Federal Prison Industries: Limited Data Available on Customer Satisfaction
Highlights
Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on whether Federal Prison Industries (FPI) collects and maintains data that would enable it to make reliable, generalizable statements about the satisfaction of its federal agency customers with respect to the quality, cost, and timely delivery of FPI's products, focusing on: (1) if FPI has data, either from its management information system or other sources, to support overall conclusions about how federal customers who buy and use its products and services view their timeliness, price, and quality; and (2) whether agencies who are among the largest buyers of FPI products and services monitor FPI's performance the same way they do commercial vendors in terms of timeliness, price, and quality.
Recommendations
Recommendations for Executive Action
| Agency Affected | Recommendation | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Bureau of Prisons | In order to institutionalize within FPI an assessment of overall customer satisfaction and the use of this assessment to measure and improve performance, the Director, Bureau of Prisons, should direct FPI's Chief Operating Officer to: (1) examine available approaches to collect and use customer satisfaction data to determine the most cost-effective approaches for FPI; (2) develop a plan for collecting customer satisfaction data that would allow for supportable conclusions about federal customers' views on timeliness, price, and quality; (3) develop a timetable for implementing the plan; and (4) set performance goals for the levels of customer satisfaction that FPI wants to attain and measure results against these goals. |
Closed – Implemented
FPI has ceased taking action on this recommendation; its actions are not fully responsive to the recommendation.
|