“Presidential Management Relationships with Departments and Agencies” by Charles F. Bingman


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Executive Summary

The President is the chief executive of a huge conglomerate – the Executive Branch of the federal government.  His managerial role is shared with the heads of departments and agencies, and ultimately with the Congress.  The public also tends to believe that the President should step up to this managerial role.

Every President in living memory has instituted some level of government management reform and improvement, and it is expected that the agency officials appointed by the President will make every effort to implement these initiatives.  The President’s primary agent both for his proposed budgets and for management improvement is the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and over the years, OMB has evolved a wealth of management policies, principles, and standards which it seeks to have implemented in all government agencies.  This combination of OMB’s enduring principles and new initiatives constitute the top direction for the management of the government from the President to the agencies.

But how do the agencies respond to this Presidential direction?  The best answer to this question can be found in the form of the Program Assessment and Rating Tool (PART), developed by OMB and now being used to evaluate the performance of over 1,000 programs of all types.  These PART assessments are negotiated agreements between OMB and the agencies for the identification and implementation of improvements in program management.  These assessments indicate that 75 percent of programs are considered as adequate, effective, or moderately effective.  In most of the rest, it was concluded that the effectiveness of the program was “not demonstrated.”

As these PART evaluations proceed over time, they appear to show a broad but slow and spotty pattern of efforts in agencies to respond to OMB’s principles, and to develop program reforms.  Critics question whether these improvements are real, or whether agencies are just improving their skills in responding to PART negotiations.

Given the deep involvement of the political layers of the government, it is also relevant to ask whether politicians are really interested in having more stringent evaluations of the programs they support. The PART assessments raise the concern about both political and managerial inertia which underscores the fact that Presidential leadership is always crucial.

The best advice or a new President coming into office is to think strategically, develop a specific agenda of improvements, and start implementation as soon as possible.  Agency heads are often genuinely interested in proving to be effective leaders and can usually be counted as allies.  Similarly, there are many in the Congress who will support well designed reforms.  Special commissions or task forces may advance ideas, but they are not the vehicles for implementation.

Related Resources

EOM Panel Minutes:
Topic presented at EOM Panel on September 15, 2006

Associated Presentation Materials:
None

Other Related NAPA Materials:
“Principles of Federal Organization,”  January 1997, members of the Standing Panel on Executive Organization and Management