Look for a renewed focus on effective government now that the President has signed Senator Warner’s  Government Performance & Results Modernization Act of 2010.

Federal program managers will be required to step forward and identify ineffective programs, and agencies will be required to aggressively pursue back-office efficiency and cost savings, Senator Warner said yesterday during a panel discussion at the Center for American Progress.

“The best way to reduce inefficiencies and overlap within and among federal agencies, he said, is for the Office of Management and Budget to head off inevitable agency "pushback" through collaboration. That means "giving longtime federal employees more input in the process" by getting "all shareholders together to acknowledge publicly what many say privately, that someone else is doing it better," Warner said,” according to this report in the publication Government Executive.

Senator Warner told Federal News Radio that the legislation almost died several times during the lame duck session because it made bigger changes than many lawmakers first realized:

“[Warner] said too often Congress and departments add more goals without assessing their value, and agencies become overwhelmed with reporting requirements. "When you measure everything, you often end up measuring nothing," Warner said. The third initiative will focus on consolidating programs with similar policy goals. Warner said President Obama's State of the Union example of redundant salmon oversight is only the tip of a government-wide iceberg. Warner said the fourth step is probably the most important, but also the most challenging. He said agencies always are willing to talk about their success stories but not programs that are underperforming. He said, however, it is no longer a question of if the government will reduce the deficit, but when. And that will require program cuts.”

 You can listen to the Federal News Radio report on Senator Warner’s remarks at CAP here.