Special Report: IG-0580

At the request of Congressional leadership, the Office of Inspector General has, for the
past several years, identified what it considers to be the most significant management and
performance challenges facing the Department of Energy. This effort, which was
codified as part of the Reports Consolidation Act of 2000, is now done on an annual basis
and includes an assessment of the agency's progress in addressing each challenge area.
As in the past, the methodology employed by my office relies on recent and on-going
audit, inspection, and investigation work. The process places great emphasis on the
identification of those programs and operations with demonstrated performance problems
and those which are, in our judgment, inherently the most difficult to manage. While any
analysis of this sort is somewhat subjective, we believe that the result is a balanced,
comprehensive depiction of Departmentwide challenges.
The Office of Management and Budget, in 2001, issued the President's Management
Agenda. The Agenda included five government-wide initiatives for improving
management and performance that all federal agencies were to address: strategic
management of human capital; competitive sourcing; improved financial performance;
expanded electronic government; and, budget and performance integration. The
Department of Energy was also assigned responsibility for a specific initiative, to develop
and implement better research and development investment criteria. Where appropriate,
this report identifies the relationship between the Office of Inspector General's list of
management challenges and the initiatives in the President's Management Agenda.