Government Has Important Opportunity To Affect SES Diversity, but Little Will Change If Current Appointment Trends Continue

Because of the wave of retirements and normal attrition for other reasons,  the federal government will have the challenge and opportunity to replace  over half of its SES corps during fiscal years 2001 through 2007. Our  simulation estimates that almost 3,400 of the 6,100 career SES members as  of October 2000 will have left the service by October 2007. This is because minorities will be leaving at  essentially the same rate overall as white members. To ascertain what the racial, ethnic, and gender profile of the candidate  pool for SES replacements will look like, we performed the same  simulations and projections for GS-15s and GS-14s as we did for the SES. However, as with the governmentwide numbers discussed in the  previous section, agencies tend to increase the proportion of women in the  SES, particularly white women, and decrease the proportion of white men. The racial, ethnic, and gender profiles of the career SES at the 24 CFO  agencies varied significantly on October 1, 2000. Our simulation results also varied for the proportion of SES members who  will leave service by October 1, 2007, but most of the CFO agencies are  estimated to lose at least half of their SES corps. Only 3 agencies exhibited increases in minority  representation of more than 1 percentage point. They all said that more  diversity was needed in the SES and that based on our estimates more  efforts would need to be taken if diversity is to increase. Objectives, Scope, and Methodology

Our objectives were to (1) identify the effect of estimated employment  separations on the racial, ethnic, and gender diversity among the career  Senior Executive Service (SES), GS-15s, and GS-14s in the 24 Chief  Financial Officer (CFO) agencies and governmentwide, (2) determine the  effect of estimated appointments to refill these vacancies on diversity, and  (3) obtain from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the Equal  Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), and four selected agencies  their observations on our estimates and on SES diversity during this time of  change. Therefore, the number of  estimated accessions equaled the number of estimated separations.
Why GAO Did This Study

The federal government faces large losses in its Senior Executive Service (SES), primarily through retirement but also because of other normal attrition. This presents the governmental with substantial challenges to assuring an able management cadre and also provides opportunities to affect the composition of the SES. GAO estimated the number of SES members who would actually leave service through fiscal year 2007 and reviewed the implications for diversity, as defined by race, ethnicity, and gender, of the estimated losses. Specifically, GAO estimated by race, ethnicity, and gender the number of members of the career SES who will leave government service from October 1, 2000, through September 30, 2007, and what the profile of the SES will be if appointment trends do not change. GAO made the same estimates for the pool of GS-15s and GS-14s, from whose ranks the vast majority of replacements for departing SES members come, to ascertain the likely composition of that pool.

What GAO Found

More than half of the 6,100 career SES members employed on October 1, 2000, will have left service by October 1, 2007. Using current SES appointment trends, the only significant changes in diversity will be an increase in the number of white women and an essentially equal decrease in white men. About 46 percent of GS-15s and 34 percent of GS-14 workforce will provide agencies the opportunity to select minority members for the SES. Estimates for 24 large agencies showed substantial variation in SES losses in the proportion leaving and the effect on agencies' racial, ethnic, and gender profiles, with 10 agencies with decreases in minority representation and 12 with increases. The 6 agencies GAO visited recognize that the SES needs to be more diverse than GAO's projections estimate and have efforts under way to address SES diversity. They also recognize that more will have to be done than in the past if diversity is to be enhanced.