[This article appears in the August 1993 edition of _Pub- lic_Sector_Quality_Report_.] GORE'S GROUP EYES SEPT. 7 As Vice President Al Gore's National Performance Review (NPR) pushes toward its Sept. 7 deadline, there remain mostly questions as to what the outcome will be. The NPR's communica- tions staff is taking a "no leaks" stance toward discussing the form or content of the NPR findings. President Clinton tapped Gore on March 3 to lead what the NPR describes as "the first real quality revolution of the federal government." The NPR was charged with analyzing the federal bureaucracy and reporting within six months on specific ideas for reducing costs, eliminating waste, and making the government more responsive and effective. Since that time, 22 "agency redesign teams" have been created to study federal agencies and suggest changes and improvements. Also, "system reinvention teams" have been created to research more general government issues, including customer service, financial manage- ment, regulatory systems, results-oriented budgeting, personnel management, and more. More than 200 federal employees have participated on the teams, as well as "outsiders" that include business execs, educators, management consultants, state and local government officials, and more. A key advisor has been David Osborne, co-author of Reinventing Government. In fact, some of his book's language can be found in NPR communiques regarding its mission and process. The NPR's guiding principles are said to be these: ù Create a government that measures performance -- what we get out, not what we put in. ù Create a government that puts its customers, the American people, first, and provides choices. ù Create competition within government to improve services and reduce costs. ù Create a government that's more market-oriented. ù Create a government that "steers" instead of "rows," that empowers communities and workers. ù Decentralize -- streamline the bureaucracy, get rid of red tape and inflexible rules. What exactly will be the focus of NPR's recommendations? Washington Post reporter Stephen Barr surmised, after listening to Gore speak frequently of late, that areas targeted for major change include personnel reform (including cutting middle manag- ers), budgeting (more flexibility, no more "spend-it-or-lose- it"), and procurement (eliminating delays and overregulation). There's no question NPR will propose steps to trim the federal workforce. Gore has indicated the government's "stream- lining" goal will exceed 100,000 jobs. It's also a good bet the NPR effort won't go so far as to try and write a "no-layoffs- caused-by-efficiency" policy into law, as Clinton did in Arkansas when launching that state's quality improvement efforts. Instead, as one NPR participant told PSQR, "there will be strong interest in using attrition, and you can accomplish a lot that way." Some observers express concern that the NPR will attempt too much too quickly In a booklet titled Improving Government Perfor- mance, written by three political science professors and just published by the Brookings Institution, the authors (John J. DiIulio Jr., Gerald Garvey, Donald F. Kettl) argue for an incre- mental, evolutionary, experimental process of reforming the federal government, rather than an attempt to implement "the answer" with a sudden raft of imposed structural changes. Speaking directly to what they see as the danger of too-rapid change, the authors write: "Not even the most prescient reformers can know what will work best. Studying today's govern- ment performance problems can provide a starting place but rarely a realistic picture of the ending place." The Brookings booklet goes on to make its own suggestions for improving government, including less restrictive control on agencies by the Office of Management and Budget, a 33 percent cut in politically-appointed positions, and a "base closing" type commission to consolidate/close federal field offices. Meanwhile, as we await Sept. 7, here are what NPR describes as the "anticipated outcomes" of its study: ù Make the government more results-oriented by focusing on achieving quality results (as defined by both internal and external customers) ù Improve accountability through the creation of clear goals, measures of performance, and individual responsibility. ù Create incentives and tools that allow line managers to manage by granting them greater flexibility to allocate resources to achieve program performance targets. ù Devolve authority for resource allocation decisions and for action in delivering services. ù Create competition within the government by (1) increasing the use of internal and external user charges and (2) giving line managers the option of buying goods and support services from alternative suppliers and destroying monopolies. This should result in a more effective use of administrative resources to achieve program outcomes. ù Introduce the notion of managing, not avoiding, risks in order to increase opportunities for innovation. ù Identify opportunities to reduce dollar costs while maintaining the same or better levels of services to the intended customers. In a bit of irony, the U.S. Senate is moving a bill to allow speeded-up congressional review of the NPR findings. Senate action on the bill is expected to come after Sept. 7, with the House likely to key its bill off the Senate's. The bill would create a nine-member commission to review legislation the admin- istration deems necessary to reinvent the federal government. The commission then would have two months to study the legislation and kick it back to the White House, which would have two weeks to make revisions. From there, the bill calls for committee hearings and votes to take no more than a month, and for floor votes on final passage to come within a week after that. However -- and here's the kicker -- the commission would remain in place for two years, ostensibly to study and make its suggestions on improving government. A new layer of oversight to advance the cause of streamlined government. No one said this would be easy. CONTACT: National Performance Review, 750 17th Street, NW, Washington, DC 20006, (202) 632-0294. [For more information or to subscribe, contact: Public Sector Quality Report 17733 Kingsway Path Lakeville, MN 55044-5209 Phone: 612-898-5058 Fax: 612-892-7710]