Managing for Results: Efforts to Strengthen the Link Between Resources and Results at the Administration for Children and Families

Encouraging a clearer and closer link between budgeting, planning, and performance is essential to improving federal management and instilling a greater focus on results. Through work at various levels within the organization, this report on the Administration for Children and Families (ACF)--and its two companion studies on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (GAO-03-258) and the Veterans Health Administration (GAO-03-10)--records (1) what managers considered successful efforts at creating linkages between planning and performance information to influence resource choices and (2) the challenges managers face in creating these linkages.