a

GAO

United States Government Accountability Office

Report to the Ranking Minority Member, 

Committee on Homeland Security and 

Governmental Affairs, U.S. Senate

June 2006 EQUAL 

EMPLOYMENT 

OPPORTUNITY

Improved 

Coordination Needed 

between EEOC and 

OPM in Leading 

Federal Workplace 

EEO

GAO-06-214
What GAO Found

United States Government Accountability Office

Why GAO Did This Study

Highlights

Accountability Integrity Reliability

June 2006

EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY

Improved Coordination Needed between 

EEOC and OPM in Leading Federal 

Workplace EEO 

Highlights of GAO-06-214, a report to the 

Ranking Minority Member, Committee on 

Homeland Security and Governmental 

Affairs, U.S. Senate 

In April 2005 GAO reported on the 

EEO policy framework in the

federal workplace and the roles of

EEOC and OPM. This report, in 

response to a congressional

request, provides information on

(1) federal agency EEO and human 

capital managers’ views of the EEO 

framework requirements; (2) their 

views on the usefulness of

guidance and feedback from EEOC 

and OPM concerning these

requirements; and (3) how and to

what extent EEOC and OPM 

coordinate in developing policy,

providing guidance, and exercising

oversight. 

What GAO Recommends

GAO recommends that EEOC and

OPM regularly coordinate in

carrying out their responsibilities 

under the EEO framework and seek

opportunities for streamlining like 

reporting requirements. Congress 

should require OPM and EEOC to 

annually provide a joint statement 

of actions taken to implement 

GAO’s recommendations. 

EEOC and OPM both acknowledged 

that their collaborative efforts 

could be strengthened but took

exception to the recommendation 

to streamline requirements and 

disagreed with certain statements

within the report. GAO continues to

believe that exploring opportunities 

to streamline requirements is 

important for government

effectiveness and efficiency. 

EEO and human capital officials in federal agencies we surveyed said that 

some requirements of the EEO framework contribute more than others to 

achieving EEO, affirmative employment, and workforce diversity, and in 

influencing human capital policies, practices, and strategic planning. They 

also said that some requirements are very similar or redundant, such as 

EEOC’s affirmative employment program and OPM’s program for recruiting 

minorities and women. This creates duplication of effort as agencies

sometimes have to submit the same information in different reports to EEOC 

and OPM. Further, the officials said they experienced added administrative 

burden because of inconsistent requirements. 

The officials also said that guidance from EEOC on EEO, affirmative 

employment, and workforce diversity issues was more frequent and more 

useful than that from OPM. Some officials questioned the usefulness of 

feedback from EEOC and OPM on their agencies’ performance or submitted 

reports. Less than half reported that the feedback was useful or very useful 

and a substantial number of respondents reported that they received no 

feedback from OPM. In addition, EEO and human capital officials expressed 

the strong view that both OPM and EEOC could be doing more to help their 

agencies. 

We found little evidence of coordination at the operating level between 

EEOC and OPM in developing policy, providing guidance, and exercising 

oversight, despite overlapping responsibilities in federal workplace EEO. 

For example, EEOC and OPM officials do not routinely review reports that 

the other agency receives from federal agencies, even though those reports 

deal with similar matters. In addition, EEOC and OPM officials do not 

coordinate with each other when conducting on-site reviews of EEO-related 

matters at agencies. Good management practice as well as federal statute 

and executive order call for coordination, and not doing so results in lost 

opportunity to realize consistency, efficiency, and public value in EEO policy 

making and oversight. The Office of Management and Budget made a 

recommendation to OPM in 2005 that it develop a regular/formal working 

relationship with EEOC with respect to those programs where it shares 

oversight responsibility with EEOC in order to improve overall government 

efficiency. Although EEOC officials acknowledged a need to coordinate at 

the operating level and to develop an institutional coordination process, 

OPM officials suggested that coordination need not be institutionalized. 

www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-06-214.

To view the full product, including the scope 

and methodology, click on the link above. 

For more information, contact George H. 

Stalcup at (202) 512-9490 or 

stalcupg@gao.gov. 
Page i GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

Contents

Letter 1

Results in Brief 3

Background 6

Survey Respondents View Certain Requirements as Contributing 

Most to EEO but See Redundancies and Differing Reporting 

Requirements as Creating Administrative Burden 10

Agencies Are More Satisfied with Guidance and Feedback from 

EEOC Than with That from OPM and Believe Both Could

Do More 20

Limited Coordination between EEOC and OPM 

Limits Efficiency 25

Conclusions 32

Recommendations for Executive Action 33

Matter for Congressional Consideration 34

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation 34

Appendixes

Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and Methodology 37

Appendix II: The Framework for EEO in the Federal Workplace 40

Appendix III: Excerpts from EEO Leadership Survey Questionnaire and 

Summary Results 46

Appendix IV: Agencies from Which Respondents Returned the EEO 

Leadership Survey Questionnaire 67

Appendix V: Comments from the Equal Employment Opportunity 

Commission 69

Appendix VI: Comments from the Office of Personnel Management 78

Appendix VII: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments 90

Tables Table 1: Selected Requirements on Federal Agencies within the 

EEO Framework and Central Leadership Agency 

Oversight Responsibility 8

Table 2: Survey Respondents’ Answers regarding the Extent to 

Which Various Policies and Requirements Contribute to 

Ensuring EEO and Achieving Affirmative Employment and 

Workforce Diversity in Their Agencies (Number and 

Percentage of Respondents) 11
Contents

Page ii GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

Table 3: Survey Respondents’ Perceptions of the Extent of 

Helpfulness of EEOC and OPM in Ensuring EEO in the 

Workplace and Achieving Affirmative Employment or 

Workforce Diversity (Number and Percentage of 

Respondents) 21

Figures Figure 1: Definitions of EEO, Affirmative Employment, and 

Workforce Diversity 9

Figure 2: Selected Comments from Interviews with EEO Officials 

about the PMA Scorecard Standard 12

Figure 3: Selected Comments on Similarities and Redundancies in 

EEO-Related Programs and Requirements 16

Figure 4: Selected Comments on EEOC and OPM Reporting 

Requirements 20

Figure 5: Selected Comments on How EEOC and OPM Can Do 

More to Help Agencies Ensure EEO in the Workplace and 

Achieve Affirmative Employment or Workforce 

Diversity 22

Figure 6: Survey Respondents’ Perceptions of the Usefulness of 

EEOC and OPM Guidance on EEO, in Various Forms 

(Number and Percentage of Respondents) 23

Figure 7: Survey Respondents’ Perceptions of the Usefulness of 

EEOC and OPM Feedback on Their Department/Agency’s 

Performance or Contents of Reports or Documents 

Submitted (Number and Percentage of Respondents) 24

Figure 8: Selected Comments on EEOC and OPM Guidance and 

Feedback 25

Abbreviations

CPDF Central Personnel Data File

CLF civilian labor force

CSRA Civil Service Reform Act of 1978

DVAAP Disabled Veterans Affirmative Action Program

EEO equal employment opportunity

EEOC Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

EHRI Enterprise Human Resources Integration

FEORP Federal Equal Opportunity Recruitment Program

FLRA Federal Labor Relations Authority

HCAAF Human Capital Accountability and Assessment Framework
Contents

Page iii GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

MD Management Directive

MSPB Merit Systems Protection Board

No FEAR Notification and Federal Employee Antidiscrimination and 

Retaliation Act

NPR National Partnership for Reinventing Government

OFCCP Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs

OMB Office of Management and Budget

OPM Office of Personnel Management

OSC Office of Special Counsel

PART Program Assessment Rating Tool

PATCOB professional, administrative, technical, clerical, other 

white-collar, and blue-collar

PMA President’s Management Agenda

This is a work of the U.S. government and is not subject to copyright protection in the 

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Page 1 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

United States Government Accountability Office

Washington, D.C. 20548

A

June 16, 2006 Letr

The Honorable Joseph I. Lieberman

Ranking Minority Member

Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs

United States Senate

Dear Senator Lieberman:

The federal government has a policy to provide a workplace for its 

employees that is fair, equitable, and free from discrimination and 

retaliation. To help achieve this policy, the federal government has created 

a framework of statutes, policies, regulations, and guidance in order to 

prohibit discrimination, ensure equal employment opportunity (EEO), and 

value workforce diversity. In April 2005, in response to your request, we 

reported on the EEO policy framework1

 under which (1) certain personnel 

practices are prohibited, including unlawful discrimination based on race, 

color, religion, gender, national origin, age, and disability; (2) avenues of 

redress are offered when discrimination and retaliation have been alleged;2

and (3) affirmative employment and minority recruitment programs are 

required to ensure EEO in the federal workforce.3

Within the EEO framework, federal agencies are responsible for providing 

for a fair and nondiscriminatory workplace. The Equal Employment 

Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the Office of Personnel Management 

(OPM) play important roles in fostering a fair, equitable, and inclusive 

workplace at federal agencies through their leadership and oversight.4

EEOC is responsible for the enforcement of antidiscrimination laws and 

oversight of federal agency EEO programs, and OPM is responsible for 

1

GAO, Equal Employment Opportunity: The Policy Framework in the Federal Workplace 

and the Roles of EEOC and OPM, GAO-05-195 (Washington, D.C.: Apr. 29, 2005).

2

Federal employees also have legal protections against reprisal, such as for “blowing the 

whistle” on waste, fraud, and abuse. 

3

See figure 1 for definitions of EEO, affirmative employment, and workforce diversity.

4

Although EEOC and OPM have primary responsibility for federal EEO law and policy in the 

federal workplace, three other agencies—the Office of Special Counsel, the Merit Systems 

Protection Board, and the Federal Labor Relations Authority—also play a role in federal 

workplace EEO. In our survey, and in this report, we refer to these five agencies as the 

central leadership agencies.
Page 2 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

ensuring that federal agencies adhere to federal merit system principles, 

which include nondiscrimination. In carrying out their responsibilities, 

both EEOC and OPM issue regulations, directives, and guidance that 

supplement the EEO framework and establish requirements for agencies, 

oversee agencies’ performance in meeting framework requirements, and 

provide feedback to agencies. EEOC has the additional responsibility of 

providing leadership and coordination of federal EEO efforts in order to 

avoid conflict, competition, duplication, and inconsistency. 

During the course of our review that led to our April 2005 EEO framework 

report,5

 we heard from EEO and human capital officials at selected 

agencies about similarities and redundancies in EEO-related requirements 

and concerns about the usefulness of guidance and feedback received from 

those agencies. In response to your request and to better understand these 

and other issues, we surveyed EEO and human capital officials in the 

executive branch to determine their views on (1) the requirements dealing 

with EEO and workforce diversity and the extent to which the 

requirements contribute to ensuring EEO and diversity in the workplace 

and (2) the usefulness of guidance and feedback they receive from EEOC 

and OPM concerning these requirements. In addition, we examined how 

and to what extent EEOC and OPM coordinate with each other in 

developing policy, providing guidance, and exercising oversight of federal 

line agencies.6

To accomplish our objectives, we sent separate surveys to the EEO/civil 

rights directors and the chief human capital officers/human capital 

directors at the 45 executive branch agencies (other than the United States 

Postal Service and intelligence agencies) with 5007

 or more employees that 

5

GAO-05-195.

