisions of 
environmental regulations (such as clean air, clean water, and solid 
waste disposal), and pollution prevention. 

[11] The Architect of the Capitol, Draft Strategic Plan, FY 2003--2007, 
(Washington, D.C.: March 7, 2003).

[12] The Architect of the Capitol, Draft Performance Plan, Achieving 
AOC's Strategic Goals and Objectives, (Washington, D.C.: March 7, 
2003). 

[13] U.S. General Accounting Office, Results-Oriented Cultures: 
Implementation Steps to Assist Mergers and Organizational 
Transformations, GAO-03-669 (Washington, D.C.: July 2, 2003).

[14] U.S. General Accounting Office, Results-Oriented Cultures: 
Creating a Clear Linkage between Individual Performance and 
Organizational Success, GAO-03-488 (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 14, 2003).

[15] See U.S. GAO-03-488.

[16] According to AOC, the purpose of the Office of Workforce Planning 
and Management is to oversee and conduct such organizationwide 
functions as workforce planning and analysis, succession planning, 
organizational staffing, staff resource allocation, and to review 
organizational structure and alignment of functions. 

[17] U.S. General Accounting Office, Human Capital: Selected Agency 
Actions to Integrate Human Capital Approaches to Attain Mission 
Results, GAO-03-446 (Washington, D.C.: Apr. 11, 2003).

[18] See U.S. General Accounting Office, Human Capital: Key Principles 
for Effective Strategic Workforce Planning, GAO-04-39, (Washington, 
D.C.: Dec. 11, 2003); Government Printing Office: Advancing GPO's 
Transformation Effort through Strategic Human Capital Management, GAO-
04-85 (Washington, D.C.: Oct. 20, 2003); Tax Administration: Workforce 
Planning Needs Further Development for IRS's Taxpayer Education and 
Communication Unit, GAO-03-711 (Washington, D.C.: May 30, 2003).

[19] See Section 129(d) of Pub. L. No. 107-68, Nov. 12, 2001 and 
corresponding reports, Sen. Rep. No. 107-37 at 28,29 (2001) and H.R. 
Conf. Rep No. 107-148 at 72 (2001).

[20] Section 1203 of Division H, Title I, Pub. L. No. 108-7, Feb. 20, 
2003, (The Consolidated Appropriations Resolution, 2003).

[21] See AOC Human Resources Manual, Order 630-1, Absence and Leave, 
July 1, 2003.

[22] See Pay Under the Architect's Wage System, Chapter 532, 
"Determining Eligibility for Sunday Premium Pay," June 15, 2003.

[23] U.S. General Accounting Office, Human Capital: The Role of 
Ombudsmen in Dispute Resolution, GAO-01-466 (Washington, D.C.: Apr. 13, 
2001).

[24] Architect of the Capitol, Centralized Oversight of Information 
Technology, Order 8-1-1, May 30, 2003.

[25] U.S. General Accounting Office, Information Technology Investment 
Management: A Framework for Assessing and Improving Process Maturity, 
Version 1, GAO/AIMD-10.1.23 (Washington, D.C.: May 2000). 

[26] Chief Information Officers Council, A Practical Guide to Federal 
Enterprise Architecture, version 1.0 (Washington, D.C.: February 2001).

[27] U.S. General Accounting Office, Information Technology: A 
Framework for Assessing and Improving Enterprise Architecture 
Management, GAO-03-584G (Washington, D.C.: April 2003).

[28] Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute, Capability 
Maturity Model®Integration (CMMISSM, version 1.1 (March 2002).

[29] U.S. General Accounting Office, Executive Guide: Information 
Security Management, Learning from Leading Organizations, GAO/AIMD-98-
68 (Washington, D.C.: May 1998).

[30] Architect of the Capitol, Authority Policy and Responsibility of 
the Chief Information Security Officer,Order 7-1-1, May 30, 2003.

[31] Architect of the Capitol, IT Security Risk Management Policy, 
Order 7-2-2, July 31, 2003 (Draft).

[32] Architect of the Capitol, INFOSEC Training, Education, and 
Awareness Policy, Order 7-1-3, July 31, 2003 (Draft).

[33] The safety programs are now referred to as safety policies.

[34] According to the Occupational Safety and Health Program Plan, 
policy development is an extensive and iterative process of regulatory 
research, best practice review, integration with existing AOC policies 
and practices, stakeholder input, and management approval. 

[35] In responding to our draft report, AOC officials noted that a key 
indicator was not mentioned --the Injury and Illness rate. The Injury 
and Illness rate measures job related injuries and illnesses per 100 
employees as recorded under the Federal Employees Compensation Act 
program. In addition, AOC officials indicated that this rate was 7.87 
in FY 2003, representing a 56 percent reduction from AOC's FY 2000 
rate. Within the scope of this assignment, we did not independently 
verify this rate.

[36] See footnote 34. 

[37] AOC's Occupational Safety and Health Program Plan splits the 
development and implementation of the Hazard Assessment and Control 
policy into two segments, one dealing with the completion of JHA and 
the other dealing with implementation of the operational aspects of 
this policy. The time frames we cite here apply to the operational 
segment of the policy. The JHA segment is scheduled to be fully 
implemented by the end of calendar year 2004.

[38] AOC changed the title of its worker safety plan from Safety Master 
Plan to Occupational Safety and Health Program Plan.

[39] National Research Council of the National Academies, Working in 
Olmsted's Shadow: Guidance for Developing a Scope of Services for the 
Update of the Master Plan for the U.S. Capitol and Grounds (Washington, 
D.C.: The National Academies Press, 2003).

[40] Contamination occurs when potentially recyclable materials are 
mixed together with other categories of recyclables or wet waste. This 
reduces the value of the recyclable materials collected and in some 
cases, such as when paper is mixed with wet waste, the material may no 
longer be recyclable and must be sent to a landfill.

[41] According to the AOC draft strategic plan, the environmental 
program plan, to be completed in 2004, will address a wide spectrum of 
environmental management initiatives including environmentally 
sensitive planning and design, compliance with applicable provisions of 
environmental regulations (such as clean air, clean water, and solid 
waste disposal), and pollution prevention. 

[42] U.S. General Services Administration, Recycling Program Desk 
Guide, (Washington, D.C.: 2001).

[43] U.S. General Accounting Office, Architect of the Capitol: 
Management and Accountability Framework Needed for Organizational 
Transformation, GAO-03-231 (Washington, D.C.: Jan. 17, 2003).

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