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Editor's Note: The Winter 1994 issue of Armed Forces Comptroller included a synopsis of the Report of the National Performance Review (NPR) -- the Administration initiative, led by Vice President Al Gore, to create a federal government that works better and costs less. In the Spring 1994 issue, we followed with an introduction to the the Defense Performance Review (DPR), and featured an interview with the then Director of the DPR, LtGen Thomas G. McInerney, and his Deputy, Dr. Gerald B. Kauvar. Dr. Kauvar and members of his staff graciously agreed to a second interview with Barbara Bonessa of the AFC Editorial Board, and provided the following update on this important initiative.
AFC: Would you begin by giving us an overview of the current status of the DPR?
DPR: The Defense Performance Review is moving aggressively into phase two of reinventing government ("REGO II") for the National Performance Review. The President announced this second phase on December 19th and charged the Vice President to conduct a study that will be significantly different from the first report of the National Performance Review.
The first study primarily addressed how the government does what it does. The second study is going to be focused primarily on what government does. The Vice President asked every Cabinet agency and all the smaller federal agencies to take a look at the missions they now perform and ask themselves if these are missions the federal government needs to continue to do. If the mission must be performed by some government entity, could it be done better by a State or local agency? If a mission does not have to be performed by a government agency, could it be transferred to the private sector or simply not done at all? [See the sample decision tree below.]
The thing that REGO I and REGO II have in common is the absolute belief the President and the Vice President have in the federal worker. From the beginning we've said that we have "good people trapped in bad systems." The point here is that federal employees may be doing things they don't really need to do, and we could ask them to do other things that are more important to their ultimate customers.
AFC: How...