Automate Functions and Information

Eliminate Excessive Red Tape and Automate Functions and Information

Background

The federal personnel system is clogged with unnecessary process
constraints and thousands of pages of regulations. In 1983, the National
Academy of Public Administration concluded:

The present personnel management system is far too process oriented.  It
is much too rigid and needs major change. . . .  Thousands of pages of
personnel regulations tend to remold personnel managers into personnel
technicians. Because of the complexity of these regulations, line
managers tend to abdicate their responsibilities for personnel decisions
and fail to give personnel management the high priority it deserves.
Process drives out substance.(1)

Ten years later, the Federal Personnel Manual (FPM) has expanded to over
10,000 pages of policies, regulations, guidance, and processing
instructions. Additional agency directives parallel and often supplement
the FPM. While agency directives and the FPM contain information needed
by line managers, they are primarily written for the personnel
administrators upon whom managers must depend for interpretation.
Additionally, until recently, OPM has not led any efforts to use
technology to reduce the number of manually prepared required reports or
to enhance agency accountability systems.

The past 10 years have also seen a technology explosion. Every agency
has a data system that supports internal operations and feeds into the
Central Personnel Data File (CPDF) of the Office of Personnel Management
(OPM). However, agency systems are outdated and are not interoperable;
while complex processes contained in the FPM or agency regulations have
been automated, automation has focused primarily on internal personnel
office operations almost to the exclusion of managers' needs.

Need for Change

Managers and human resource administrators must be freed from
unnecessary process constraints in order to focus on mission instead of
efforts to overcome obstacles to its achievement. As process constraints
are eliminated, use of technology needs to expand to eliminate manually
prepared reports, provide access to information, support management
decisionmaking, and monitor organizational performance.

Cross References to Other NPR Accompanying Reports

Department of Defense, DOD01: Rewrite Policy Directives to Include
Better Guidance and Fewer Procedures.

Streamlining Management Controls, SMC08: Expand the Use of Waivers to
Encourage Innovation.  Strengthening the Partnership in
Intergovernmental Service Delivery, FSL02: Reduce Red Tape through
Regulatory and Mandate Relief.

Endnotes

1. National Academy of Public Administration, Deregulation of
Government Management Project: Personnel Management (Washington, D.C.,
October 1983), p. i. (Interim panel report.)