Fiscal year 2003 expenditures were $2.02 million. Thus, OOC is not alone among organizations in seeking to answer critical  questions about its overall effectiveness. OOC’s effort to develop a results-oriented strategic plan is an important and  positive development that is still very much a work in progress—as the  Board and OOC’s senior leadership clearly appreciate. Perhaps most  important is OOC’s recognition that its planning effort provides a vehicle  for engaging and consulting with key congressional and other stakeholders  on the fundamental purposes of OOC (strategic goals), how those purposes  will be achieved (programs and strategies), how progress will be assessed  (performance measures), and what progress is being made and  improvement opportunities exist (accountability reporting). OOC also recognizes the need to make better use of IT when enforcing the  Occupational Safety and Health Act-related provisions of the CAA. Ensuring an Effective Program Structure

Our work looking at leading organizations has often found that as  organizations shift their orientation from outputs and activities to the  results that those outputs and activities are intended to achieve, new,  different, and more effective ways of doing business will emerge. Towards  this end, OOC has taken a number of actions including establishing and  administering a dispute resolution process for employees who allege  violations of civil rights, labor, and employment laws covered by the CAA;  conducting investigations and periodic inspections of legislative branch  facilities to ensure compliance with safety, health, and disability access  standards; adopting substantive regulations, many of which have been  approved by the Congress, to apply covered laws to the legislative branch;  educating both employees and employing offices about their rights and  responsibilities under the law; and regularly reporting to the Congress on  its activities in a variety of required reports and studies. Occupational safety and health. Recommended Next Steps

We recommend that OOC’s Executive Director and General Counsel:  identify potential improvements to how the Office measures its  activities and performance, including the possibility of using benchmark  data from federal agencies with similar functions for purposes of  comparison and analysis;  provide a more complete picture of OOC’s workload by improving how  it tracks and reports on single-issue large group requests for counseling  and mediation;  work with the Congress to develop a strategy to ensure that all facilities  under OOC’s jurisdiction and located in the Capitol Hill complex and the  surrounding Washington, D.C. area—including the Senate and House  page dormitories, and LOC’s National Library Service for the Blind and  Physically Handicapped—are covered as part of the biennial safety  inspections required by the CAA;   establish a clearinghouse for sharing best practice information on topics  covered by the CAA;  work with the Congress to determine the feasibility of using such  mechanisms as feedback surveys and focus groups to provide valuable  information on the actual level of awareness among target populations  concerning OOC’s programs and activities;  outreach to other groups and forums such as the Senate Administrative  Managers-Chief Clerks Steering Committee;   use data on the number and type of complaints received by OOC to  better target education and information distribution efforts; and  develop capacity to use safety and health data to facilitate risk-based  decision making. OOC has recently undertaken a number of important initiatives to improve  communications and coordination. Consistent with that commitment, we recommend that  OOC take the following steps:  Develop congressional protocols, in close consultation with  congressional stakeholders, that would document agreements between  the Congress and OOC on what congressional stakeholders can expect  as the Office carries out its work. Develop agency protocols, in cooperation with legislative agencies, that  would clarify and clearly communicate the procedures OOC will follow  when interacting with agencies while carrying out its work. Creating and Sustaining an Enhanced Management Control Environment Essential for Effective Operations

The creation of an enhanced control environment forms the foundation for  an organization’s ability to put in place the management controls necessary  for effective and efficient operations. Since it was created in 1995, OOC has operated without having any formal  performance management system for its Executive Director and General  Counsel. Specifically, a number of  congressional and legislative agency officials we interviewed had the  perception that a previous General Counsel’s emphasis on a strict “gotcha”  approach toward enforcement led to a combative and adversarial  relationship with legislative agencies and other stakeholders that was at  odds with the more collaborative approach supported by OOC’s Executive  Director. However, the standards of effective  management control and OOC’s own past experience demonstrate the need  for the office to take appropriate steps to address the OOC’s organizational  structure and presents a challenge to effective management control. On the other hand, there are areas  where the system can be improved as OOC’s efforts in this area move  forward. Objective, Scope, and Methodology

To meet our objective of assessing key management controls in place at the  Office of Compliance (OOC) and identify what improvements, if any, could  be taken to strengthen OOC’s effectiveness and efficiency, we followed a  multipronged approach.
Why GAO Did This Study

The Consolidated Appropriations Resolution of 2003 Conference Report mandated that GAO review the Office of Compliance (OOC), an independent legislative branch agency created by the Congressional Accountability Act of 1995 (CAA). OOC, a 15-person office with about $2 million in expenditures during fiscal year 2003, administers and enforces various CAA provisions related to fair employment and occupational safety and health among certain legislative branch agencies. OOC's current Executive Director has been in place since April 2001 and its General Counsel joined the Office in June 2003. The mandate directed GAO to assess the OOC's overall effectiveness and efficiency and to make recommendations, as appropriate.

What GAO Found

OOC is in the early stages of a concerted and vitally needed effort to improve and strengthen management control across the Office and to carry out its mission more effectively and efficiently while safeguarding its institutional independence. OOC's success in completing this important effort depends upon making significant progress on a number of key management control areas: Sharpen focus on results. OOC's current strategic planning initiative is beginning to address the more fundamental question of the Office's effectiveness rather than the Office's traditional focus on activities and outputs, such as the number of cases processed and inspections conducted. OOC's planning initiative can also provide a vehicle for engaging and consulting with key congressional and other stakeholders on OOC's purposes, how those purposes will be achieved, how progress will be assessed, and for sustaining feedback on what progress is being made and what additional improvement opportunities exist. The planning initiative is still very much a work in progress and continued efforts are needed in a number of key areas including developing results oriented performance measures. Ensuring an effective program structure. As OOC shifts its focus from outputs and activities to results, it must put in place a more effective program structure that includes new ways of doing business. OOC has taken a number of actions to administer the CAA, such as managing a dispute resolution process and conducting investigations and inspections to ensure compliance with safety and health standards. However, OOC is not fully in compliance with the CAA's requirement concerning biennial safety and health inspections of legislative branch agency facilities. OOC also needs to expand on recent efforts to develop programs that are based on collaboration with legislative branch agencies. Building effective communication emphasizing outreach and coordination. OOC's congressional and other stakeholders whom we interviewed said that OOC recently has used a more collaborative approach rather than the "gotcha" approach of the past. On the other hand, several agency officials said that current interactions with OOC could be improved. To facilitate more effective communications, OOC should establish congressional and agency protocols to document agreements between the Congress, legislative branch agencies, and OOC on what can be expected as OOC carries out its work. Creating and sustaining an enhanced management control environment. Since its creation, OOC has operated without having any formal performance management system for its Executive Director and General Counsel. OOC should establish an enhanced management control environment and strengthen accountability by requiring performance agreements between the Board and both the Executive Director and General Counsel, as well as expanding and improving on OOC's performance management system for all staff. Another important challenge concerns the lack of institutional continuity that may occur due to statutory term limits on OOC's leadership positions. To prevent the loss of critical organizational knowledge, the Congress should consider changing the term limits contained in the CAA.