The Office of Personnel Management's oversight of the federal civil service system has improved dramatically since 1992, but still needs strengthening and refining, the Merit Systems Protection Board says in a new report.
"OPM is providing constructive leadership to departments and independent agencies in the development of agencies' self-assessment capabilities," MSPB concluded in the report, "Civil Service Evaluation: The Evolving Role of OPM." But the report also argued that OPM needed to make further improvements to its program, and agencies need to strengthen their assessments of themselves and better coordinate their efforts with OPM's.
OPM is required by law to assure that federal agencies operate their human resources management programs in "accordance with the standards of fairness, efficiency, and objectivity embodied in the merit system principles," MSPB reported.
As part of a 1995 reorganization effort, OPM officials created the Office of Merit Systems Oversight and Effectiveness. The report credits the office with OPM's oversight turnaround.
Before the reorganization, the oversight program, together with programs for systems innovation and simplification, classification, labor relations and workforce performance, all reported to a single OPM associate director. Under OPM's current structure, oversight is managed by one of three assistant directors who report to a new associate director for Merit Systems Oversight and Effectiveness. This gives the oversight function better access to OPM's director than in the past.
"We found that reorganization of OPM's oversight program has significantly changed the program's internal structure and methods as well as its external effects and image," the report says.
The merit systems oversight office is charged with protecting and promoting a merit-based civil service, identifying opportunities for improving personnel programs and helping agencies meet mission goals through effective recruitment, development and utilization of employees.
Although the report found that OPM's oversight program enjoys a high degree of top management support across government, agencies believe that OPM's success in achieving the program's three goals has been uneven.
Slightly more than half of the 23 departments and largest independent agencies rated OPM's effectiveness in protecting and promoting a merit-based federal civil service as "very great" or "considerable." But for the goal of identifying opportunities for improving federal personnel policies, only 26 percent rated the agency's effectiveness positively. Only 22 percent gave OPM a positive rating for helping agencies meet mission goals.
The report also found that OPM needs to enforce consistency in the evaluation approach among field divisions, better use and disseminate information obtained in the course of oversight activities, and develop ways to focus oversight attention on line managers as their personnel authority expands.
OPM Director Janice Lachance agreed with the study's findings, saying it "conveys a real understanding of the challenges this agency faces in discharging its responsibilities for oversight and improving human resources management throughout government."
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