USDA in 1998 was developing a plan to consolidate the administrative functions (e.g., accounting, budgeting, procurement, personnel) of its field service agencies at the state level under one office, to be called the Support Services Bureau. Currently, separate administrative structures provide support to these agencies. USDA has named this effort its "Administrative Convergence Plan," or, simply "administrative convergence." The term also has been used to describe any USDA effort to streamline, or combine under one entity, the administrative functions of one or more of its agencies.