An Odd Job Well Done

For much of my adult life I worked as a performance auditor, a job description that baffles most people. They recognize audit and think accountant--definitely not. They're not sure what to make of the performance part. I like to further confuse them with the not entirely inaccurate description that perfrmance audit is to audit as performance art is to art, if for no other reason than I like to hear my profession described terms of art.

Performance audit is pretty simple, actually. It's asking if a project or organization meets its goals. If yes, how did they do it, and, if not, what went wrong? The mechanics, methodologies and experience needed to define and measure performance can be complex and often require professional skills but the basic idea--measuring results against expectations--is something everyone does every day.

Some government performance auditors are inspectors general whose scope varies from a single department or a state government to individual programs. One right thing America has done in Iraq is to create the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction. The Special IG just released a report that is what performance audit is all about:

The U.S. government was unprepared for the extensive nation-building required after it invaded Iraq, and at each juncture where it could have adjusted its efforts, it failed even to understand the problems it faced, according to the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction.

In a stinging, wide-ranging assessment of U.S. reconstruction efforts, Stuart W. Bowen Jr. said that in the days after the invasion, the Defense Department had no strategy for restoring either government institutions or infrastructure. And in the years since, other agencies joined the effort without an overall plan and without a structure in place to organize and execute a task of such agnitude.

Looking at the other end of America's wars, the GovernmentAccountability Office has just released a report on care at the Veterans Home in northwest DC. More than 1,100 enlisted retirees live at the home. The GAO found problems.

The Government Accountability Office warned the Pentagon this week that residents of the home "may be at risk" in light of allegations of severe health-care problems. Residents have been admitted to Walter Reed Army Medical Center with "the most serious type of pressure sores" and, in one case, with maggots in a wound, according to a GAO letter sent to the Defense Department.

I would be proud to have participated in either review. I always liked projects that helped individuals or populations at risk. I also liked the opportunity to slam incompetence. In either case I enjoyed the opporutnity to make something positive occur. I still have some romantic idealism after all these years.

So maybe next time someone asks what I do, I should give them copies of the Iraq reconstruction or veterans home reports.