6

Consistent with our April 2005 report, this report focuses on EEOC’s affirmative 

employment program responsibilities within the EEO framework. We previously reported 

on EEOC’s roles and responsibilities for establishing procedures for handling federal 

employees’ allegations of discrimination and providing for the adjudication of complaints 

and hearing appeals. See GAO, Equal Employment Opportunity: Discrimination 

Complaint Caseloads and Underlying Causes Require EEOC’s Sustained Attention, 

GAO/T-GGD-00-104 (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 29, 2000), and Equal Employment Opportunity: 

Complaint Caseloads Rising, With Effects of New Regulations on Future Trends Unclear,

GAO/GGD-99-128 (Washington, D.C.: Aug. 16, 1999).

7

EEOC requires agencies with 500 or more employees to include in their annual reports a 

plan for attaining the essential elements of a model EEO program and a plan to eliminate 

identified barriers that impede the full realization of EEO for employees and applicants.
Page 3 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

are required to file annual reports with EEOC on their affirmative 

employment program and that also file annual reports with OPM on their 

Federal Equal Opportunity Recruitment Program (FEORP). Collectively, 

the 45 agencies employed 97 percent of the nonpostal federal workforce as 

of September 30, 2004. Of the 90 officials to whom we sent the survey, 83 

officials or their designees (92.2 percent) responded from October through 

December 2004. We received a response from either an EEO or human 

capital official at all 45 agencies, and from both at 38 agencies. Prior to the 

survey, we also interviewed EEO and human capital officials at 6 of these 

45 agencies. In addition, we reviewed statutes, executive orders, and other 

executive policies that form the EEO framework as well as EEOC and OPM 

requirements placed on agencies and compared them to each other. Agency 

officials expressed their views, through both the survey and interviews, 

about the extent to which the different framework requirements contribute 

to EEO, the extent of redundancy between EEO-related requirements and 

the duplication of effort this causes, the burdens created by EEOC’s and 

OPM’s differing policies on data-related issues, and the usefulness of 

EEOC’s and OPM’s guidance and feedback. We provide examples of agency 

officials’ comments on these matters; however, we did not independently 

evaluate the extent to which the different requirements contribute toward 

EEO, the extent of redundancy of EEO requirements, the merits of differing 

EEOC and OPM policies, or the usefulness of guidance and feedback.

We discussed with EEOC and OPM how they coordinate with each other in 

carrying out their roles and responsibilities within the EEO framework. 

Since the application of EEO laws varies between the branches (executive, 

legislative, and judicial) of the federal government, this report focuses 

primarily on the EEO framework applicable to the executive branch. We 

performed our work from May 2004 through February 2006 in accordance 

with generally accepted government auditing standards. Further details on 

our objectives, scope, and methodology are in appendix I.

Results in Brief EEO and human capital officials in federal agencies who responded to our 

survey viewed (1) EEOC’s affirmative employment program requirements 

and standards, (2) the executive order requiring procedures for providing 

reasonable accommodation to individuals with disabilities, and (3) the 

President’s Management Agenda (PMA) scorecard standard on 

underrepresentation and workforce diversity as the framework elements 

contributing the most to achieving EEO, affirmative employment, and 

workforce diversity, and as having the most influence on human capital 

policies, practices, and strategic planning at their agencies. In contrast, 
Page 4 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

survey respondents identified (1) OPM’s FEORP regulations governing 

recruitment of underrepresented groups, (2) the executive order on 

Hispanic employment, and (3) OPM’s program for employing disabled 

veterans as contributing less. About two-thirds of survey respondents also 

noted that some requirements of the EEO framework are very similar or 

redundant, such as the requirements under EEOC’s affirmative 

employment program; OPM’s regulations for FEORP; and the executive 

order on Hispanic employment, which OPM oversees. Some agency EEO 

and human capital officials stated that redundant reporting requirements 

create duplication of effort, with agencies sometimes having to submit 

information on the same EEO efforts in different reports to EEOC and 

OPM. They also said that inconsistent requirements regarding analysis of 

workforce data create administrative burden.

When asked about the overall helpfulness of EEOC and OPM in their 

efforts to ensure EEO in the workplace or to achieve affirmative 

employment or workforce diversity objectives, about 56 percent of survey 

respondents who had at least some interaction with EEOC said EEOC was 

of only some, little, or no help, and 80 percent of survey respondents who 

had at least some interaction with OPM had the same view of OPM. The 

majority of these respondents said EEOC and OPM should be doing more 

to help agencies. For example, one agency official said that OPM should do 

more to share model agency recruiting practices and assist with identifying 

effective recruitment sources, particularly for people with disabilities, and 

that EEOC should do more in-depth training and more sharing of model 

programs and make more suggestions for improvement. Although 

respondents said that EEOC and OPM should be doing more to help 

agencies, they did find some usefulness, in varying degrees, in guidance 

and feedback from EEOC and OPM. For example, with regard to guidance 

concerning EEO, affirmative employment, or workforce diversity, while 

about 79 percent of those respondents who had at least some interaction 

with EEOC said guidance from EEOC personnel concerning EEO, 

affirmative employment, and workforce diversity was useful or very useful 

(which we considered a positive response), about 42 percent of 

respondents who had at least some interaction with OPM said that 

guidance from OPM personnel was useful or very useful. With regard to 

feedback on their agency’s performance or on reports submitted under the 

EEO framework, from 45 to 60 percent of respondents who had at least 

some interaction with EEOC said that feedback from EEOC was useful or 

very useful, while less than 34 percent of those respondents who had at 

least some interaction with OPM said that of feedback from OPM. 
Page 5 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

Over 80 percent of respondents to our survey said more coordination 

between EEOC and OPM would benefit their agencies. Some agency 

officials said that the lack of such coordination resulted in added 

requirements on them and detracted from the efficiency of their own work. 

In our review, we found evidence that there was little coordination 

between EEOC and OPM in developing policy, providing guidance, and 

exercising oversight of federal agencies. For example, when conducting 

oversight, EEOC and OPM officials do not routinely review reports that the 

other agency receives from federal agencies, even though those reports 

deal with similar matters. In addition, EEOC and OPM officials conducting 

on-site reviews of EEO-related matters at agencies do not coordinate with 

each other. Policy disagreements and a lack of a mutual understanding of 

each other’s authority, roles, and responsibilities appear to have limited the 

extent to which the two agencies work together to ensure that EEO is an 

integral part of human capital management. This lack of coordination is 

contrary to government policy calling for coordinated EEO effort and good 

management practice, and results in lost opportunity to realize consistency, 

efficiency, effectiveness, and public value in EEO policy making and 

oversight. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) recommended in 

2005 a regular/formal working relationship between the two agencies to 

improve government efficiency in compliance reviews. In discussions with 

us, while EEOC officials acknowledged a need to coordinate and develop a 

formal mechanism to do so, OPM officials expressed a belief that current 

ad hoc coordination arrangements are sufficient.

We recommend that EEOC and OPM (1) consistent with OMB’s recent 

recommendation, develop a means to communicate and coordinate on a 

continuing basis in carrying out their responsibilities under the federal 

workplace EEO framework; (2) explore opportunities to consolidate and 

streamline like requirements within the framework, including reporting 

requirements, and to resolve policy inconsistencies and disagreements; and 

(3) determine from agency EEO and human capital managers what 

additional guidance they need, how feedback can be more useful, and what 

more they can do to help agencies provide workplaces that are fair, 

equitable, and inclusive.

Because the lack of coordination between EEOC and OPM has been a longstanding problem, Congress should require EEOC and OPM to include a 

joint report to Congress on their progress in implementing our 

recommendations as part of their respective annual EEO reporting.
Page 6 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

We provided EEOC and OPM a draft of this report for their review and 

comment and received written comments from the heads of both agencies. 

EEOC and OPM both acknowledged that their collaborative efforts could 

be strengthened. However, both took exception to the recommendation 

related to exploring opportunities to consolidate and streamline similar 

requirements. EEOC and OPM appear to have misinterpreted our 

conclusions and recommendations as a call to consolidate EEO 

requirements into a single agency, and noted that there were statutory 

impediments to streamlining requirements. We are not recommending that 

oversight for all EEO matters be consolidated into one agency, but rather 

that the two agencies look for opportunities to consolidate requirements 

and, where impediments exist, jointly make recommendations to Congress 

or the executive branch. We clarified this point in the report. Nonetheless, 

we believe that gaining a mutual understanding of each other’s authorities, 

roles, and responsibilities and determining how those authorities could be 

exercised in a collaborative way could provide immediate results in 

improving overall government efficiency in oversight. OMB made a similar 

recommendation in 2005 to OPM to collaborate with EEOC with respect to 

those programs where it shares oversight responsibility with EEOC.

Background It is government policy that equal opportunity be an integral part of every 

aspect of personnel policy and practice in the employment, development, 

advancement, and treatment of federal civilian employees.8

 Various 

statutes, regulations, directives, executive orders, and other executive 

policies have been put in place over time to form the framework governing 

EEO in the federal workplace. This framework, which governs civil rights 

and personnel management, places primary responsibility on federal 

agencies to provide workplaces that have a culture of fairness, equity, and 

inclusiveness free from discrimination. For a further discussion of the EEO 

framework, see appendix II.

Within the EEO framework, both EEOC and OPM play important roles in 

leadership and oversight of federal agencies. EEOC’s mission is to promote 

equality of opportunity in the workplace and enforce federal laws 

prohibiting employment discrimination in both the private and federal 

sectors. In the federal sector, EEOC is responsible for enforcing the 

employment discrimination prohibitions under title VII of the Civil Rights 

8

Exec. Order No. 11478, Equal Employment Opportunity in the Federal Government, 34 

Fed. Reg. 12,985 (Aug. 8, 1969), as amended.
Page 7 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

Act of 1964, as amended; the Rehabilitation Act of 1973; the Equal Pay Act 

of 1973; and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, as 

amended. In this regard, EEOC is responsible for establishing procedures 

for handling federal employees’ allegations of discrimination based on 

race, color, religion, gender, national origin, age, or disability, and providing 

for the adjudication of complaints and hearing of appeals. In addition, 

EEOC establishes requirements and standards for programs to provide 

equal employment opportunity; monitors federal agencies’ compliance 

with EEO laws and procedures; and reviews and assesses the effectiveness 

of agencies’ programs to promote EEO, including agencies’ efforts to 

identify and eliminate barriers to equality of employment opportunity.

OPM’s mission is to build a high-quality and diverse federal workforce 

based on merit system principles. Under title 5 of the U.S. Code, OPM is 

responsible for executing, administering, and enforcing civil service laws 

and regulations in the executive branch, including the merit system 

principles that require fair and equitable treatment and equal opportunity 

and prohibit discrimination in all aspects of federal employment.9

 Title 5 

also requires OPM to assist agencies in their equal opportunity recruitment 

program activities and to oversee and evaluate these agency programs. In 

carrying out their respective responsibilities, EEOC and OPM are to carry 

out oversight of each other, with EEOC reviewing OPM’s EEO programs 

and OPM assessing human capital practices at EEOC.

Both EEOC and OPM have articulated specific goals and objectives in their 

strategic plans to carry out their EEO-related responsibilities. These goals, 

while differing in some aspects, share a common theme, which is to 

promote policies that contribute to building high-performing organizations 

that foster inclusive work cultures. A primary focus for EEOC is to help 

agencies identify and eliminate barriers to EEO, while a key focus for OPM 

is to assist agencies in creating diverse candidate pools, including women, 

minorities, persons with disabilities, and veterans, which can be used in 

making appointments to the federal service in executive and management 

positions and leadership feeder ranks.

