The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has made a series of recommendations for evolution within the Department of Homeland Security, better defining its roles and responsibilities to make it less of a risk due to lack of cohesiveness.
Efficacy is a huge issue within the department. DHS’ Office of Strategy, Policy and Plans, for example, was only codified as an organizational structure, with roles and responsibilities in 2016. Though they support the department by coordinating policy and strategy, their effectiveness has been questioned. GAO interviewed officials in PLCY and its eight operational components to get a better read of a forward path.
What this determined was that PLCY and DHS officials both praise mechanisms for communication at the senior level, but noted that component officials could do with better communication flow about policy and strategy needs. Strategies like department coordination and crosscutting have been useful, but developing, updating or harmonizing policies that affect multiple parts of DHS have proven more difficult, primarily due to lack of clearly-defined roles and responsibilities. Changing department leadership has stalled efforts to do so.
As a result, GAO recommends that DHS finalize a delegation of authority to more clearly define PLCY’s mission, roles, and responsibilities within DHS. They would also like to see corresponding processes and procedures created to help those roles. Further, they recommend the Under Secretary for Strategy, Policy and Plans use the DHS Workforce Planning Guide to help identify and analyze gaps in the office’s workforce and design strategies to combat any gaps so found. At the same time, they should enhance the use of collaboration and communication mechanisms to better connect to component staff to better identify and address needs.
DHS has concurred with all but one of these recommendations. They disagree as to the worth of applying the DHS Workforce Planning Guide to identify and communicate workforce needs.