Relatively few federal employees can be deemed “poor performers” although “even a small number of poor performers can have a negative effect on a work environment,” the Government Accountability Office has said. GAO, at the request of House civil service leaders, issued a report in the form of a briefing that summarizes issues in performance management, a key element of the coming personnel rule changes at the Defense and Homeland Security departments, as well as of the Bush administration’s plans to reform employment practices government-wide. GAO said, for example, that in fiscal 2003, only 0.3 percent of employees received an unacceptable performance rating—what GAO termed a “very small” percentage–and a 1999 Office of Personnel Management survey of supervisors estimated that poor performers constitute 3.7 percent of the federal workforce.