Carrying out the requirements of the EEO framework within federal 

agencies is generally shared by human capital and EEO/civil rights offices, 

with EEO offices taking the lead in programs EEOC oversees and human 

9

5 U.S.C. § 1103(a)(5).
Page 8 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

capital offices taking the lead in programs OPM oversees. Individual 

programs within the framework, their requirements or standards, and 

EEOC’s and OPM’s responsibilities are shown in table 1. 

Table 1: Selected Requirements on Federal Agencies within the EEO Framework and Central Leadership Agency Oversight 

Responsibility 

Source: GAO.

a

Regulations implementing provisions of the act relating to notification, training, and annual reporting 

have not been finalized.

b

EEOC receives annual reports agencies submit under title II, Federal Employee Discrimination and 

Retaliation, and is responsible for issuing rules under title III, EEO Complaint Data Disclosure.

Policy Implementation requirements for federal agencies Agency responsibility

EEOC OPM

Management Directive 715 providing policy 

guidance and standards and reporting 

requirements for programs required under 

section 717 of title VII of the Civil Rights Act 

of 1964 and section 501 of the Rehabilitation 

Act

Develop affirmative employment program plans for all 

employees and applicants (title VII) and affirmative action 

program plans for the hiring, placement, and advancement of 

individuals with disabilities (Rehabilitation Act).

X

Regulations implementing the Federal Equal 

Opportunity Recruitment Program authorized 

by the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978

Conduct a continuing program of recruitment of 

underrepresented groups—minorities and women—and 

develop equal opportunity recruiting plans.

X

Regulations implementing the Disabled 

Veterans Affirmative Action Program 

authorized by the Vietnam Era Veterans’ 

Readjustment Assistance Act of 1974 

Have a program and affirmative action program for the 

recruitment, employment, and advancement of disabled 

veterans.

X

Notification and Federal Employee 

Antidiscrimination and Retaliation Act 

Among other things, notify employees of rights and protections, 

provide training, and submit annual reports to Congress and 

EEOC.a

Xb Xc

Executive Order No. 13163, Increasing the 

Opportunity for Individuals with Disabilities to 

Be Employed in the Federal Government

Develop a plan for increasing the opportunity for individuals 

with disabilities to be employed by the federal government.

X

Executive Order No. 13164, Requiring 

Federal Agencies to Establish Procedures to 

Facilitate the Provision of Reasonable 

Accommodation

Establish written procedures for processing requests from 

individuals with disabilities for reasonable accommodation. 

X

Executive Order No. 13171, Hispanic 

Employment in the Federal Government

Have an ongoing program for recruitment and career 

development of Hispanics in federal employment, including 

developing recruiting plans.

X

President’s Management Agendad Reduce underrepresentation and establish processes to 

sustain workforce diversity in accordance with PMA scorecard 

standard.

X

Human Capital Accountability and 

Assessment Frameworke

Address human capital standards, including those in areas 

related to diversity management.

X
Page 9 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

c

OPM is responsible for regulations implementing title II and for reporting on best practices for 

disciplining employees who committed unlawful discrimination or retaliation.

d

The PMA, a strategy for improving the management and performance of the federal government, 

contains five governmentwide goals to improve federal management and deliver results, including the 

strategic management of human capital. For each goal, agency performance in implementing the PMA 

is assessed using a scorecard. Among the standards on the scorecard within the strategic 

management of human capital goal is how well agencies address underrepresentation and implement 

programs to sustain diversity. 

e

OPM developed the Human Capital Accountability and Assessment Framework, providing suggested 

performance elements and measures to guide agencies toward achieving the PMA human capital 

standards for success.

Although responsibility for the EEO framework policies is generally 

assigned to either EEOC or OPM, similarities in implementation 

requirements for federal agencies and the fact that both EEOC and OPM 

have jurisdiction over the agencies can result in overlap between programs 

and in EEOC’s and OPM’s oversight responsibilities. 

In our survey, we asked EEO and human capital officials about their views 

on the requirements within the EEO framework, and about the guidance 

and feedback on these requirements they get from the central leadership 

agencies. (See app. III for excerpts from the survey questionnaire and 

responses to the excerpted questions.) For the purposes of our report, we 

defined EEO, affirmative employment, and workforce diversity as shown in 

figure 1. 

Figure 1: Definitions of EEO, Affirmative Employment, and Workforce Diversity

Source: GAO.

a

See GAO, Diversity Management: Expert-Identified Leading Practices and Agency Examples, GAO05-90 (Washington, D.C.: Jan. 14, 2005), for a discussion on managing workforce diversity.

EEO is the policy embodied in law that requires that employment actions be free from 

prohibited discrimination, including discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, 

gender, national origin, age, disability, and retaliation for filing discrimination claims or 

other protected activity.

Affirmative employment is designed to identify and eliminate discriminatory practices 

and policies and to ensure EEO. In the federal sector, affirmative employment includes 

actions by federal departments/agencies to identify and eliminate barriers to EEO in 

accordance with the policies of EEOC and OPM.

Workforce diversity indicates the extent to which people in a workforce are similar and 

different from one another, including characteristics protected by law, that is, race, 

ethnicity, disability, and gender.a

 Workforce diversity may also take into account other 

factors, such as background, education, work roles, and personality.b
Page 10 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

b

EEOC’s roles and responsibilities are limited in scope to those groups protected from discrimination 

by statute. 

We provided the five central leadership agencies—EEOC, OPM, the Office 

of Special Counsel (OSC), the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), and 

the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA)—a draft of the survey 

instrument, considered their comments, and made appropriate changes 

before sending it to the federal EEO and human capital officials.10

Survey Respondents 

View Certain 

Requirements as 

Contributing Most to 

EEO but See 

Redundancies and 

Differing Reporting 

Requirements as 

Creating 

Administrative Burden

In answering our questions about the extent to which policies and 

requirements contributed to ensuring EEO and achieving affirmative 

employment and workforce diversity at their agencies, survey respondents 

said that some requirements contributed more while others had a limited 

impact. Respondents identified Management Directive (MD) 715, Executive 

Order No. 13164, and the PMA scorecard standard11 as making a greater 

contribution toward ensuring EEO in their workplaces, while the impact of 

other policies, such as FEORP, Executive Order No. 13171, and the 

Disabled Veterans Affirmative Action Program (DVAAP), was more limited. 

(As we later discuss, a substantial number of respondents said several of 

these programs had very similar or redundant elements.) Although survey 

respondents expressed their views on the extent to which the different 

requirements contribute to EEO and workforce diversity at their agencies, 

we did not evaluate the value of these requirements toward meeting agency 

EEO objectives. Table 2 shows the survey results.

10OSC receives, investigates, and prosecutes allegations of prohibited personnel practices, 

and certifies agencies’ compliance to meet the statutory obligation to inform their 

workforces about the rights and remedies available to them under civil service laws. MSPB 

adjudicates employee appeals of personnel actions and conducts studies of the federal merit 

system to determine whether it is free from prohibited personnel practices. FLRA provides 

leadership in establishing policies and guidance relating to federal sector labor-management 

relations and with resolving disputes under the Federal Service Labor-Management 

Relations Statute.

11The PMA scorecard is used to assess agency performance in implementing the PMA. Each 

quarter, OMB scores agencies’ efforts in implementing the PMA, and OPM evaluates the 

agencies on human capital. 
Page 11 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

Table 2: Survey Respondents’ Answers regarding the Extent to Which Various Policies and Requirements Contribute to 

Ensuring EEO and Achieving Affirmative Employment and Workforce Diversity in Their Agencies (Number and Percentage of 

Respondents) 

Source: GAO survey results.

Because the integration of EEO into human capital is an integral part of 

government policy, we asked survey respondents the extent to which these 

policies and requirements influence human capital policies, practices, and 

strategic planning. We received responses similar to those for the question 

discussed above.

In explaining why the PMA scorecard standard positively influenced their 

agencies’ human capital policies, practices, and strategic planning, a 

number of officials we interviewed noted that the PMA scorecard had given 

greater visibility to the government’s requirements in dealing with 

underrepresentation and workforce diversity. These officials shared the 

view that agency performance in meeting deliverables and its direct 

connection to the “green (success)-yellow (mixed results)-red 

(unsatisfactory)” ratings given quarterly, is of major importance to agency 

management because of how the PMA performance review can affect 

agency budgets. These ratings are based on OPM’s and OMB’s assessments. 

Some officials’ interview comments concerning the PMA are shown in 

figure 2.

Policy/requirement

Great/very great 

extent Moderate extent

Some, little or no 

extent Don’t know

MD-715 (n=79) 20 (25.2%) 21 (26.6%) 22 (27.9%) 16 (20.3%)

FEORP (n=80) 12 (15.0%) 20 (25.0%) 46 (57.5%) 2 (2.5%)

DVAAP (n=80) 11 (13.8%) 20 (25.0%) 43 (53.8%) 6 (7.5%)

No FEAR Act (n=79) 8 (10.1%) 25 (31.7%) 37 (46.8%) 9 (11.4%)

Executive Order No. 13163, employment of 

persons with disabilities (n=80) 15 (18.8%) 27 (33.8%) 34 (42.5%) 4 (5.0%)

Executive Order No. 13164, providing 

reasonable accommodation for employees 

with disabilities (n=80) 32 (40.0%) 27 (33.8%) 19 (23.8%) 2 (2.5%)

Executive Order No. 13171, Hispanic 

employment initiative (n=79) 14 (17.7%) 21 (26.6%) 39 (49.4%) 5 (6.3%)

PMA scorecard standard on 

underrepresentation and workforce diversity 

(n=80) 19 (23.8%) 18 (22.5%) 24 (30.0%) 19 (23.8%)

HCAAF performance standards (n=79) 12 (15.2%) 19 (24.1%) 25 (31.7%) 23 (29.1%)
Page 12 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

Figure 2: Selected Comments from Interviews with EEO Officials about the PMA 

Scorecard Standard

Source: GAO.

Survey Respondents View 

Some Policies and Programs 

as Having Very Similar or 

Redundant Requirements

The statutes, regulations, and policies that form the framework for EEO in 

the federal government establish a number of requirements that agencies 

are to carry out or standards they are expected to meet. Elements of the 

requirements that EEOC and OPM oversee or in fact established have 

certain common aspects, including measuring representation of or 

participation by race, ethnic, and gender groups and developing plans to 

address barriers to equal opportunity. Although we asked for the survey 

respondents’ views on the extent to which requirements were very similar 

or redundant and we made observations about where some similarities and 

redundancies exist, we did not evaluate the degree of similarity or 

redundancy among these requirements. Survey respondents also 

commented about the need for EEOC and OPM to better coordinate, with 

some commenting in particular about the need for the two agencies to 

work together to eliminate redundant and inconsistent requirements. We 

discuss the extent to which EEOC and OPM coordinate later in this report.

