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Management Reform: Status of Agency Reinvention Lab Efforts

GGD-96-69 Published: Mar 20, 1996. Publicly Released: Mar 20, 1996.
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Highlights

GAO reviewed the National Performance Review's (NPR) initiative to establish reinvention labs in federal departments and agencies, focusing on: (1) the labs' developmental status; (2) factors that hindered or assisted their development; (3) whether the labs were collecting performance data; and (4) whether the labs have achieved any results.

Recommendations

Recommendations for Executive Action

Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Office of Management and Budget The Director of the Office of Management and Budget should ensure that a clearinghouse of information about the labs is established. Working with the NPR task force, the Director should identify which agency or other federal entity can effectively serve as that clearinghouse. The clearinghouse should contain information that identifies the location of each lab, the issues being addressed, points of contact for further information about the lab, and any performance information demonstrating the lab's results.
Closed – Implemented
After consultation with OMB officials, NPR entered a partnership with the Alliance for Redesigning Government to update and maintain NPR's database on the reinvention labs. In August 1997, the Alliance, a part of the National Academy for Public Administration, created the position of clearinghouse coordinator, whose responsibility will be to merge NPR's database with the Alliance's web site. The database includes a description of the lab and its status, and information on its performance measures, its accomplishments, and the lab's point of contact. The clearinghouse coordinator is expected to develop a database of waivers sought by the reinvention labs. While the Alliance is not a federal entity, the intent is to establish an institutional home for the database through the creation of the coordinator position. Officials expect the clearinghouse coordinator to continue working with officials from the agencies' reinvention labs to update the database beyond NPR's tenure.

Full Report

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Topics

Agency missionsClearinghouses (information)Customer serviceData collectionFederal agency reorganizationFederal downsizingManagement reengineeringSurveysTotal quality managementImmigration waivers