It’s Time for Agency Leaders to Reset the Relationship With Their IGs

The relationship between inspectors general and federal executives can get testy at times, but that does not mean leaders should view the IG as the enemy.

Leaders—particularly those new to an agency—should draw on the IG’s knowledge for an inside view of their organization. Most IGs span administrations and can be a good source of information for managing major agency risks. 

“We know the department very well, including where the bones are buried and where the traps lie,” said Mary Kendall, acting IG at the Department of the Interior.

Yet relationships between leaders and IGs can tend toward the adversarial, and it’s not hard to understand why.

The IGs’ job is to conduct thorough audits and investigations, which can lead to reports that bring an agency’s dirty laundry to light. The issues unearthed and made public can lead to political fallout, affect employee morale and raise questions about the agency’s stewardship. In addition, the IG’s need for independence and impartiality can intensify the perception that the IG is antagonistic to agency leadership.

This relationship is explored in a new report, “Walking the Line: Inspectors General Balancing Independence and Impact,” by the Partnership for Public Service and Grant Thornton.

According to the report, the biggest challenge is to find that line in the sand that allows both sides to work together in a way that constructively improves agency operations and helps minimize risks, without impinging on IGs’ ability to do their jobs and maintain their independence.

There is no doubt that some of these relationships soured during the past eight years. But there soon will be a chance to reset, thanks to the changeover in administrations in January 2017 and the fact that the president also will have the opportunity to appoint 10 new IGs to fill vacant positions. Incoming political leaders and incumbent IGs can start fresh and develop productive working relationships that can benefit both sides.

A starting point is to keep in mind that leaders and IGs both have an interest in serving the public, ensuring high-quality agency performance and eliminating or lessening fraud, waste, abuse and mismanagement.

IG reports on weaknesses and problems naturally can come across as criticism of agency leaders and their decisions. But they also can offer insight into agencies’ risks, allowing leaders an opportunity to right the ship. Rather than react with knee-jerk hostility to the IG’s findings, leaders can focus on the issues that need fixing.

If they have doubts, they should consider the experience of the Office of Personnel Management. In the decade leading up to 2014, the OPM IG released three reports that raised red flags about the agency’s insufficient information technology security policies and procedures. OPM failed to respond seriously to those reports until the spring of 2015, when the agency found itself confronting one of the largest data breaches in government history, resulting in the theft of personal information on nearly 22 million people. Had OPM acted on the IG’s findings when the concerns were first raised, agency officials might have prevented the breach or at least mitigated the consequences.

Working Together

IGs often face resistance from agency leaders to help with investigations. According to the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency, many IGs say they have trouble getting information and materials they request for their audits or investigations. This is despite a requirement that agencies provide access to all documents relating to programs and operations for which the IG has responsibility.

The council wrote a letter to the Senate leadership complaining of roadblocks to doing their work. The letter said that, since 2010, a number of federal agencies—including the departments of Commerce and Justice, the Peace Corps, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board—have challenged the IGs’ access to pertinent agency information.

Come January, new leaders will have an opportunity to figure out the best ways to build constructive relationships with their IG so their agency is better equipped to anticipate vulnerabilities, and can find opportunities to improve operations and processes.

If both sides perceive they are working toward common goals, it could help tamp down any tendency to retreat to opposite corners and eye each other warily. And that good working relationship can lead to more effective agency performance and opportunities to prevent major problems.

Mallory Barg Bulman is the director of research and evaluation at the nonprofit, nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service. Carlos Otal is managing partner of Grant Thornton’s Public Sector Services and Solutions.