EEO and human capital officials surveyed were asked to identify the extent 

to which the elements making up the requirements of certain policies 

relating to the EEO framework were very similar or redundant with the 

requirements of at least one other policy, for example, whether any two 

policy requirements contained common features, such as developing plans, 

assessing progress, and preparing reports. To obtain more specific views, 

we asked respondents to select from a list two specific requirements that 

they believed were redundant; they also had the option of selecting none or 

responding that they did not know. Of the 81 respondents to this question, 

57 (70.4 percent) said that at least one of the requirements was very similar 

... the PMA is a driving force on diversity issues, supplanting any influence the FEORP 

and [EEOC] reports had ... there is no real accountability to EEOC for the [affirmative 

employment program] while there is a definite “hammer” with the PMA. Director of 

management services, and director of EEO, cabinet department

... top federal agency and departmental management [are] not going to pay attention to 

issues outside their usual interests, such as EEO/diversity, without an outside agency 

coming down on them. The PMA and its enforcement by OMB and OPM in the human 

capital sector definitely seems to be having this effect ... Attorney-advisor, office of 

civil rights, cabinet department
Page 13 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

or redundant to at least one other requirement. FEORP, for which OPM 

issued implementing regulations, was identified by 41 (50.6 percent) 

respondents as having very similar or redundant elements with the 

requirements of another policy; 30 (37 percent) said that EEOC’s MD-715 

was very similar or redundant with another policy; and 19 (23.5 percent) 

said this of Executive Order No. 13171, Hispanic Employment in the 

Federal Government,

12 which OPM oversees. When asked specifically to 

identify two requirements that were very similar to or redundant with each 

other, 21 (25.9 percent) respondents cited FEORP and MD-715, while 

another 15 respondents (18.5 percent) cited FEORP and Executive Order 

No. 13171. 

A number of human capital and EEO officials with whom we spoke as well 

as survey respondents (who, in a few cases, we had previously 

interviewed) said that the overlap in MD-715, FEORP, and Executive Order 

No. 13171 requirements resulted in duplication of effort. As we reported in 

our April 2005 report on the EEO framework, both EEOC, under MD-715, 

and OPM, under FEORP and Executive Order No. 13171, require that 

agencies analyze their workforces to determine the representation of 

employee groups compared to their representation in the civilian labor 

force (CLF), identify barriers where underrepresentation exists, and 

develop steps to address barriers.13 In addition, agencies are also to report 

on the status and progress of their efforts annually. Thus, for example, an 

agency may have to submit similar information on its recruitment efforts, 

in different formats and at different times of the year, to EEOC for its MD715 report and to OPM for reports required under FEORP and Executive 

Order No. 13171. 

With regard to redundancies, OPM said that it views EEOC’s MD-715 as 

constituting guidance and not as placing requirements on agencies, adding 

that the policy reflected in guidance can neither overrule nor stand in place 

of statutory requirements, such as those under FEORP, or the requirements 

set forth in executive orders pursuant to statutory delegations. EEOC

12Exec. Order No. 13171, 65 Fed. Reg. 61,251 (Oct. 12, 2000).

13In addition to workforce statistics, which is a first step in barrier analysis, EEOC’s MD-715 

instructions look to other information sources, such as EEO complaint data, employee 

surveys, and exit interview results, to identify areas where barriers may operate to exclude 

certain groups.
Page 14 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

disagreed, however, pointing out that it issued MD-715, articulating agency 

responsibilities, pursuant to its authority under law and executive order.14

Many survey respondents reported redundancies in policies and 

requirements concerning persons with disabilities. There are common 

elements in EEOC’s and OPM’s roles in the area of employees with 

disabilities, which are reflected in requirements in EEOC’s MD-715 relating 

to affirmative action plan requirements in Section 501 of the Rehabilitation 

Act, and Executive Order No. 13163, Increasing the Opportunity for 

Individuals with Disabilities to Be Employed in the Federal 

Government,

15 and DVAAP, both administered by OPM. Of 81 respondents, 

54 (66.7 percent) said there were redundancies among these requirements 

concerning persons with disabilities. For example, 39 (48.2 percent) said 

MD-715 requirements for persons with disabilities had very similar or 

redundant elements with at least one other requirement, and 36 (44.4 

percent) cited Executive Order No. 13163. In identifying which two specific 

requirements had the most redundancies, 24 (29.6 percent) respondents 

cited MD-715 and Executive Order No. 13163.

EEO and human capital officials’ concerns about redundant requirements 

mirror the findings of a 1993 report of the National Partnership for 

Reinventing Government (NPR) (formerly the National Performance 

Review), From Red Tape to Results: Creating a Government That Works 

Better and Costs Less.

16 The report said that an inordinate amount of 

resources are devoted to preparing duplicative reports and recommended 

that reporting requirements for agencies be blended into one 

comprehensive assessment of EEO and affirmative employment efforts, 

including specific actions needed to eradicate barriers and increase 

representation. The report said that such action would help reduce 

administrative costs and allow agencies to spend more time on results 

rather than paper processes. At the time the NPR report was issued,

14Section 717 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-16; 

Reorganization Plan No. 1 of 1978, issued pursuant to 5 U.S.C. § 901 et seq.; Executive Order 

11478; and Section 501 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended by Pub. L. No. 99-506, 

100 Stat. 1807, October 21, 1986.

15Exec. Order No. 13163, 65 Fed. Reg. 46,563 (July 26, 2000). 

16National Partnership for Reinventing Government, From Red Tape to Results: Creating a 

Government That Works Better and Cost Less (Washington, D.C.: September 1993).
Page 15 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

primary elements of the EEO framework were more limited, and included 

EEOC’s MD-713 (on persons with disabilities)17 and MD-714 (on minorities 

and women),18 as well as OPM’s FEORP requirements. Since then, 

additional parts of the policy framework have been put into place, 

including Executive Order Nos. 13163, 13164, and 13171; the Notification 

and Federal Employee Antidiscrimination and Retaliation (No FEAR) Act; 

MD-715 (which superseded MD-713 and MD-714); and the PMA and Human 

Capital Accountability and Assessment Framework (HCAAF) standards. 

These additions to the framework, and to EEOC’s and OPM’s 

responsibilities, have added to the redundancy and administrative burden. 

Federal EEO and human capital officials, in responding to our survey and 

in the course of our interviews, provided specific comments about some of 

the policies and requirements administered by EEOC and OPM. See figure 

3 for some of these comments.

17EEOC Management Directive 713, Affirmative Action for Hiring, Placement, and 

Advancement of Individuals with Handicaps, October 6, 1987.

18EEOC Management Directive 714, Instructions for the Development and Submission of 

Federal Affirmative Employment Multi-Year Program Plans, Annual Accomplishment 

Reports, and Annual Plan Updates for FY 1988 through FY 1992, October 6, 1987.
Page 16 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

Figure 3: Selected Comments on Similarities and Redundancies in EEO-Related 

Programs and Requirements

Source: GAO.

Survey Respondents Say 

Different Reporting Policies 

Create Burdens for Their 

Agencies

Human capital and EEO officials reported they experience additional 

administrative burden because EEOC and OPM have different policies in 

some areas with regard to workforce data collection or analysis. These 

areas include categorization of data by occupation and race and ethnicity 

and collection of data on job applicants. 

Historically, both EEOC and OPM categorized data on an agency’s 

workforce according to six occupational categories: professional, 

administrative, technical, clerical, other white-collar, and blue-collar 

(PATCOB). In 2004, EEOC changed to nine occupational categories: 

officials and managers, professionals, technicians, sales, office and clerical,

... there is overlap between the FEORP and [EEOC requirements] as both examine 

workforce diversity and speak to recruitment and outreach strategies ... There is other 

overlap between the [EEOC] requirements for persons with disabilities and the executive 

order dealing with persons with disabilities ... it would be better for EEOC and OPM to 

have one centralized report that ... would eliminate overlap and inconsistency. Director 

of management services, and director of EEO, cabinet department

There is significant overlap in program areas of OPM and EEO[C] particularly in 

affirmative action, reasonable accommodation, diversity, and equal employment 

opportunity. Since these programs/initiatives share many of the same goals and 

objectives, closer coordination to eliminate duplicative reporting and to maximize ideas, 

guidance, and resources would be beneficial. Director of human resources, 

independent agency

[EEOC and OPM should] resolve FEORP and MD-715 into one program. Assistant 

secretary for EEO, cabinet department

... someone needs to examine the requirements from Alpha to Omega to determine 

what is being asked for and, because many of the reports are asking for the same 

things, determine if there can be a consolidation of the requirements into two or three 

reports ... FEORP is one report that can go away. Director of human resources, 

cabinet department
Page 17 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

craft workers, operatives, laborers, and service workers.19 According to 

EEOC, it made the change because the PATCOB categories were outdated 

and too imprecise to allow the level of analysis desired, and because EEOC 

uses the nine categories for private sector workforce analysis. OPM 

contends that the PATCOB categories continue to support its 

governmentwide occupation classification responsibility and provide more 

meaningful crosswalks to national workforce data. OPM also said the nine 

occupational categories EEOC uses are too broad for meaningful analysis 

because they combine too many occupations within one category. Further, 

OPM said that the crosswalk now used by EEOC to classify federal 

occupations into one of the nine categories is inaccurate and incomplete in 

some areas.

Under EEOC’s previous reporting requirements using the PATCOB 

categories, agencies could download data from the government’s Central 

Personnel Data File (CPDF), which OPM maintains, to fulfill EEOC 

analysis and reporting requirements. With the new occupational categories, 

agencies must now develop computer programs to follow a crosswalk that 

classifies federal occupations into one of the nine categories. This burden 

may be lessened in the future. According to EEOC and OPM officials, the 

two agencies have had discussions about occupational categories in 

relation to OPM’s new Enterprise Human Resources Integration (EHRI) 

system, which will replace CPDF as the central source for federal 

workforce data and will afford agencies the opportunity, for a fee, to 

perform complex workforce analysis and planning tasks and maintain 

personnel records in electronic form. At the time of our review, EEOC and 

OPM officials said that a statement of work has been proposed that if 

approved and put in place could enable EEOC and other agencies to use 

EHRI for purposes related to MD-715 reporting. However, OPM also noted 

that there were separate policy and legal implications that must be 

resolved. In addition, according to OPM, while much of the information 

sought under MD-715 is contained within the EHRI database, EHRI will not 

be able to provide data on applicants, non-appropriated fund employees, or 

CLF comparisons.

19The nine occcupational categories are those on which EEOC requires private sector 

employers to report. In addition, the officials and managers category is further broken into 

three categories, executive/senior-level, mid-level, and first level, in order to analyze the 

progress of women and minorities in leadership ranks. 
Page 18 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

Some EEO and human capital officials commented that another difference 

between EEOC and OPM requirements that caused increased 

administrative burden is how workforce data were reported by race and 

ethnicity categories. In 1997, OMB issued revisions to standards for the 

classification of federal data on race and ethnicity which were to be 

adopted as soon as possible but no later than January 1, 2003.20 In the 

instructions for MD-715, issued in March 2004, EEOC required agencies to 

report data to EEOC under the minimum categories designated by OMB 

under the revised standards for data on race and ethnicity. EEOC 

encouraged agencies to collect data on race and national origin in a more 

detailed fashion as required in OMB’s revised standards (for example, by 

allowing employees to identify themselves as members of more than one 

race) so long as the data can be aggregated into the categories EEOC 

required under MD-715. EEOC required agencies to resurvey those 

employees who had previously identified themselves as Asian/Pacific 

Islander in order to break out those employees into the two new categories 

(Asians and Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander). EEOC also 

required agencies to give all new hires and those for whom the agency did 

not have race or national origin information, the opportunity to self-identify 

their race and national origin, including the ability to identify their 

membership in more than one race. OPM updated the CPDF to conform to 

OMB’s revised standards in January 2006. OPM requires data from agencies 

in accordance with the OMB format for new employees only; it does not 

require agencies to resurvey their workforces because it has no authority to 

do so, according to OPM officials. 

