Summary: The National Performance Review (NPR), a major government reform effort under the direction of Vice President Gore, has established "reinvention labs" to test ways for federal agencies to improve their performance and customer service by reengineering work processes and eliminating unnecessary regulations. Lab officials throughout the country indicated that the labs addressed a variety of topics. Although nearly half of those surveyed reported that customer service was their labs' main goal, they often said that the labs' customers were other government organizations, not the public as the Vice President originally suggested. At the time of GAO's survey, about half of the labs were up and running, while the rest were still in the planning stage. About two-thirds of the respondents said that they collected data on their labs' performance, and more than 80 percent said that this information indicated that the labs had improved service, productivity, and employee morale. In GAO's view, the labs' results suggest several promising approaches to improving agency work processes. However, the labs' real value will be realized only when the improvements they initiated, tested, and validated are widely adopted.
