The Administration of the Contract Compliance Program Has Shown Improvement

GAO reviewed the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs' (OFCCP) implementation of its contract compliance program since the 1978 consolidation of compliance agencies into the Department of Labor. The purpose of the program is to assure that contractors doing business with the Federal Government are in compliance with equal employment opportunity regulations.

In a previous report issued just before the effective date of the consolidation, GAO expressed concern over the following issues: (1) identifying and targeting contractors subject to the compliance regulations; (2) following Labor's regulations in conducting compliance reviews; (3) approval of contractor's affirmative action programs that were inadequate; and (4) difficulty in staffing OFCCP after the consolidation. GAO stated that the consolidation of the contract compliance program in OFCCP generally addressed the problems identified with the program when it was implemented by the compliance agencies. The transfer of compliance functions to Labor did cause some difficulties such as insufficient and inadequately trained staff and inadequate supporting resources. GAO believes that OFCCP has made significant progress in resolving these difficulties. However, one aspect of the compliance program that needs further attention is that compliance officers were not always following required procedures. GAO believes that it is important that compliance officers follow required procedures to provide standardization.

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: Franklin A. Curtis Team: General Accounting Office: Human Resources Division Phone: (202) 275-5451