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NATIONAL
SCIENCE FOUNDATION
The National
Science Foundation (NSF) is taking a systemic view of the management
agenda, understanding that the five management initiatives are intrinsically
linked. NSF is the government-wide leader in Financial Management and
Expanding E-Government and is making progress in Human Capital. However,
its performance in the Competitive Sourcing and Budget and Performance
Integration lags behind its other efforts.
| Initiative |
Status |
Progress |
| Human
Capital — NSF has made significant progress in the Human
Capital initiative. It established the NSF Academy for ongoing
staff training and issued revised senior executive performance
management objectives to measure executives’ performance
against the goals set out in NSF’s strategic plan. |
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| Competitive
Sourcing — NSF has made no progress in Competitive Sourcing.
The agency has decided not to compete any of its commercial positions
at this time and has not developed a competitive sourcing plan. |
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| Financial
Performance — NSF continues to be the agency leader
in financial performance. NSF has conducted 15 pilot reviews of
its research grant awards as part of its new grant monitoring
activity to ensure that NSF funds are used for their intended
purposes. |
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| Enhancing
E-Government —
NSF achieved green status in E-Gov, joining its green status for
financial performance. It did so by making significant progress
in fixing identified information security problems. |
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| Budget/Performance
Integration — NSF has been slow in addressing the Budget
and Performance Integration initiative. The agency has only recently
submitted a draft plan on how to implement this initiative. The
first significant step will be to revise its strategic plan by
March 2003. |
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arrows
indicate change in status since baseline evaluation on September 30,
2001. |
Program
Assessments
Two NSF programs
were reviewed using the Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART): one for
activities under NSF’s “Tools” strategic goal and one
for its Geosciences directorate. These reviews showed that NSF programs
have a very clear purpose and good management practices, but that their
annual goals may not be that useful in measuring performance. For this
year, the PART score reflects acceptance of the performance measures and
the results they indicate. The Administration will develop better annual
goals for the 2005 Budget.
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