Public Benefit
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Passports are readied for processing in an effort to reduce the passport backlog at the nation?s third largest passport center in New Orleans. AP Photo/Alex Brandon |
The overarching goal of the Department of State and USAID in this area is to provide the best visa and American citizen services possible that are compatible with our responsibilities for homeland security, and to ensure a high quality workforce, including locally employed staff, supported by modern secure infrastructure and operational capabilities. When American citizens seek passports or emergency assistance overseas, they rely on the Department. Foreign visitors seeking to enter the United States meet the Department face-to-face when U.S. consular officers conduct their visa interviews. Although two separate organizations with distinct legislative mandates and budgets, the Department of State and USAID pursue opportunities to create more integrated management structures where analyses demonstrate that such structures are cost-effective, efficient, and support our missions. Sound management and organizational excellence are essential to support our embassies, consulates, and USAID missions abroad. To date, such management reforms have been accomplished largely through the work of the Department of State/USAID Joint Management Council, created in 2003 to facilitate management improvements at both agencies.
2007 Resources Invested
| State Operations |
Foreign Assistance |
Total |
|---|---|---|
| $4.621 billion | $.883 billion | $5.4 billion |
Strategic Priorities
Visa Services: The Department is responsible for safeguarding U.S. borders through vigilance in adjudicating visas while simultaneously balancing security with facilitating legitimate travel. Consular officers around the world process over seven million non-immigrant visa applications and nearly 700,000 immigrant visa applications each year. To welcome visitors who contribute materially to the U.S. economy and enrich American society in countless intangible ways, we strive to improve both efficiency and customer service. The Department employs modern tools to manage workflow, such as Web-based application forms and appointment systems.
Passport Services: The Bureau of Consular Affairs issued a record 18.4 million passports in 2007, an increase of more than 50 percent over 2006. This record volume resulted from implementation of new travel rules under the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative. Effective January 23, 2007, Americans flying to the United States from Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean region were required to carry a passport. While average processing time for all 2007 applications (27 days) fell within target, unanticipated demand during the peak season lengthened the average processing time, from six weeks in December 2006 to twelve weeks in late spring 2007. At the end of 2007, all applications were being processed within four weeks. To meet the demand, the Bureau added hundreds of new employees, opened new passport centers, trained officers drawn from throughout the Department for temporary duty, and expanded hours of operation at regional passport centers. We expect demand will continue to grow, and thus will continue to add personnel, streamline operations, and expand facilities. The indicator below is a measurement of the timeliness of passport issuance and customer service to the American public.
| Performance Indicator | 2005 Results |
2006 Results |
2007 Target |
2007 Results |
2007 Rating |
2008 Target |
2009 Target |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Percent of Passport Applications Processed Within Targeted Timeframe | 90% | 90% | 100% | 71% |  |
100% | 100% |
American Citizen Services: Assisting approximately four million Americans who reside overseas and nearly 60 million who travel abroad remains a top priority for the U.S. Government. Though consular work is punctuated by extraordinary acts to help U.S. citizens during times of crisis or urgent need, it is built upon a foundation of services provided to an American public that increasingly lives, works, and learns in the global community.
Human Resources: The Secretary?s vision for transformational diplomacy announced in 2006 has meant considerable changes in the realignment of overseas positions, an initiative known as global diplomatic repositioning. This initiative enables the Department to respond more quickly to policy demands and priorities, increases the number of employees in full-time training for difficult languages such as Arabic and Chinese, and better supports employees and their families as the number of positions at unaccompanied and limited accompanied posts increases.
While all Foreign Service positions worldwide are crucial to the implementation of U.S. foreign policy, critical needs positions at high differential posts overseas are often on the frontlines of policy priorities. The following new indicator measures the ability of the Department of State?s Bureau of Human Resources to fill positions at posts with critical personnel needs beginning in 2007. The staffing of these positions has been a top priority. Because of staffing shortages and the civilian surge, not all critical needs posts were staffed at the target of 90 percent or above. Until the Department of State?s overall staffing needs are met, it will be unable to fill all ?critical needs? positions above 75 percent.
