COUNTING DOWN TO ACCOUNTABILITY: Government Performance & Results Act requires agencies to justify programs, NSF's strategic plan scores high

News Analysis Cynics may laugh, but next week—Sept. 30 to be precise—officially marks the beginning of the end to waste and inefficiency in the U.S. government. That is the deadline for just about all federal agencies to submit their strategic plans to Congress under the 1993 Government Performance & Results Act (GPRA). Almost all are already in. Unbone major agency is exempt—the Central Intelligence Agency, which has never been publicly accountable to anybody. But it has the option of entering the process anytime it wants. Even the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy isn't exempt. OSTP was surprised to learn this summer that it, too, had to submit a strategic plan. Understaffed OSTP, already overworked from trying to help coordinate other agency research plans under GPRA, has been scrambling to draw up one of its own in time to meet the Sept. 30 deadline. Under the act, says ...