Equal Employment Opportunity Commission: Actions Taken, but Agency Restructuring Efforts Could Benefit from a More Systematic Consideration of Advisory Panel's Recommendations

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In May 2001, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and other federal agencies were directed by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to prepare restructuring plans to make government more responsive to citizens' needs. By June 2001, agencies were to submit a workforce analysis to OMB that would include, for example, demographic information on the agency's employees and would serve as the baseline for agency-specific restructuring plans. Agencies were to submit restructuring plans to OMB with fiscal year 2003 budget submissions and annual performance plans. These submissions were due to OMB September 2001. OMB's directive required agencies with more than 100 full-time employees to develop restructuring plans with the goal of flattening the federal hierarchy. The OMB directive stated that plans should describe the specific activities and actions each agency planned to take, associated resources, expected outcomes, and tools to measure performance. In order to ascertain what progress EEOC has made in reorganizing its operations, we determined (1) whether EEOC implemented OMB's directive to develop a restructuring plan and (2) what actions EEOC is taking to restructure and make its operations more efficient and effective.