Public Buildings Service During the past year we have worked with the Congress on new legislation that emphasizes construction over leasing and requires long-range planning. A nationwide contracting system has been established, centralized in the eleven PBS regional offices. FY'80 has been the first full year of a contract clearance effort which assures that contracts exceeding a high dollar threshold are cleared through both PBS and the Office of Acquisition Policy prior to formal award. Through the combined efforts of PBS and the Office of Acquisition Policy, one company and one individual were debarred and seven companies and three individuals were suspended in FY 1980. Other possible actions are under review. A PBS order to implement OMB Circular A-76 has been developed and should be issued within the first quarter of FY'81. A building project cost control program has been developed which is designed to bring the cost of a Federal building within its income-generating ability; this will be done using commercial-type financial techniques that are adapted to meet Federal needs and by requiring all additional cost expenditures to be identified and justified. Office of Plans, Programs and Financial Management Planning and financial management had received very low priority prior to my arrival at GSA. As a consequence, the agency had no clear picture of its resources nor the levels of activity that could be accomplished within these resources. This serious deficiency was corrected by the creation of an Office of Plans, Programs and Financial Management. This enabled us to institute a five-year planning mechanism in GSA. We have also established a Management Information System, which will ensure that problems will be brought to the attention of the appropriate executives, and that cost analyses performed throughout the agency are validated by another office. Finally, we have also instituted strong financial management and sound budgeting policies for the agency. Office of Human Resources and Organization The Office of Human Resources and Organization was established in July of 1979 to provide the agency with clear lines of accountability for improving the management of human resources. Perhaps our most critical need was to begin to remedy years of inadequate training. New staff hired to upgrade the workforce often were placed under inadequate supervisors; journeymen did not possess the tools of their trade; managers could not use the control systems necessary to eliminate fraud and ensure against its recurrence. In the last 10 months, we have given expanded procurement training to over 1,000 employees; provided management courses to over 200 managers; revised supervisory training to reflect new agency directions; conducted standards of conduct and ethics training throughout the system; initiated training to build competent Project Managers; conducted contact point training to improve customer service; and completed planning for a national training system to provide urgently needed clerical, blue collar, and technical skills. The existing EEO program had spawned a backlog of complaints and litigations that threatened to paralyze the agency and move manage The new ment responsibility out of the agency and into the courts. Office of Civil Rights has successfully settled most pending suits out of court and has reduced the average time to give a final agency decision in a discrimination complaint from 15 months to less than 30 days. Not only has the complaints backlog been eliminated, but the volume of new complaints has dropped off markedly, and program credibility has soared. Another initiative being successfully carried out by the Office of Human Resources is the overall raising of employee competency levels through career management a discipline which uses task analysis to determine what specific levels and kinds of skills and abilities are needed for a specific job. Training is matched to job requirements, and employees must be certified competent before they are allowed to work in those capacities. This is a key program that is already underway, and which will be expanded to cover all of our major career fields in the near future. Unfortunately, too many people do not understand the importance of these human resource management programs. However, unless the workforce is well-trained and motivated, success will be unattainable. If I do not have the freedom to improve my workforce through training and good human resource management, the taxpayers whom we both serve will be the losers. Office of External Affairs Effective communications are important to the operations of the the channels through which all those who are involved with us Congress, Federal agencies, the business community, and our own employees are keep informed about our activities. I established an Office of External Affairs within GSA to coordinate that effort. One activity of that Office is a Customer Relations program in the central office and in each GSA regional office. This program is providing a high-level communications link between GSA and the Federal agencies we service. Our staff maintain regular contact with the Assistant Secretaries for Management, the Executive/Administrative Directors, and other administrative officials of our customer agencies to assess the level and quality of service being provided by GSA and to plan with the agencies ways to meet their future requirements. This program is not designed to solve individual, routine problems that agencies may have with GSA. The purpose is to identify unique problems or those that cut across Service or regional organizational lines and to work on solving the root causes of such problems. We are also instituting a customer awareness program for our employees, which will include the development of performance criteria and standards for customer service, together with employee training and an awards system. Our aim is to involve customer agency officials in the planning and implementation of service initiatives and other activities that affect them. By improving communications within GSA and between GSA and those agencies, we can do precisely that. IV. Conclusion been easy. I have attempted to summarize for you the progress that has been made since I became Administrator of General Services. It hasn't It hasn't come as fast as I would like. We have done a credible job of identifying the problems and establishing the strong management systems necessary to correct them. We haven't been able in one year to institutionalize these systems, but we have made a good start. However, the systems alone cannot achieve accountability in government. Accountability is more than a management style. It is a high ideal that must be shared by every employee every member of the team. Accountability is more than responsibility for government property. More than responsibility for Federal funds. Accountability includes within delivering a day's work for a day's pay, and accepting responsibility for the kind of job you do. My efforts to instill accountability in one agency of the government have met tremendous resistence and without the agency. This granite wall I've hit is best described by a former Secretary of Defense who said: "Man has the only creative mind, yet, paradoxically, his resistance to change is almost obstinate. We build our institutions to protect against change." Why is this? Let's examine the opposition to change. Many people are afraid of change. They resist change because they think it will make life more difficult for them. For example, some customer agencies might find it inconvenient to justify all requirements on the basis of need. Some GSA employees might not want to upgrade |