Senior Executive Service

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the extent to which executive branch agencies have either established or plan to establish job rotation programs for members of the Senior Executive Service (SES).

GAO contacted 63 agencies that had at least one career SES member as of March 31, 1986, and found that: (1) the Defense Contract Audit Agency, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Navy had ongoing rotation programs; and (2) the Department of the Interior conducted a brief rotation program that ended in 1983. The agencies developed their rotation programs to: (1) maintain professional independence and objectivity; (2) prevent or preclude the appearance of a conflict of interest; (3) promote career development; (4) build broad-based executive skills; (5) improve the utilization of SES members by better distributing their skills throughout the agency; (6) stimulate and challenge executives; and (7) promote executive mobility, professional development, and managers' cross-training. Some agencies had too few SES members to make a rotation program practical, while others said that their SES members were too specialized or technically oriented to move to other positions.