The Senior Executive Service is failing in its mission to provide a cadre of experienced leaders who can easily move throughout the government, according to a report released today by the Partnership for Public Service.

The report calls for a radical overhaul: dividing the current corps of about 7,000 senior executives into three categories: a National Corps of executives who will rotate among jobs at multiple agencies, an agency-based corps of executives who will stay put, and a reassignment of SES members who have highly specialized scientific or other skills but who spend little time managing. The last group would move into a separate category of senior-level and scientific or technical leaders.

"The Senior Executive Service has fallen short of its promise," the report says. "More importantly, we find that the original vision itself is inadequate for today's needs and does not provide the blueprint to build the kind of senior government leadership required for the future."

The report, "Unrealized Vision: Reimagining the Senior Executive Service," says senior executives have to be better compensated if the government hopes to recruit top talent from the private sector and encourage junior employees to advance to the executive corps. The government must end the pay caps that link SES pay to congressional pay levels, restore locality pay to executives, and allow executive bonuses to be included when calculating retirement benefits, the Partnership says.

The government also needs to streamline its hiring processes and more actively recruit from the private sector, in part by adopting techniques used by headhunting firms.

The Office of Personnel Management said Wednesday it would consolidate its SES operations into one centralized office. The Partnership report also called for such a consolidation, but OPM said it had already intended to do so and was not motivated by the report.

OPM said it was still reviewing the report and would not comment on its proposals, but said it would consider them as it considers a broader overhaul of the government's workforce this fall.

Carol Bonosaro of the Senior Executives Association agreed with many of the report's recommendations, which she said lend support for enacting what she called long-overdue changes to the SES. But Bonosaro strongly disagreed with the proposal to create separate categories of senior executives to encourage more mobility.

"You can accomplish that short of creating a group of haves and have-nots," Bonosaro said. "That would limit agency flexibility, and would certainly make it difficult for some executives to reach their full potential."