Another area where a policy disagreement arose that some officials said 

presents challenges to agencies involved gathering and analyzing applicantflow data. EEOC, in MD-715, requires agencies to analyze data on race, 

national origin, gender, and disabilities voluntarily provided by job 

applicants in order to begin to identify areas where barriers may be 

excluding certain groups. OPM takes the position that agencies are not 

required or authorized to collect race, national origin, gender, and age 

information on applicants. In the past, OPM said it opposed collecting race 

and national origin data from job applicants because collecting such data 

would be costly, ineffective, and a reporting burden. According to OPM, 

agencies collecting applicant data could involve significant legal risks—

20Office of Management and Budget, “Revisions to the Standards for the Classification of 

Federal Data on Race and Ethnicity,” 62 Fed. Reg. 58,782, Oct. 30, 1997. Statistical Policy 

Directive No. 15. 
Page 19 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

such collection could be construed as pressuring agencies to engage in 

preferential treatment in order to achieve “results” in terms of workforce 

composition, as suggested by certain recent discrimination cases.21 EEOC 

defends the appropriateness of collecting and analyzing applicant data. In 

commenting on a draft of this report, EEOC said that federal agencies are 

bound by the Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures

(issued jointly by EEOC, the Civil Service Commission (OPM’s 

predecessor), and the Departments of Justice and Labor), which requires 

employers to request racial and ethnic data from applicants and analyze 

applicant-flow data. Because of OPM’s position that agencies are not 

required or authorized to collect racial or national origin data from 

applicants, EEOC officials told us that EEOC has not offered official 

guidance to agencies concerning applicant-flow data collection, although 

EEOC has given informal verbal guidance on request. 

Figure 4 shows some officials’ comments on reporting requirements.

21OPM’s General Counsel refers to several discrimination cases, including Adarand 

Constructors, Inc. v. Pena, 515 U.S. 299 (1995) (under constitutional challenge to 

Department of Transportation contracting program, the court concluded that any 

governmental action using race or ethnicity as a basis for decision making will be subject to 

strict scrutiny if challenged in court), and MD/DC/DE Broadcasters Assoc. v. Federal 

Communications Commission, 236 F.3d 13 (D.C. Cir. 2001), cert. den. 534 U.S. 1113 (the 

court found the Commission’s regulations establishing EEO programs for its radio licensees 

unconstitutional because the regulations created pressure on licensees to focus their 

recruiting efforts on women and minorities until those groups generated a safe proportion 

of the licensees’ job applicants; the court was critical, among other things, of the 

Commission’s focus on licensees’ applicant data.)
Page 20 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

Figure 4: Selected Comments on EEOC and OPM Reporting Requirements

Source: GAO.

Agencies Are More 

Satisfied with 

Guidance and 

Feedback from EEOC 

Than with That from 

OPM and Believe Both 

Could Do More

A large majority of survey respondents and officials we interviewed 

suggested both EEOC and OPM could do more in their oversight and 

leadership roles to ensure EEO in the workplace and achieve workforce 

diversity by providing clearer guidance and feedback and by working 

together to improve the quality of such guidance.

A majority of agency EEO and human capital officials responding to our 

survey said that guidance and feedback from EEOC was useful or very 

useful, while less than half said that about guidance and feedback from 

OPM. 

Officials Believe Both EEOC 

and OPM Could Do More to 

Help Agencies with EEO, 

Workforce Diversity, and 

Affirmative Employment

Survey respondents who served as points of contact with the central 

leadership agencies—EEOC, OPM, MSPB, OSC, and FLRA—indicated that 

on matters concerning EEO, affirmative employment, and workforce 

diversity they interacted primarily with EEOC and OPM over the 2 years

... the reports [EEOC and OPM] require are, in many cases, redundant and should be 

streamlined. Assistant secretary for EEO, cabinet department

... there are redundant reporting requirements in the FEORP and in [reports required by 

EEOC] ... it does not make sense to have two agencies collecting the same information 

on the same issues. Deputy assistant secretary for human resources, cabinet 

department

EEOC and OPM gather [the] same information in conflicting formats. There should be 

more of a team approach when requesting information from agencies.[This] becomes a 

problem when we are tasked to provide info for a new requirement (such as MD 715) 

and reporting needs are so different. Director, office of EEO, cabinet department

If these two worked together better, we could make significant progress. The two 

agencies use different comparative data. OPM lags in directing agencies to update data 

systems to capture RNO/G codes and training instances. EEO director, component of 

cabinet department
Page 21 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

leading up to our survey.22 Respondents who had at least some interaction 

with EEOC and OPM did not see either agency as particularly helpful in 

assisting them in ensuring EEO in the workplace or achieving EEO-related 

objectives. While, as discussed below, survey participants found some 

usefulness to guidance and feedback from EEOC and OPM, of those having 

at least some interaction with these agencies, 27 of 48 respondents (56.3 

percent) said that EEOC was of some, little, or no help, and 36 of 45 

respondents (80 percent) said the same of OPM. (See table 3.) 

Table 3: Survey Respondents’ Perceptions of the Extent of Helpfulness of EEOC and OPM in Ensuring EEO in the Workplace 

and Achieving Affirmative Employment or Workforce Diversity (Number and Percentage of Respondents)

Source: GAO survey results.

The majority of these respondents—37 of 48 (77.1 percent) for EEOC and 

29 of 45 (64.4 percent) for OPM—said those agencies should be doing more 

to help agencies ensure EEO in the workplace and achieve affirmative 

employment or workforce diversity. Some of the officials we interviewed 

and survey respondents offered their comments on how EEOC and OPM 

could do this. (See fig. 5.)

22Specifically, 48 of 80 respondents (60 percent) said they had at least some interaction with 

EEOC, 45 of 81 respondents (56 percent) reported at least some interaction with OPM, 20 of 

77 respondents (26 percent) reported at least some interaction with MSPB, 16 of 81 

respondents (20 percent) reported at least some interaction with OSC, and 13 of 77 

respondents (14 percent) reported at least some interaction with FLRA.

Agency Very great Great Moderate Some Little or no

Don’t know/not 

applicable

EEOC (n=48) 5 (10.4%) 3 (6.3%) 12 (25.0%) 12 (25.0%) 15 (31.3%) 1 (2.1%)

OPM (n=45) 0 (0.0%) 1 (2.2%) 6 (13.3%) 15 (33.3%) 21 (46.7%) 2 (4.4%)
Page 22 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

Figure 5: Selected Comments on How EEOC and OPM Can Do More to Help

Agencies Ensure EEO in the Workplace and Achieve Affirmative Employment or 

Workforce Diversity 

Source: GAO.

Officials’ Views on 

Guidance and Feedback 

from EEOC and OPM 

Although respondents said that EEOC and OPM should be doing more to 

help agencies, they did find some usefulness, in varying degrees, in 

guidance and feedback from EEOC and OPM. For example, with regard to 

guidance concerning EEO, affirmative employment, or workforce diversity, 

about 79 percent of the respondents who had at least some interaction with 

EEOC said that guidance from EEOC personnel was useful or very useful 

while about 42 percent of respondents who had at least some interaction 

with OPM said that guidance from OPM personnel was useful or very 

useful. Figure 6 shows survey respondents’ perceptions of the usefulness of 

guidance from EEOC and OPM.

EEOC and other federal agencies have extensive knowledge and experience in many 

areas that should be shared to rethink strategic approaches to equality of opportunity 

and diversity. From my own experience, it would be helpful for EEOC to consider 

developing proactive, preventative guidances. MD-715 is a good start, but more 

comprehensive, focused guidance that addresses one major area annually, such as 

measuring accountability through qualitative benchmarks is needed. I believe that such 

guidance would help to create an environment for effective and lasting positive 

accomplishments. EEOC should be held accountable for developing such guidance. 

EEO director, independent agency

It would be helpful to get more examples from OPM about how other agencies are 

doing, as well as more information about federal human resources contractors. 

Associate director for human capital planning, cabinet department

[OPM should do] more on sharing benchmarks/model agencies and their 

recruitment/retention efforts ... assistance with identifying effective recruitment sources, 

particularly for individuals with disabilities. EEO officer, component agency of cabinet 

department

EEOC should do more in-depth training on conducting barrier analyses, more sharing of 

model programs, suggestions on ways to improve, and establishment of benchmarks. 

EEO official, component of cabinet department

EEOC should work in concert with OPM in developing standardized training for diversity 

competencies. Deputy assistant secretary for EEO, cabinet department
Page 23 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

Figure 6: Survey Respondents’ Perceptions of the Usefulness of EEOC and OPM Guidance on EEO, in Various Forms (Number 

and Percentage of Respondents)

With regard to feedback on their agencies’ performance or on the contents 

of reports submitted under the EEO framework, from 45 to 60 percent of 

respondents who had at least some interaction with EEOC said that 

feedback from EEOC was useful or very useful, while less than 34 percent 

of those respondents who had at least some interaction with OPM said that 

of feedback from OPM. Figure 7 shows survey respondents’ perceptions on 

the usefulness of feedback from EEOC and OPM.

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

EEOC OPM EEOC OPM EEOC OPM EEOC OPM

Somewhat useful

None received

Not at all useful

Don’t know

Source: GAO.

Useful to very useful

Agency personnel Written material Training Web resources

90

100

Percentage

Source of guidance

37

19 19

31

8

33

21

13

5

3

12

2

13

8

10

14

2

17

2

5

4

38

9

19

9

3 3

0 1 1 00 0 0

4

1 0 1 1 1

n=47 n=45 n=48 n=45 n=48 n=44 n=48 n=44
Page 24 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

Figure 7: Survey Respondents’ Perceptions of the Usefulness of EEOC and OPM Feedback on Their Department/Agency’s 

Performance or Contents of Reports or Documents Submitted (Number and Percentage of Respondents)

a

MD-713, Affirmative Action for Hiring, Placement, and Advancement of Individuals with Disabilities, 

and MD-714, Hiring, Placement, and Advancement of Minorities and Women, were superseded by 

MD-715 but were still operational during the early part of the survey period.

Figure 8 provides selected critical written comments from survey 

respondents and EEO and human capital officials we interviewed. These 

comments provide insight about the limitations of the guidance and 

feedback from EEOC and OPM. 

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

MD-713 EO 13164 FEORP DVAAP PMA HCAAF EO 13171 a MD-714a

Somewhat useful

None received

Not at all useful

Not applicable

Source: GAO.

Useful to very useful

90

100

Percentage

Agency requirement

21

23

8

15 14

8

6

4 3

11

5

11 10

4 4

17

19

28

12 11

13

5

3

0 0

5

13

19

1

7

n=47 n=47 n=47 n=45 n=45 n=45 n=45 n=44

3

6

4 3 4

10

3

19

9

4

EEOC OPM
Page 25 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

Figure 8: Selected Comments on EEOC and OPM Guidance and Feedback 

Source: GAO.

Limited Coordination 

between EEOC and 

OPM Limits Efficiency 

Respondents to our survey said that more coordination between EEOC and 

OPM would benefit their agencies, and would not only help reduce or avoid 

duplication of effort but could also foster better cooperation between EEO 

and human capital offices within agencies. The overlapping responsibilities 

OPM has not articulated a lot of its guidance and seems to have a difficult time 

explaining the guidance that it does have. OPM does not provide feedback on the 

FEORP submissions. Acting director of workforce planning, employment and 

development, cabinet department

The guidance in MD-715 does not go far enough to assist agencies. EEO director, 

component of cabinet department

[We] have always been able to get support from EEOC; it is a very positive relationship. 

