FY 2007 Performance Accountability Report - Management Discussion and Analysis

The Office of Government Ethics (OGE) is a separate executive branch agency established under the Ethics in Government Act of 1978, as amended (5 U.S.C. app. 401). The Director is appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate for a five-year term. The Office of Government Ethics is headquartered in Washington, DC. Currently, OGE is authorized a staff of 80 full-time equivalents. This discussion and analysis provides a brief overview of OGE’s mission, goals of its Strategic Plan, and highlights of its accomplishments in FY 2007. For detailed information on OGE, visit its website at www.usoge.gov.

The Office of Government Ethics exercises leadership in the executive branch to prevent conflicts of interest on the part of Government employees and to resolve those conflicts of interest that do occur. In partnership with executive branch agencies and departments, OGE fosters high ethical standards for employees and strengthens the public’s confidence that the Government’s business is conducted with impartiality and integrity. The chief responsibilities of OGE are:

Providing ethics program assistance and information to executive branch agencies through a desk officer system;

Developing and delivering training courses and creating materials and training aids to be used by agencies in conducting training of Federal employees;

Conducting periodic reviews of the ethics programs of executive agencies;

Ordering corrective action on the part of agencies that OGE’s Director deems necessary, including orders to establish or modify an agency’s ethics program;

Providing guidance on and promoting understanding of ethical standards in executive agencies through an extensive program of Government ethics advice, education and training;

Evaluating the effectiveness of the Ethics in Government Act, the conflict of interest laws, and other related statutes;

Recommending appropriate new legislation or amendments; and

Supporting U.S. international anticorruption initiatives by providing technical assistance primarily to prevention programs.

To achieve its mission and ultimately its stated vision, OGE has established the following three strategic goals:

OGE’s accomplishments in FY 2007 reflect the successful outcomes of its strategic plan. Its report of those achievements isdescribed in detail below. A few highlights of OGE’s FY 2007 accomplishments include:

FY 2007 was the first year of OGE’s new five-year Strategic Plan. Last year’s budget document outlined how the OGE would meet those new objectives during the first two years of that Plan. OGE announced that it would undertake initiatives to support three main priorities in FY 2007 and FY 2008, and OGE made substantial progress during FY 2007 in all three areas:

Assisting in the transition to a new Administration. OGE created a comprehensive transition plan listing the guidance documents, regulations, training and other materials it would produce during FY 2007 and 2008 to assist ethics officials with their preparations for the upcoming transition. OGE then began to meet those objectives, for example, by issuing memoranda for ethics officials and drafting or revising several pamphlets for Federal employees. OGE also worked on materials it will provide to ethics officials in FY 2008 to help them with the anticipated upsurge in nominee financial disclosure reports during the Presidential transition, and met with a focus group of ethics officials to determine what they viewed their needs to be in preparing for the transition. In addition, OGE completed draft revised rules on blind trusts and submitted them to Department of Justice (DOJ) and OPM for review.

Addressing emerging ethics issues as they arise. A key emerging issue on which OGE has focused involves the ethics issues associated with contractors in the Federal workplace. A number of media reports in FY 2007 noted questions about contractor conflicts of interest in certain Federal programs, and many of these programs also attracted Congressional attention. OGE continued to seek opportunities to raise awareness about these concerns, through presentations to outside organizations such as the Defense Industry Initiative conference and an ABA Public Contracts section meeting, and by other means such as coordinating with Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) Office of Federal Procurement Policy and the Government Accountability Office regarding their work on related issues.

Using technology to improve the delivery of ethics services, information, and materials. OGE sought new ways to use technology to deliver ethics training and information to Federal employees and ethics officials in FY 2007. OGE released a series of online training courses on topics ranging from working with contractors to a tutorial on the ethics rules that apply to special Government employees. It also partnered with another Federal agency to present web-based training that allowed OGE to train ethics officials at multiple locations simultaneously. In addition, OGE worked with several agencies that are developing their own electronic financial disclosure formats to ensure the legal sufficiency the forms and instructions.

The successful planning and delivery of the 15th National Government Ethics Conference (National Conference) was another significant undertaking for OGE in FY 2007. The conference’s agenda provided a major opportunity to address OGE’s priorities. The National Conference was comprised of workshops organized into six themed tracks, with one track devoted to emerging issues. The track included several workshops on contractor ethics issues. Another track focused on preparing for the next transition and offered sessions on topics such as reviewing nominee financial disclosure reports and what ethics officials need to know about the transition process. At the National Conference, OGE’s Director introduced a Leadership Initiative to the ethics community. This effort was initiated in FY 2007 to engage the leadership of Federal departments and agencies in developing and supporting an ethical culture in the executive branch.

Finally, in FY 2007, OGE played an important role in the United States’ anti-corruption foreign policy initiatives, many of which focused on the prevention of corruption. OGE has internationally recognized experience in designing ethics programs that complement other government systems. Accordingly, OGE was asked by the Department of State to provide significant assistance in the development of programs and policies related to good governance, including various working groups and task forces of the APEC and the U.S.-China Joint Liaison Group, and in the development of a review mechanism for implementation of the UN Convention Against Corruptionhttp://section508.gov/docs/valleyforge_2007/ These efforts not only enhanced foreign policy goals, but also highlighted the United States’ commitment to an ethical public workforce.

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