ANNUAL PERFORMANCE REPORT
PBGC’s five-year strategic plan has four broad goals that form the framework of the Corporation’s short- and long-term plans. The PBGC goals are to:
The performance measures track specific results that are significant to PBGC’s customers and gauge the effectiveness of PBGC operations. The following table shows the results achieved in 2002 and meets the annual reporting requirement of the Government Performance and Results Act. PBGC replaced one measure and added another in 2002. The American Customer Satisfaction Index of pension practitioner satisfaction replaced the previous measure that was based on a survey conducted by PBGC. The percentage of pension plans trusteed within one year of the opening of the case is the new measure. To better reflect the interests of stakeholders, PBGC plans to make additional changes to the measures in 2003. PBGC’s strategic plan may be found on PBGC’s Web site at www.pbgc.gov/about/budget-performance-and-planning
The President’s Management Agenda
Early in the year, the President issued an agenda of five government-wide goals “to improve federal management and deliver results that matter to the American people.” These goals include:
The Administration then graded a number of federal agencies, including PBGC, in each of these areas. The score card used a color-coded system, with green for success, yellow for mixed results and red for unsatisfactory results. PBGC’s first score card showed green in all areas except the first, for which it received yellow due to a lack of milestones for solutions to such problems as succession planning.
Although PBGC has not been rated since the first score card, the Corporation has continued to make progress on all of the President’s goals. Developments during 2002 are described elsewhere in the Annual Report.
Table - 2002 PBGC Corporate Performance Measures
Achieving Performance Targets
Protecting the Interests of Participants:
When a company sponsoring a defined benefit plan files for bankruptcy, PBGC becomes the advocate for the interests of the plan’s participants and the pension insurance system. In 2002, PBGC fulfilled this advocacy role in 146 cases involving over 306,900 participants.
PBGC protects participant interests by educating participants and pension practitioners about defined benefit plans. PBGC conducted 90 group meetings to inform participants in PBGC-trusteed pension plans about the PBGC guarantee and what they can expect. Similarly, PBGC officials participated in 16 meetings and conferences with pension practitioners to address issues of mutual concern and to get their feedback.
Customer Satisfaction:
The American Customer Satisfaction Index is the national indicator of customer satisfaction. One hundred and seventy private sector companies and 50 federal agencies participate in the index, which is produced by a partnership between the University of Michigan Business School, the American Society for Quality, and the CFI Group. For its participant customers, PBGC’s 2002 index was 74, four points higher than the combined index of all federal agencies and one point higher than the most recent (i.e., 2001) combined index of all participating private-sector service companies. PBGC’s index of confidence (a measure of PBGC customers’ expectation that PBGC will do a good job in the future) was 81. The results identify causes and effects of satisfaction and focus PBGC’s efforts in three areas of great concern to participants: customer care, concern resolution, and written communications.
PBGC added a pension practitioner segment to the ACSI in 2002. The baseline index of practitioners’ satisfaction was 69. While two points below the 2001 combined index of federal agencies, this result was well above the indices for comparable federal collection programs. Henceforth, the ACSI will be the principal tool for measuring the satisfaction of practitioners. PBGC previously measured satisfaction through a survey mailed to practitioners who had contacted the Corporation on a premium matter or who had filed a standard termination notice. During 2002, 73 percent of respondents rated the overall quality of PBGC’s service “outstanding” or “above average” on a five-point scale, an increase of two percentage points over 2001. The target for the year was 75 percent.
In 2002, PBGC located 7,734 missing participants who otherwise would not have received pension benefits they had earned from former employers.
Operations:
The principal measure of operations is to “reduce to three years the average time frame to send benefit determinations to participants in defined benefit pension plans taken over by PBGC.” Efforts to speed up processing have succeeded. PBGC issued benefit determinations to 81,700 participants in 2002, 36 percent more than planned. In spite of the significant increase in new workload, PBGC reduced the average time it takes to issue benefit determinations to participants to 3.3 years. As an indication of continued improvement in processing times in the future, the average age of unissued benefit determinations was reduced again this year, from 1.5 years to 0.9 years.
In 2002, participants received final benefits that were within 10 percent of the earlier estimated benefits in 92 percent of the cases, exceeding PBGC’s goal for the year.
At the end of 2002, 93 percent of cases awaiting trusteeship were one year old or less.
During 2002 PBGC made trusteeship decisions within one year of opening the case 94 percent of the time.
Of eligible participants who completed benefit applications, 95 percent received pension payments from PBGC within three months, achieving the annual target and exceeding last year’s result by three percentage points.
Financial Management:
The premium collection rate is the amount of premiums collected divided by the amount of premiums due. PBGC collected 99 percent of the premiums due in 2002, achieving its goal for the year.
A measure important to the practitioner community is the timely response to requests for premium refunds, waiver of penalties, and reconsideration of premium decisions. The standard is 90 days from receipt to completion of the request, and in 2002 PBGC accomplished this 41 percent of the time. The target for the year was 75 percent but correspondence carried over from the prior year revealed a large number of requests for reconsiderations and waivers that directly affected PBGC’s ability to reach the target. As the year closed, PBGC improved its record for achieving the 90-day standard, reaching it 57 percent of the time in September. Improving on this result will be a focus of attention in 2003, with additional resources committed.
Investment management results are measured against recognized industry indices aggregated over a five-year period. The five-year period smooths out the volatility in annual market performance and provides a more realistic, long-term view of investment success. In 2002 PBGC’s five-year performance approximated the indices for equities and fixed-income investments.
Program Evaluation
PBGC annually evaluates satisfaction with the Corporation’s services provided to participants in plans trusteed by PBGC, to pension practitioners who have dealings with us on premium payment or standard termination matters, and to all who visit PBGC’s Web site. PBGC’s survey efforts now cover all customer segments and all the modes by which they contact the Corporation (i.e., mail, telephone, and Internet). The American Customer Satisfaction Index provides the evaluations and a means to compare PBGC’s results with those of other government and private organizations. Evaluation of the survey responses enables PBGC to make improvements in program operations.
Back to Annual Report Index | Back to WWW.PBGC.GOV | PDF version of PBGC's 2002 Annual Report