[T]here is not much guidance there, but [we] receive annual updates and the provision of 

Title VII training to managers. [An agency EEO official] interfaces regularly with [EEOC 

staff]. Assistant director for affirmative employment and diversity, cabinet 

department

[T]he lack of accountability to OPM with regard to the FEORP is evidenced by the fact 

that the 2003 FEORP was not submitted (due to staff limitations and giving priority to the 

PMA) yet [we] did not hear from OPM. [We have no] knowledge of OPM providing 

feedback on the FEORP or other reports that are submitted to OPM. Director of human 

resources, cabinet department

EEOC provides limited feedback and provides only general advice ... As for what to do 

about how to increase the representation of persons with targeted disabilities, EEOC 

provided general advice but no specific tips. EEO director, cabinet department

[We] have never gotten feedback from OPM on FEORP or DVAAP submissions. [We] 

did get feedback from EEOC on the [affirmative employment] submission back in 2001, 

as a new [affirmative employment] plan was being developed at about that time. Never in 

any of its feedback on [affirmative employment] did EEOC discuss resources, even 

though the regulations and the new and old EEOC directives do call for sufficient 

resources to maintain an [affirmative employment] program. Office of civil rights 

director, cabinet department

[A senior OPM official] has been interested in [our] work [on the Hispanic Employment 

Plan] and seemed positive about it, though there has been no substantial feedback from 

OPM. Hispanic program manager, cabinet department

EEOC is always in a “we don’t have staff mode.” EEOC provides some feedback on 

reasonable accommodation issues. Some subagencies may get feedback on some 

things ... and others do not. It would have been helpful if everyone had gotten their 

feedback at once. EEO program director, cabinet department
Page 26 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

that EEOC and OPM have under the EEO framework create a need and 

opportunity for coordination between the two agencies. However, we 

found little coordination or information sharing between EEOC and OPM, 

particularly among staff responsible for day-to-day oversight of federal 

agencies. A lack of a mutual understanding of one another’s authority, 

roles, and responsibilities contributes to this limited coordination, which in 

turn can result in lost opportunity to realize consistency, efficiency, and 

value in EEO policy making and oversight and in making EEO integral to 

human capital management. 

EEO and Human Capital 

Officials Said That EEOCOPM Coordination Would 

Benefit Their Agencies

In our survey of human capital and EEO managers at 45 federal agencies, 

we found a strongly and widely expressed view that more coordination 

between EEOC and OPM would help their agencies. Specifically, we asked 

the following question concerning coordination between the five central 

leadership agencies:

“If you believe that increased coordination between any two central leadership agencies 

and the requirements and guidance they provide would benefit your department/agency, 

which two agencies would you pick?”

Of the 80 EEO and human capital officials who responded to the survey, 70 

(86 percent) specifically identified EEOC and OPM.

One survey respondent in particular, the chief human capital officer of a 

cabinet department, noted the potential benefits of EEOC/OPM 

cooperation on the extent of cooperation between the human capital and 

EEO staffs within line federal agencies:

“[OPM and EEOC] represent the lead agencies for Human Resources and EEO, respectively. 

If federal agencies reporting to OPM and EEOC were able to witness and experience 

increased coordination between these two central leadership agencies, it would encourage 

better communication and coordination between the HR and EEO programs within the 

respective agencies.”

Another respondent, the EEO director of a federal commission, said the 

following:

“EEOC and OPM should lead by example in planning, developing, coordinating and 

implementing guidance designed to assist federal agencies. An apparent lack of 

coordination between OPM and EEOC often interferes with successful achievement of 

systematic integration of EEO/diversity principles and policies into management systems 

and functions. From my perspective, it is crucial to rethink some reporting initiatives and 

shift attention to building a strong partnership between OPM and EEOC to fully utilize and 
Page 27 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

integrate their areas of expertise to avoid fragmentation. OPM should make it a priority [to 

work together] closer with EEOC in assessing progress and lead the way in providing 

models of EEO/diversity performance standards.” 

The benefits of better coordination within agencies were highlighted by an 

EEOC official, who stated that review of barrier analysis in reports 

submitted under MD-715 showed that the highest quality analysis had come 

from agencies where there was more coordination between human capital 

and EEO staffs. 

Government Policy Has 

Recognized the Importance 

of Coordination in Carrying 

Out EEO; Coordination 

between EEOC and OPM Is 

Good Management

For nearly 30 years, government policy has recognized the importance of a 

coordinated effort in carrying out federal actions to ensure EEO. For 

example, under the FEORP regulations,23 OPM provides that it will 

coordinate with EEOC on activities to implement equal opportunity 

recruitment programs under FEORP, consistent with law; 5 U.S.C. § 7201, 

the Reorganization Plan No. 1 of 1978, 24 and Executive Order No. 12067,

Providing for Coordination of Federal Equal Opportunity Programs.25

The reorganization plan and the executive order gave EEOC responsibility 

for promoting efficiency and eliminating conflict, competition, duplication, 

and inconsistency in the implementation of EEO requirements, and 

provided coordination principles for federal departments and agencies to 

follow in enforcing EEO requirements. Coordination of federal EEO efforts 

is also guided by EEOC regulation.26

Additions to the EEO framework changing EEOC’s and OPM’s 

responsibilities since 1978 have made adherence to the underlying 

principle of coordination between agencies with overlapping 

responsibilities even more necessary. We have reported that the lack of 

coordination between federal agencies with overlapping responsibilities 

creates a situation wherein scarce funds are wasted, program customers 

are confused and frustrated, and the overall effectiveness of the effort is

235 C.F.R. 720.203(f).

2443 Fed. Reg. 19,807, 92 Stat. 3781 (Feb. 23, 1978).

25Exec. Order No. 12067, 43 Fed. Reg. 28,967 (June 30, 1978).

2629 C.F.R. Part 1690.
Page 28 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

limited.27 Most recently, in October 2005, we reported that agencies with 

overlapping responsibilities can enhance and sustain their collaborative 

efforts and produce more public value by engaging in certain practices, 

such as defining and articulating a common outcome; agreeing upon 

agency roles and responsibilities, including leadership; and establishing 

compatible policies, procedures, and other means to operate across agency 

boundaries.28 Clearly, these principles apply to EEOC’s and OPM’s roles 

within the EEO framework.

The importance of collaboration between EEOC and OPM was recognized 

over a decade ago by the NPR in its 1993 report From Red Tape to Results: 

Creating a Government That Works Better and Costs Less.29 It stated the 

following: 

“the roles and responsibilities of EEOC and OPM present an opportunity for them to work 

together to provide leadership and training necessary to integrate EEO into every aspect of 

human resource management policy and practice. These two agencies must make a 

concentrated effort to ensure ongoing communications and understanding of EEO and 

affirmative employment efforts to achieve a diverse, competent, and productive federal 

workforce. They must provide joint leadership to EEO, civil rights, and personnel 

professionals to create, develop, review, and improve effective ongoing governmentwide 

efforts.”

The NPR suggested a number of actions, which could be implemented 

administratively or by presidential order, which it believed would 

“decrease duplicated efforts and redundancy... and foster coordinated, 

governmentwide commitment to creating, implementing, and 

accomplishing equal opportunity and affirmative employment goals.” 

These included establishing an Interagency Equal Employment 

Opportunity and Affirmative Employment Steering Group under the joint 

chair of EEOC and OPM, and combining all equal opportunity and 

affirmative employment reports into one comprehensive assessment of the 

total workforce EEO/affirmative employment data. The report said that 

27GAO, Managing for Results: Using the Results Act to Address Mission Fragmentation 

and Program Overlap, GAO/AIMD-97-146 (Washington, D.C.: Aug. 29, 1997), and Managing 

for Results: Barriers to Interagency Coordination, GAO/GGD-00-106 (Washington, D.C.: 

Mar. 29, 2000).

28GAO, Results-Oriented Government: Practices That Can Help Enhance and Sustain 

Collaboration among Federal Agencies, GAO-06-15 (Washington, D.C.: Oct. 21, 2005).

29National Partnership for Reinventing Government.
Page 29 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

implementing the actions would require ongoing commitment and 

coordination between EEOC and OPM. 

Coordination between 

EEOC and OPM Is Limited, 

Particularly with Regard to 

Oversight

Lack of coordination or information sharing was particularly evident 

between the persons at EEOC and OPM who do the day-to-day work of 

overseeing EEO at federal agencies. Officials at EEOC told us they do not 

review agency FEORP reports, and some of those responsible for oversight 

were not familiar with the FEORP requirements. Regarding their on-site 

reviews, EEOC officials told us that they were generally unaware of OPM’s 

approach to oversight, including the use of HCAAF, and that they do not 

coordinate with OPM staff who may be doing or have done similar on-site 

audits at the same agencies nor do they regularly receive or review material 

from those OPM audits. 

In discussions with OPM staff, we learned that staff engaged in agency 

oversight do not make use of agency reports to EEOC, nor do they consult 

EEOC in assessing the element of the PMA scorecard that deals with 

reducing underrepresentation and sustaining diversity. This occurred even 

though OPM acknowledged overlap in its Oversight and Effectiveness 

Evaluation Handbook for its Merit Systems Compliance Program, which 

was used for staff guidance before being withdrawn in 2003. Although no 

longer in use, OPM’s stated premise in the handbook that its enforcement 

and evaluation responsibilities coincide to a large extent with EEOC 

responsibilities because EEO is integral to personnel management and to 

many of the regulations that OPM administers remains valid. 

In a 2005 assessment of OPM’s Merit Systems Compliance Program, OMB 

also found a need for OPM to improve its coordination with EEOC. OMB 

made the assessment using its Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART).30

OMB reported it found no evidence that OPM benchmarks its activities 

against similar efforts, such as those at EEOC. OMB indicated that although 

EEOC has the statutory responsibility to coordinate EEO efforts, OPM 

should seek opportunities for collaboration with EEOC in order to improve 

overall government efficiency in the area of compliance reviews. OMB 

noted that although OPM indicated that it was collaborating with EEOC, 

30According to OMB, PART, a central element of the PMAs budget and performance 

integration initiatives, is a diagnostic tool to evaluate federal programs as part of the 

executive budget formulation process. It applies 25 questions to assess (1) program purpose 

and design, (2) strategic planning, (3) program management, and (4) program results.
Page 30 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

OPM provided no documentary evidence of any collaboration. OMB 

recommended that OPM collaborate with EEOC on activities that overlap 

and further recommended that there be a regular/formal working 

relationship between the two agencies.

In addition, OPM, in preparing the annual FEORP report to Congress, does 

not consult with EEOC, as EEOC guidelines to OPM regulations indicate it 

should.31 In their discussions with us, some OPM officials responsible for 

oversight were either (1) unaware of EEOC’s affirmative employment 

program requirements, EEOC’s oversight of federal agencies, or both or 

(2) mistakenly believed that EEOC’s authority was limited to dealing with 

violations of title VII of the Civil Rights Act, in particular, discrimination 

complaints. 

