A Look at the Air Force Inspector General's Inspection System

Gao ID: FGMSD-79-51 August 28, 1979

Until November 1978, GAO was denied access to inspection reports and supporting documentation of the Air Force Inspector General's office. At that time, the Department of Defense adopted a new policy which permitted the release of such reports to GAO. Inspection reports of the Air Force Inspector General provide valuable information, but the reports can be improved by developing more information on the underlying causes of problems disclosed during inspection and by reducing the number of non-mission-related findings.

The Inspection system could be strengthened by reducing the high turnover of top-level inspection officials, replacing some military inspectors with civilians, and by giving the Inspector General more influence over the operations of command-level inspectors general. Overinspection continues to be a problem within the Air Force due to the large number of inspector general reviews, staff assistance visits, and self-inspection being performed. Duplication of inspection effort is not a problem at the Headquarters Inspector General level because of the coordination of inspection with the audits of the Air Force Audit Agency. However, duplication does occur between command-level inspector general reviews and other groups' evaluations.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

Director: No director on record Team: No team on record Phone: No phone on record


The Justia Government Accountability Office site republishes public reports retrieved from the U.S. GAO These reports should not be considered official, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Justia.