Coast Guard: Non-Homeland Security Performance Measures Are Generally Sound, but Opportunities for Improvement Exist

In our review we found that the primary performance measures for the ice operations, living marine resources, and search and rescue programs did not consistently provide clear and specific descriptions of the data, events, or geographic areas they include. The measure for ice operations ("annual number of waterway closure days") did not reflect the annual number of closure days for all waterways across the United States, but rather reflects only the annual number of closure days in the Great Lakes region, although the Coast Guard breaks ice in many East Coast ports and waterways. While this limitation is included in accompanying text in some documents, the description of the limitation is inconsistent across department and agency publications. For the measure for living marine resources ("percent of fishermen in compliance with regulations"), the Coast Guard reports the results of checking entities most likely to be in violation of fishery regulations, rather than checking vessels at random. We found this measure for living marine resources was also not consistently and clearly defined in all department and agency publications. For example, in the Department of Homeland Security's fiscal year 2005 Performance and Accountability Report and the Coast Guard's Budget-in-Brief, this measure was described as an observed compliance rate, but the DHS fiscal year 2007 budget request did not clarify that this measure represents an observed compliance rate rather than the compliance rate of all fishermen in those areas patrolled by the Coast Guard. For the search and rescue primary measure ("percent of mariners in imminent danger who are rescued") and secondary measure ("percent of lives saved after Coast Guard notification"), while they reflect the programs priority of saving lives, they excluded those incidents in which 11 or more lives were saved or lost because those incidents were considered to be data anomalies. As a result of these findings, we recommended that the Coast Guard refine and clarify these measures. As of May 2010, the Coast Guard reported taking steps to refine these measures. For the ice operations measure, the Coast Guard reported conducting studies to explore program mission performance and is in the process of redefining the geographic area and waterways included in the measure to be more inclusive of all domestic ice operations. For the living marine resources measure, the Coast Guard reported that it now has a centralized office of Performance Management and Assessment to aid in ensuring consistency in reporting the performance measures in both internal and external documents. For the search and rescue primary and secondary measures, the Coast Guard reported that it is making changes to its data collection systems to identify incidents that include 11 or more lives at risk. However, these changes are not expected to be in place before September 2010. Because these efforts are largely still in process, it cannot be determined whether these efforts will fully implement the recommendation.

In our review, we found that 12 secondary measures (11 living marine resources measures and 1 marine environmental protection) did not have annual targets to assess whether program and agency goals and objectives are being achieved. During our review, Coast Guard officials told us that these measures do not have targets because the focus of the program is on the primary performance measures, and not the inputs and outputs reflected in these secondary measures. However, we found that without any quantifiable, numeric targets, it is difficult for the Coast Guard to know the extent to which program and agency goals and objectives are being achieved. As a result, we recommended that the Coast Guard develop measurable performance targets to facilitate assessments of whether program and agencies goals and objectives are being achieved. As of June 2010, the Coast Guard reported that it still does not explicitly set targets for its secondary (Tier II) measures for its living marine resources measures nor set specific targets for its marine environmental protection mission in externally produced reports.