We also found that EEOC and OPM did not, for the most part, coordinate 

EEO information and guidance on their respective Web sites. While each 

Web site contains information about each agency’s policies, programs, and 

operations, and both sites contain pages referring to policy and program 

areas where both agencies have responsibilities, the EEOC Web site had no 

links to relevant OPM Web pages, and OPM’s links to EEOC’s Web-based 

information were not specific, which limited their value. For example, see 

the following: 

• EEOC’s Web page entitled “How Other Civil Rights Agencies Address 

EEO Issues” neither mentioned OPM nor contained any links to the 

OPM Web site. 

• Neither agency Web site had links to the other agency’s Web site 

regarding relevant policies and procedures for persons with disabilities. 

• The OPM Web site has an online diversity guide for federal agencies, 

which covers the demographic and legal framework and offers guidance 

for building a diverse workforce. In the discussion of title VII as part of 

the framework, the link provided by OPM is only to EEOC’s home page 

and not to more specific guidance, such as EEOC’s Web page entitled 

“Reference and Research,” which lists applicable guidance on federalsector EEO that would potentially be more relevant and helpful. 

31Appendix to 5 C.F.R. Part 720.
Page 31 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

After we brought this issue to its attention, EEOC undertook an effort, 

which was still under way at the time of our review, to provide links to 

relevant information on OPM’s Web site. OPM said that because Web pages 

are subject to change, it is more practical to send a reader to a home page 

rather than to subject-specific information. However, while the content of 

Web pages may change, we believe that the subject matter of the pages is 

less likely to do so.

EEOC officials acknowledged a need for better coordination between the 

two agencies. EEOC’s Strategic Plan for Fiscal Years 2004–2009 states 

that the agency “will reinvigorate its leadership of equal employment 

policies and programs” in accordance with Executive Order No. 12067. 

However, we noted that the plan does not contain any reference to 

coordinating with OPM. Senior EEOC officials believed there was a lack of 

awareness on OPM’s part of EEOC’s role beyond complaints management. 

EEOC officials said that there is a need for a formal coordination 

mechanism. EEOC officials also suggested that EEOC and OPM conduct 

joint oversight visits of agencies. They also suggested that allowing EEOC 

to become a member of the Chief Human Capital Officers Council, which 

the OPM Director chairs, may present an opportunity for closer 

coordination of EEO and human capital management.

OPM officials, on the other hand, did not think that a formal coordination 

mechanism was necessary. A senior official in OPM’s General Counsel’s 

office told us that (1) there is a need to clarify “boundaries” and that there 

has probably been some confusion between the OPM and EEOC program 

and reporting requirements, (2) some EEOC requirements under MD-715 

encroach on OPM’s authority and responsibility, and (3) OPM has broad 

authority based on title 5 of the U.S. Code and its placement of 

responsibility on OPM to enforce the merit system principles. OPM made 

its concerns known to EEOC in its comments on a draft of MD-715. For 

example, with regard to the “Model Agency Title VII and Rehabilitation Act 

Programs” under MD-715, OPM questioned EEOC’s authority to tell 

agencies how to organize their internal structures. OPM also commented 

that it was unclear whether or how plans for employing persons with 

disabilities under MD-715 differ from the plans agencies are required to 

create and submit to OPM under Executive Order No. 13163. According to 

an official from the General Counsel’s Office, EEOC had not been 

responsive to OPM’s concerns. 
Page 32 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

Conclusions Because they both have roles and responsibilities in federal workplace 

EEO under the federal statutory and regulatory framework, it is incumbent 

upon EEOC and OPM to avoid unnecessary conflict, competition, 

duplication, and inconsistency in policies and requirements. In order to 

carry out EEO framework requirements efficiently and effectively, EEOC 

and OPM need to

• resolve their policy disagreements;

• take a broad and comprehensive view of their overlapping 

responsibilities;

• engage in serious and substantial efforts to gain a mutual understanding 

of each other’s authorities, roles, and responsibilities under the federal 

workplace EEO framework;

• determine how those authorities, roles, and responsibilities can be 

exercised in a collaborative way; and

• enhance their communication and coordination.

EEOC and OPM together need to examine the collective requirements of 

the EEO framework and determine where and how requirements can be 

streamlined and consolidated in a way that is consistent with the 

government’s policy goals, supports their respective missions and oversight 

responsibilities, and reduces administrative burden. In doing so, EEOC and 

OPM need to consider the judgments that survey respondents made about 

the value of the different requirements in contributing to their EEO and 

workforce diversity objectives, and the redundancies they identified that 

add to their administrative burden. 

Besides increasing program administration effectiveness and public value, 

better coordination between EEOC and OPM could, at the agency level, 

foster greater involvement between EEO offices and their human capital 

counterparts in the development of their agencies’ human capital plans and 

policies. In addition to working together on these matters, EEOC and OPM 

need to work to make their guidance and feedback more useful to federal 

agencies. Because of the long-standing nature of this lack of effective 

coordination, additional congressional oversight is necessary to help 

ensure that the two agencies work together meaningfully. As EEOC and 

OPM already report annually to Congress on federal workforce EEO, 
Page 33 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

reporting on steps they have taken to improve coordination would facilitate 

congressional oversight. 

Recommendations for 

Executive Action

To resolve the issues noted in our report, we recommend that the Chair of 

EEOC and the Director of OPM take the following five actions:

• Develop means to communicate and coordinate on a continuing basis, 

establish collaboration protocols, and work to resolve their 

disagreements to the maximum extent possible concerning their 

respective responsibilities in developing policy, providing guidance, and 

exercising oversight under the EEO framework for the federal 

workplace. 

• Explore opportunities to consolidate and streamline similar and 

redundant requirements and resolve inconsistencies within the EEO 

framework, including reporting requirements, in a manner that could 

lead to a single report to fulfill the needs of both EEOC and OPM, 

particularly related to requirements under MD-715 and FEORP. Where 

both EEOC and OPM believe that a statute or an executive order is an 

impediment to streamlining or resolving inconsistencies, the agencies 

could jointly recommend appropriate action to Congress or the 

President.

• Work together to improve their collective guidance, feedback, and 

assistance to other agencies on EEO.

• Determine from agency-level EEO and human capital managers what 

additional guidance they need in carrying out their responsibilities, how 

to make their feedback more useful, and what more EEOC and OPM can 

do to help agencies to ensure EEO in the workplace and achieve 

workforce diversity objectives. 

• Work together to convene regular meetings of senior federal workplace 

EEO/civil rights officials and chief human capital officers in order to 

further integrate EEO and human capital.

Examples of how these recommendations could be implemented include 

(but are not limited to) the following:

• regularly exchanging data from reports submitted by agencies to 

EEOC and OPM;
Page 34 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

• adopting a common format for reports to EEOC under MD-715 and 

reports to OPM under FEORP;

• resolving policy disagreements regarding the collection and use of 

applicant data; 

• collaborating to help ensure that EHRI can support agencies in 

meeting both EEOC and OPM reporting requirements; 

• regularly meeting and exchanging information between EEOC and 

OPM staff performing oversight of the same agency;

• identifying opportunities for joint reviews of an agency’s EEO and 

workforce diversity efforts;

• establishing an “e-diversity” Web page created and maintained jointly 

by EEOC and OPM; and

• meeting jointly with federal agency EEO and human capital 

managers during on-site visits. 

Matter for 

Congressional 

Consideration

The Congress should require EEOC, in its Annual Report on the Federal 

Workforce, and OPM, in its annual FEORP report, to include a joint report 

of actions they have taken or plan to take to (1) increase coordination and 

communication with each other, (2) consolidate and streamline like 

requirements of the EEO framework and resolve inconsistencies, and 

(3) improve guidance and feedback to agencies.

Agency Comments and 

Our Evaluation

We provided a draft of this report to the Chair of EEOC and to the Director 

of OPM for their review and comment. We received written comments from 

both agencies, which are reprinted in appendixes V and VI, respectively. In 

commenting on our recommendation that EEOC and OPM develop means 

to communicate, collaborate, and coordinate on a continuing basis, EEOC 

stated that it did not disagree that it and OPM could further strengthen their 

collaborative efforts. While OPM also agreed that there is room for 

improvement, and that it would reinstate the practice of consulting with 

EEOC as it prepares the annual FEORP reports, it believed that with 

respect to other matters, a more appropriate approach was to continue to 

coordinate on an as-needed basis and that a requirement for formal 
Page 35 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

coordination would add a layer of complexity to an already complex 

situation. While we are sensitive to the need to limit unnecessary 

complexity, as was evident from our survey, areas exist where agencies feel 

additional administrative burden, in large measure, because OPM and 

EEOC have not coordinated their oversight efforts. Gaining a mutual 

understanding of each other’s authorities, roles, and responsibilities and 

determining how those authorities could be exercised collaboratively could 

provide immediate results in improving overall government efficiency in 

oversight. OMB made a similar recommendation to OPM in 2005 with 

respect to those programs where it shares oversight responsibility with 

EEOC. We also believe that this collaboration could extend to examining 

the potential for jointly conducting on-site reviews and audits in a manner 

that would not compromise confidentiality.

EEOC and OPM, in their comments, both seem to have misinterpreted our 

conclusions and recommendations, inferring that our intent was to have 

EEO oversight functions merged or “folded” into one of the two agencies. 

This is not our intention. Our conclusions and recommendations are 

directed toward streamlining and consolidating the information-gathering 

process, with the analytic and reporting functions remaining separate as 

they currently are in each agency. 

Both EEOC and OPM stated that they are limited in the steps that they 

could take to consolidate or streamline agency reporting requirements 

because regulations, executive orders, or statutes give EEOC or OPM sole 

responsibility for each program. We agree that statutes and executive 

orders place responsibility for administering and reporting on certain 

programs with EEOC or OPM, but they do not mandate the method for 

collecting information from agencies to carry out the programs. Therefore, 

these agencies could develop and distribute a common data collection 

instrument that both EEOC and OPM could use to fulfill their respective 

responsibilities. We continue to believe that streamlining requirements and 

resolving inconsistencies within the EEO framework would reduce 

administrative burdens on agencies, thus allowing them to focus more of 

their efforts on results. We revised our recommendation to make it clear 

that where EEOC and OPM believe that a statute or an executive order is 

an impediment to streamlining or resolving inconsistencies, the agencies 

could jointly recommend appropriate action to Congress or the President.

OPM expressed concern over use of the phrase “affirmative employment,” 

stating that the phrase may be misunderstood as relating to past EEO 

programs that have come under criticism and are the subject of ongoing 
Page 36 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

litigation involving allegations of improper preferential treatment. We are 

aware of case law that has addressed federal EEO policies or practices and 

the issue of improper preferential treatment, as well as the ongoing 

litigation involving allegations of preferential treatment related to 

affirmative employment plans, which date back to superseded MDs issued 

by EEOC. However, under the federal antidiscrimination statutes, the 

federal sector remains obligated to go beyond merely addressing 

complaints of alleged discrimination—to take positive (affirmative) steps 

to ensure EEO. It is this federal-sector obligation to which we refer when 

we use the phrase “affirmative employment.” Further, OPM expresses 

concern about our reference to “workforce diversity.” We do not believe 

our use of the term “workforce diversity” is unique or inconsistent with 

OPM’s broad policies in the area. Rather, as our definition clearly provides, 

workforce diversity is a very broad concept and is not limited to 

recognizing the differences protected from discrimination by statute. 

We provide additional responses to EEOC’s comments in appendix V and to 

OPM’s comments in appendix VI. 

