Three of 15 federal programs reviewed by the Government Accountability Office lacked at least one core process needed to assess performance and improve results for pregnant women, children through age 5 and their families.

The other 12 programs had processes for all three parts of the performance-management cycle GAO examined: setting goals, measuring progress toward those goals and using evidence to improve program delivery.

Graphic lists 15 programs reviewed, 12 with complete systems and three with a missing process.
GAO found that 12 of the 15 reviewed programs had all three core performance-management processes.Boho News graphic from cited primary dataView source

The three programs with gaps were administered separately by the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Veterans Affairs. GAO's finding is about those specific programs, not every family-serving program at the three departments.

A missing process does not establish that a program produced no benefit. It means managers lacked part of the system needed to define intended results, track whether they were achieved or apply the findings to future decisions.

GAO said federal programs can use routine performance measures together with evaluations designed to answer deeper questions about implementation, outcomes or the contribution a program makes to observed changes.

Those evidence types serve different purposes. A performance measure can show movement over time, while a well-designed evaluation can test why results changed and whether an intervention plausibly caused the difference.

Graphic lists three steps: set goals, measure progress and use evidence to improve.
GAO describes a cycle of setting goals, measuring progress and using evidence to improve a program.Boho News graphic from cited primary dataView source

The review focused solely on 15 programs whose mission was to support the specified population. It should not be generalized to programs that serve broader populations or provide family benefits as only one part of a larger mission.

GAO's accountability concern is practical: without a complete cycle, agencies have less reliable information for deciding what to preserve, repair, expand or discontinue and for explaining those choices to Congress and the public.

The next test is whether the three programs establish the missing processes and document how the resulting evidence changes operations. Follow-up records, not the existence of a plan alone, will show whether the gaps close.