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Fountain Evaluates Cross-Agency Collaboration and GRPA Modernization Act

Jane Fountain, Professor of Political Science and Public Policy and Director of the National Center for Digital Government, has released a report "Examining Constraints To, and Providing Tools For, Cross-Agency Collaboration" through the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS), a public-private partnership whose goal is to make government work more efficiently.

The report will remain available on the ACUS website for public comment, and, in December, ACUS members will vote on a set of recommendations based on the study.

"Cross-agency collaboration is widely viewed as a powerful means for government reform and performance improvement," says Fountain. "Greater coordination across agencies offers the potential for the Federal government to address complex policy challenges that lie inherently across agency boundaries and jurisdictions. ...[Such collaboration promises] a means to increase efficiency, effectiveness and accountability by reducing overlap, redundancy and fragmentation."

Indeed, these collaborations have been the focus of many federal initiatives thanks to the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) Modernization Act of 2010. 

GPRA introduces its own set of tools and constraints for and against collaboration, says Fountain, but little attention has been given to a series of institutional challenges to cross agency coordination. Her report "examines the use of tools by federal agency political appointees and career decision makers to overcome and work within these institutional challenges," she says. "The recommendations encourage wider use of such tools to advance cross-agency collaboration in federal agencies."

Read the full report here.

News Type: 

  • Faculty News