Weekly Round-up: September 12, 2014

John Kamensky

OMB Updates Performance.gov.  OMB posted third quarter performance progress updates for cross-agency and agency-specific priority goals on performance.gov.  In an accompanying blog post, OMB director Shawn Donovan highlights some specific accomplishments.

Can IGs Successfully Walk a Tightrope?

By law, agency inspectors general are given a great deal of independence from pressures from both their agencies and Congress. But to be effective, they need to develop positive relationships with both. Some are more effective than others. What makes the difference? In January 2015, Michael Horowitz, chair of the cross-agency Council of Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency, highlighted “independence” as their most-cherished attribute. But what steps can the IGs, agency heads, and Congress take to make sure that the work of the IGs is not ignored?

Weekly Round Up November 18, 2016

Trump teams begin meeting with federal agencies. President-elect Donald Trump has begun to deploy transition teams in three waves to meet with federal agencies.

Weekly Roundup for March 6-10, 2017

John Kamensky

Engaging Citizens in Oversight

There’s a great lead article by Elise Castelli in this week’s Federal Times, “Feds to Empower ‘Citizen IGs’ to Watch Stimulus Spending.” This is a real experiment in the ultimate use of crowdsourcing – providing the data on spending via recovery.gov and letting on-the-ground citizens to help interpret and make sense of it in their communities.

Balancing Independence and Positive Engagement: How Inspectors General Work with Agencies and Congress

In the U.S. government, Inspectors General (IGs) are tasked by statute with important roles to promote government efficiency and effectiveness, including assessing and investigating fraud or waste, providing independent advice on agency performance and compliance, reporting to their host agency and Congress on their findings, and doing so in a way that maintains independence.