Whistleblower Protection

In its review of 19 federal agencies, GAO found patchwork implementation of the whistleblower statutes designed to protect government workers who report waste, fraud, and abuse. Some agencies had informed all of their employees of their whistleblower rights, while others had yet to inform any. Most agencies had not developed policies and procedures to implement the statutes. GAO believes that, if employees had adequate knowledge about the whistleblower statutes and understood the federal government's policy toward whistleblowing--one of encouraging disclosures and affording protection from reprisals--more employees might be willing to step forward to report problems. GAO also discovered that the statutes do not currently protect all federal employees against reprisals. The 19 agencies had mixed views on the effectiveness of the Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989. GAO summarized this report, along with other recent work on this subject, in testimony before Congress. GAO concludes that employees are still having a hard time proving cases of reprisal and are often unaware of their right to protection; see: Whistleblower Protection: Employees' Awareness and Impact of the Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989, by Nancy R. Kingsbury, Director of Federal Human Resource Management Issues, before the Subcommittee on the Civil Service, House Committee on Post Office and Civil Service. GAO/T-GGD-93-19, Mar. 31, 1993 (seven pages).

GAO found that: (1) of the 19 agencies reviewed, 2 agencies had informed all employees of their whistleblower rights, 15 agencies had informed certain groups of employees of their rights, and 2 agencies had not informed their employees of their whistleblower rights; (2) in 1992, 76 percent of the federal employees surveyed did not know of their whistleblower rights and 73 percent did not know how the Whistleblower Protection Act protected them from reprisals; (3) federal agencies are not legally required to inform employees of their rights to protection from whistleblower reprisal; (4) 14 of the 19 agencies had not issued policies or procedures to prevent whistleblower reprisals; (5) not all federal employees are covered by the whistleblower statutes, specifically employees in policymaking or confidential positions; and (6) most agencies believed that whistleblower statutes strengthened and improved employee protection to some degree, but 13 of the 19 agencies lacked a method of measuring the level of whistleblower protection.

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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