from a source who said "NOT FOR ATTRIBUTION" re: National Performance Review

[David Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>]

"The Vice President's recent report "From Red Tape to Results: Creating a
Government that Works Better and Costs Less (National Performance Review)
is peppered with recommendations about how to use information technology to
"reinvent government."  They would put in place an administrative
infrastructure that empowers agencies and tracks progress, and undoing much
of the entrenched bureaucracy that evolved and got ossified in the single
vendor-mainframe era. 


The meat behind the recommendations, teased together with much help from
industry and information technology experts, is in a yet unreleased
technical report, and it appears that it may never be vetted in public. The
reason seems to be fears within the VP's public relations hirearchy, that
the background report may generate controversy. This one should- among the
ossified. Early and inaccurate drafts have begun circulating, raising risks
that many of the good ideas will be stillborn as bureaucratic barriers that
threaten the status quo are errected. 


The recommendations include no-brainers (placing all agencies on the
Internet and spreading e-mail through all agencies), huge $ savers
(generating agency agreements for integrating tactical law enforcemnt
network technology) and actual innovations (replacing the infamous "GSA
Schedule" (which slows federal procurement of IT and raises costs) with a
real time electronic marketplace. Some short acronym agencies appear
sensitive to a proposal for a National Privacy Protection Board.


Curious? Take a look at the report on the UNC Sunsite Gopher. Want to know
more contact the VP and tell him!"