Pension and Welfare Benefits Administration

Opportunities Exist for Improving Management of the Enforcement Program Gao ID: GAO-02-232 March 15, 2002

The Pension and Welfare Benefits Administration (PWBA) safeguards the economic interests of more than 150 million people in six million employee benefit plans. To enforce the provisions of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), PWBA investigates employee benefit plans, conducts public education, and has begun a new voluntary correction program. Through its plan investigations, PWBA detects and corrects violations and has a deterrent presence that will prevent future violations. The Office of Enforcement prescribes areas for its regions to investigate. Regional offices have considerable flexibility in implementing PWBA's enforcement strategy by focusing most of their investigations on local issues. Although PWBA has taken steps to strengthen its enforcement activities, GAO found weaknesses in PWBA's enforcement strategy management and investigative process, its overall human capital management, and its measures for addressing program performance.

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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