The federal government needs to encourage interagency cooperation on a regular basis and not just when it is faced with emergencies, according to a new report from the Partnership for Public Service and management consultant Booz Allen Hamilton. 

Federal agencies "collaborate and act as one" when faced with a crisis, such as responding to terrorist threats or dealing with weather emergencies, the report said. 

"But in the absence of obvious, pressing crises, this unity of purpose and action is the exception rather than the rule," it said. 

Max Stier, president and chief executive officer of the Washington, D.C.-based partnership, told BNA Aug. 8 that the nonprofit group intends to issue a more detailed report this fall on the issue of modernizing the federal civil service system, which is one of the recommendations in the current report. 

Most of the recommendations in the current report can be implemented by the executive branch without statutory changes, Stier said. By contrast, he said, the civil service changes would require action by Congress. 

Although the new report calls for establishing "enterprise" leaders throughout the federal government with their own staffs, the concept is that federal agencies with overlapping missions would contribute Senior Executive Service and support personnel using their existing budgets, Stier said. 

While most enterprise goal leaders would be appointed by the president, Stier said, career members of the SES would be called on to develop interagency experience and expertise in order to ensure that multiagency enterprises maintain continuity over time. 

"It's not clear that you would need any new funding," he said, adding that by collaborating in this manner agencies would "save a ton of money" while more effectively implementing mission-critical programs. 

Stier said the partnership has "talked to a lot of people" in the administration about the report, including at the Office of Management and Budget. 

"The president has laid out an ambitious and clear agenda" for improving government effectiveness, he said, referring to a July 26 OMB memorandum asking all executive branch agencies to provide hard evidence that their programs are working as intended if they want them to be fully funded in fiscal year 2015. 

"We believe this can help," Stier said. 

In other public sector news: 

• Federal agencies starting next year will be required to file the same injury and illness reports that private employers are required to submit, under a final rule from the Labor Department's Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
• The Office of Personnel Management issued a proposed rule to implement a provision of the Affordable Care Act that requires members of Congress and their staffs to purchase health coverage from the new ACA health exchanges beginning Jan. 1, 2014.
• A California state judge approved a 60-day cooling off period in the labor dispute between the Bay Area Rapid Transit District and its employee unions, enjoining BART unions from striking against the commuter rail system following a five-day strike in July. 
• The judge overseeing Detroit's bankruptcy set an Oct. 23 date for a hearing on the city's eligibility to file for bankruptcy, an issue he said is sure to be challenged by unions, pensioners, and other creditors.