Use, Cost, Purpose, and Makeup of Department of Energy Advisory Committees

Gao ID: EMD-79-17 February 2, 1979

The Department of Energy's (DOE) advisory committees were reviewed in regard to their purpose, cost, utilization and structure. DOE has made a major effort to reduce and consolidate its advisory committees with about a one-third reduction since October 1977. It has also sought to review and revise the membership on all its committees.

Certain features of DOE's advisory committee management system still need improvement: (1) many of DOE's advisory committee charters are not specific in objectives and scope; (2) DOE does not have overall written membership selection guidelines to assure that all selection criteria are consistently applied and that committees are of optimum size; and (3) all applicable support costs were not being allocated to the committees. Some 12 of the 20 current DOE charters do not contain specific committee objectives and scope, and 18 of these charters do not contain specific timespans for the committee to accomplish its purpose.

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.

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