OMB’s Program Assessment and Rating Tool provides hard data to answer the question of who is better equipped to implement federal programs? A recent analysis of PART results gives the edge to federal civil servants.

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"It is now possible to use OMB data to decide whether we should increase or decrease the number of presidential appointees."

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The PART evaluation looks at all factors that affect and reflect program performance, including program purpose and design; performance measurement, evaluations and strategic planning; program management; and program results. OMB has used PART to evaluate about 616 federal programs in conjunction with creating the 2004, 2005 and 2006 budgets. The balance of federal agencies will be evaluated for the 2007 budget.

Using the available PART data, David Lewis, an assistant professor of politics and public affairs at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, recently released “Political Appointments, Bureau Chiefs and Federal Management Performance,” a study of the effectiveness of civil servants compared to presidential appointees.

The data is conclusive: Professor Lewis found that presidential appointees who are directly responsible for managing the implementation of federal programs “have significantly lower PART scores than career managers.” He further found “the greatest differences between appointees and careerists exist in the program management and program results section of the PART evaluation.”

From the traditional perspective of good management—program management and results—there is now no question that the career civil servants, who represent 25 percent of the program managers evaluated, should be responsible for managing public policy implementation. If performance is the evaluation criterion, and competition the deciding factor in who is put in charge of managing federal work, there is no question that civil servants, not political appointees, should be assigned the responsibility for implementing public policy.

The dispute concerning who should be assigned what role does not stop with the more than 600 persons who directly manage the implementation of public policy. For example, in each of two National Commissions on the Public Service, chairman Paul Volcker called for a one-third reduction in the approximately 3,200 presidential appointees. The commission concluded the political-appointee system was top-heavy, cumbersome and anathema to meaningful accountability and good management.

From the presidential perspective, however, “good management” means more than efficiency and effectiveness. It also entails responsiveness to the president’s policy agenda and effective representation of that agenda to Congress, the public and press.

To ensure that the president’s policy agenda is implemented as it is envisioned, layers of political appointees have been added to the federal payroll. Donald Devine, a former Office of Personnel Management director who is currently with the Heritage Foundation, has supported this point of view by calling for more political appointees to be readily available to speak for the administration and to assure implementation of presidential policies.

Applying the PART results would not interfere with a president’s need for policy implementation purity. Adhering to the PART process would allow a small number of high-level political appointees to define the president’s agenda and set goals, while at the same time allowing federal career executives to do what they do best: implement public policy.

RESPONSIBLE FOR PERFORMANCE It is now possible for OMB, working with department secretaries and their deputies, to define the purpose of federal programs, set public policy implementation goals program by program, monitor the results and hold career federal executives responsible for their performance.

With the objective performance data from PART, there is no need for layers of political appointees to ensure that presidential public policy is implemented consistent with its purpose. Political appointees can ensure implementation of the president’s policy by looking at the PART results. Unnecessary layers of political appointees can be eliminated while returning the definition of “good management” to its traditional meaning of program efficiency and effectiveness.

Robert Tobias is a distinguished adjunct professor in residence at the School of Public Affairs at American University in Washington and director of the school’s Institute for the Study of Public Policy Implementation.