| Performance Indicator | 2005 Results |
2006 Results |
2007 Target |
2007 Results |
2007 Rating |
2008 Target |
2009 Target |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Successful Staffing of Critical Needs Positions Overseas | N/A | N/A | 90% | 75% | |
75% | 75% |
Information Technology: The Department of State and USAID must have secure and modern information technology to provide the information required for effective diplomacy and development. To achieve this goal, the Department and USAID have agreed on a number of strategic information technology initiatives, including developing state-of-the-art information management tools, services, and repositories both internally and for e-Government partners, citizens, other U.S. Government agencies, private businesses, non-governmental organizations, and other governments. For example, the State Messaging and Archive Retrieval Toolset (SMART) initiative highlighted in the indicator below demonstrates how the Department has made progress toward a more efficient global communications system.
| Performance Indicator | 2005 Results |
2006 Results |
2007 Target |
2007 Results |
2007 Rating |
2008 Target |
2009 Target |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Progress Toward State Messaging and Archive Retrieval Toolset (SMART) | Requirements documented | Development of quick-win functionality initiated | Deploy functionality at pilot sites | Deployment successful at all pilot sites |  |
Worldwide deployment to 12 additional posts | Worldwide deployment to all posts |
Diplomatic Security: The year 2007 was a challenging one with security threats in countries as diverse as Pakistan, Iraq, and Colombia. As part of the U.S. Government response to these threats, in September 2007, Secretary Rice tasked a panel of outside experts, chaired by the Director of Management Policy, to review the Department?s security practices in Iraq. The panel?s report, issued in October 2007, recommended a series of measures to strengthen security practices, including enhancements in training, the establishment of an Embassy Incident Review Board, prompt actions by the Embassy and U.S. military command to tighten coordination, and the addition of personnel to improve oversight. These recommendations are now being implemented.
Overseas Facilities: In addition to providing for the security of diplomatic personnel, the Department and USAID also invest in the security of diplomatic facilities worldwide to provide safe and functional work and living environments for employees. The Department is now engaged in the most comprehensive overseas capital construction program in its history to replace 195 security-deficient embassies and consulates and collocate all U.S. Government personnel. In the past five years, 54 embassies and consulates have been replaced or are under construction. The Fiscal Year 2007 ? 2012 Long-Range Overseas Buildings Plan anticipates replacing an additional 61 embassies and consulates. The Department is also a leader in the Federal Government-wide Real Property Initiative, incorporating best practices such as lean management, ensuring that new facilities use energy-efficient designs, encouraging innovative design/build contracts, partnering with industry, and maintaining transparency with stakeholders. USAID is a partner in this effort, as USAID offices are included on all new embassy compounds (NEC).
The Baghdad NEC project, consisting of 25 buildings plus infrastructure on 65 acres, achieved substantial completion on December 16, 2007, within the budget approved by Congress. This is the largest embassy project in the history of the Department of State and the only permanent facility built during wartime. As part of the Overseas Buildings Operations? (OBO) regular comprehensive, systematic procedures, the NEC is currently undergoing the normal OBO rigorous accreditation and verification process managed by our Commissioning Office to validate whether it has been built to code and contract specifications and that all building systems are acceptable. The following indicator measures a key component relating to the security of U.S Government overseas posts.
| Performance Indicator | 2005 Results |
2006 Results |
2007 Target |
2007 Results |
2007 Rating |
2008 Target |
2009 Target |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number of Major Compound Security Upgrade Program Projects Completed at Overseas Posts | 4 | 7 | 8 | 8 | |
9 | 8 |
Plannning and Accountability: To improve accountability to the American taxpayers, the Department and USAID are continuously improving financial performance and integrating budgeting with strategic and performance planning. For example, in 2007, the Department implemented a single, integrated financial system to provide world-class financial services on a global scale. USAID is also integrating procurement into its global financial system and received a clean financial audit for the fifth consecutive year.
Administrative Services: The Department and USAID provide premier administrative and information support services to further foreign policy and foreign assistance goals by continually improving customer assistance and satisfaction. Overseas, the Department and USAID are merging selected administrative support functions. Domestically, the Department has begun to re-engineer and consolidate administrative functions into service centers that will provide specialized support to bureaus to improve service delivery.
Rightsizing the U.S. Government Overseas Presence: The Department of State?s Office of Rightsizing is a Congressionally-mandated office responsible for implementing a President?s Management Agenda special initiative. This office conducts rightsizing studies on all U.S. missions worldwide on a rolling five-year basis, and reviews and approves the staffing projections for all capital construction projects, ensuring rightsizing goals are met.
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