We are sending copies of this report to the Chair of EEOC, the Director of 

OPM, and other interested parties. Copies will be made available to others 

upon request. This report is also available at no charge on GAO’s Web site 

at http://www.gao.gov. 

If you or your staff have any questions concerning this report, please 

contact me at (202) 512-9490. Contact points for our Offices of 

Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last page 

of this report. Staff who made major contributions to this report are listed 

in appendix VII.

Sincerely yours,

George H. Stalcup

Director, Strategic Issues
Page 37 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

Appendix I

Objectives, Scope, and Methodology AAppenednxidexiIs

Our objectives were to (1) obtain federal agency equal employment 

opportunity (EEO) and human capital managers’ views of the requirements 

dealing with EEO, affirmative employment, and workforce diversity and 

the extent to which the requirements contribute to ensuring EEO, 

affirmative employment, and diversity in the workplace; (2) obtain EEO 

and human capital managers’ views on the guidance and feedback given 

them by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the 

Office of Personnel Management (OPM) on EEO, affirmative employment, 

and workforce diversity issues; and (3) determine how and to what extent 

EEOC and OPM coordinate with each other in developing policy, providing 

guidance, and exercising oversight of line agencies, as well as obtaining 

EEO and human capital managers’ views on EEOC and OPM coordination 

and how it affects their work.

Our primary method for fulfilling these objectives was to design and 

administer a survey to federal agency EEO and human capital managers. 

We designed our survey using background information and interview 

results from audit work done for our previous report on the EEO 

framework, issued in April 2005.1

 This included (1) the results of a review 

of the statutory, regulatory, and policy framework governing EEO, 

affirmative employment, and workforce diversity in the federal 

government; (2) interviews with EEO and human capital managers at six 

selected federal agencies; and (3) discussions with senior officials at the 

central leadership agencies, mostly with officials of EEOC and OPM. The 

instrument was designed originally by members of the audit team and a 

survey methodologist, and was reviewed internally by survey professionals 

and by GAO senior management prior to pretesting. We conducted pretests 

to ensure that (1) the questions were clear and unambiguous, 

(2) terminology was used correctly, (3) the questionnaire did not place an 

undue burden on agency officials, and (4) the survey was comprehensive 

and unbiased.

We pretested the survey instrument at four federal agencies. At each 

agency, we did two pretests, one with EEO staff and one with human 

capital staff, for a total of eight pretests. We revised the draft survey based 

on the pretest results and subsequently sent a draft of the survey 

instrument to each of the central leadership agencies—EEOC, OPM, the 

Office of Special Counsel, the Merit Systems Protection Board, and the 

Federal Labor Relations Authority-for their review and comment. We then 

1

GAO-05-195. 
Appendix I

Objectives, Scope, and Methodology

Page 38 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

made further revisions as appropriate based on the comments from these 

agencies. 

We prepared a distribution list for the survey, with the survey recipients 

being a senior manager for EEO and diversity (usually the director of the 

agency EEO or civil rights office) and a senior human capital manager 

(usually the chief human capital officer or director of human resources) at 

each federal agency that (1) had a total employment of 500 or more persons 

and (2) was required to file an annual affirmative employment report with 

EEOC and an annual Federal Equal Opportunity Recruitment Program 

report with OPM. (EEOC requires agencies with 500 or more employees to 

include in their annual reports a plan for attaining the essential elements of 

a model EEO program and a plan to eliminate identified barriers that 

impede the full realization of EEO for employees and applicants.) The final 

distribution list consisted of 90 recipients—the senior EEO and human 

capital managers—at 45 agencies. Together, the 45 agencies employed 97 

percent of the nonpostal federal workforce as of September 30, 2004. The 

45 agencies are listed in appendix IV.

We distributed the survey by e-mail on October 19, 2004, and received 

replies until December 10, 2004. We received completed surveys from 83 of 

the 90 managers or their delegates, for a return rate of 92.2 percent. We 

received completed surveys from both EEO and human capital officials at 

38, or 84 percent, of the 45 agencies.

The survey results were keypunched into an electronic database. Because 

this was not a sample survey, there are no sampling errors. However, the 

practical difficulties of conducting any survey may introduce errors, 

commonly referred to as nonsampling errors. For example, difficulties in 

how a particular question is interpreted, in the sources of information that 

are available to respondents, or in how the data are entered into a database 

or were analyzed can introduce unwanted variability into the survey 

results. We took steps in the development of the questionnaire, the data 

collection, and the data analysis to minimize these nonsampling errors. We 

verified the accuracy of a small sample of keypunched records by 

comparing them to their corresponding questionnaires, and we corrected 

any errors found. Less than 1 percent of the data items we checked had 

random keypunch errors that would not have been corrected during data 

processing. Analysis programs were also independently verified. The 

questions used in this report were asked in the larger survey of this 

population. Relevant excerpts from the tabulated results are included in 
Appendix I

Objectives, Scope, and Methodology

Page 39 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

appendix III (results are presented in percentages, unless otherwise 

indicated).

We also invited survey recipients to make written comments on the survey 

instrument concerning the issues covered in the survey. We received a 

number of such comments, some of which are reproduced in the report. We 

did not independently verify the statements made in any of the comments.

As stated above, we relied largely on the survey to address the first two 

objectives. In addition, we considered the results of interviews of EEO and 

human capital officials at 6 of the 45 agencies. Our response to the third 

objective, concerning coordination between EEOC and OPM, was based 

partially on the survey results. For this objective, we also used information 

that we gathered from senior EEOC and OPM officials and staff involved in 

agency oversight during our earlier engagement on the EEO framework. 

We discussed this information, including guidance used by EEOC and OPM 

staff responsible for agency oversight and knowledge of each other’s 

policies and oversight practices and the nature and extent of their 

coordination, with these officials to ensure that it was still accurate.

In reporting the survey responses in tabular or graphic form in the report, 

in accordance with commonly accepted methodological practice, we 

combined two responses (such as “very useful” and “useful”) into one 

reporting category. In reporting responses to questions concerning the 

usefulness of EEOC or OPM feedback, we regarded only “very useful” and 

“useful” as positive responses, and regarded a “somewhat useful” response 

as not indicating satisfaction with guidance and feedback.

We performed our audit work from May 2004 through February 2006 in 

accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.
Page 40 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

Appendix II

The Framework for EEO in the Federal 

Workplace ApendxiI

Statutes, executive orders, and other executive policies form the 

framework relating to EEO in the federal workplace.1

 This framework, 

which governs civil rights and personnel management, places primary 

responsibility on federal agencies to provide workplaces that have a 

culture of fairness, equity, and inclusiveness free from discrimination. 

In 1964, Congress passed the landmark Civil Rights Act, prohibiting 

discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, gender, or national 

origin in a number of areas, including employment, housing, voting, and 

education. Title VII of the act addresses employment discrimination and 

created EEOC.2

 When the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was enacted, the 

prohibitions against discrimination under title VII did not apply to the 

federal government as an employer, although the act did state that it was 

the federal government’s policy that employment actions be free of 

discrimination.3

 The government’s EEO policy for federal workers had 

been addressed in executive orders. For example, Executive Order No. 

11478, issued in 1969, stated the government’s policy to (1) provide equal 

opportunity in federal employment for all persons; (2) prohibit 

discrimination in employment because of race, color, religion, gender, or 

national origin; and (3) promote the full realization of EEO through a 

continuing affirmative program in each executive department and agency.4

According to the order, the policy of equal opportunity should be an 

integral part of every aspect of personnel policy and practice in the 

employment, development, advancement, and treatment of federal civilian 

employees. 

Federal workers and applicants for federal employment received broad 

statutory protection against employment discrimination with the passage 

of the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972. The hallmark 1972 act 

extended to federal workers the protections of title VII of the Civil Rights 

Act of 1964, prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, 

1

Although the application of EEO laws varies between the three branches (executive, 

legislative, and judicial) of the federal government, this appendix focuses primarily on the 

EEO framework applicable to the executive branch. 

2

Pub. L. No. 88-352, title VII, 78 Stat. 241, 253-266 (July 2, 1964).

3

Section 701(b) of Pub. L. No. 88-352, 78 Stat. 253-254.

4

Exec. Order No. 11478, 34 Fed. Reg. 12,985 (Aug. 8, 1969). This executive order superseded 

earlier executive orders prohibiting employment discrimination in the federal government, 

and since 1969 has been amended to protect additional groups from discrimination.
Appendix II

The Framework for EEO in the Federal 

Workplace

Page 41 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

gender, or national origin in employment matters, such as recruitment, 

hiring, wages, promotions, benefits, discipline, discharge, and layoffs.5

 In 

addition, the 1972 amendments, enacted in part to address the 

underrepresentation of minorities and women, require each federal 

department and agency to prepare plans to maintain an affirmative 

program of EEO. Under the plans, agencies are required to establish 

training and education programs designed to provide a maximum 

opportunity for employees to advance and perform at their highest 

potential.

The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 extended employment discrimination 

protections to federal employees and applicants for employment with 

disabilities. Section 501 of the Rehabilitation Act also requires federal 

departments and agencies to prepare affirmative action program plans for 

the hiring, placement, and advancement of individuals with disabilities.6

These plans are to be updated annually and describe the extent to which 

the special needs of employees with disabilities are being met and the 

methods used. 

A separate program was established for disabled veterans. The Vietnam Era 

Veterans’ Readjustment Assistance Act of 1974,7

 as amended, requires 

agencies to have a separate affirmative action plan for the recruitment, 

employment, and advancement of disabled veterans that is to be part of 

agencies’ efforts under the Rehabilitation Act for individuals with 

disabilities. This program is referred to as the Disabled Veterans 

Adjustment Assistance Program. 

Besides the Rehabilitation Act and the Vietnam Era Veterans’ Readjustment 

Assistance Act of 1974, two executive orders issued in 2000 are to enhance 

EEO in the federal government for persons with disabilities. Executive 

Order No. 13163, Increasing the Opportunity for Individuals with 

Disabilities to Be Employed in the Federal Government,

8

 was 

implemented to support the goals of the Rehabilitation Act and promote an 

5

Pub. L. No. 92-261, § 11, 86 Stat. 103, 111-112 (Mar. 24, 1972), codified at 42 U.S.C. § 2000e16. 

6

Pub. L. No. 93-112, § 501, 87 Stat. 355, 390-391 (Sept. 26, 1973), codified at 29 U.S.C. § 791.

7

Pub. L. No. 93-508, § 403, 88 Stat. 1578, 1593 (Dec. 3, 1974) codified at 38 U.S.C. § 4214.

8

Exec. Order No. 13163, 65 Fed. Reg. 46,563 (July 26, 2000).
Appendix II

The Framework for EEO in the Federal 

Workplace

Page 42 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

increase in federal employment opportunities for persons with disabilities. 

Under the order, agencies are required, among other things, to expand 

outreach efforts, increase efforts to accommodate disabled individuals, and 

prepare plans to increase the employment opportunities for individuals 

with disabilities. Executive Order No. 13164, Requiring Federal Agencies 

to Establish Procedures to Facilitate the Provision of Reasonable 

Accommodation,

9

 promotes a model federal workplace that provides 

reasonable accommodation for individuals with disabilities in the 

application process and for employees to perform the essential functions of 

a position and enjoy benefits and privileges of employment. Under the 

order, agencies are required to establish written procedures for processing 

requests for reasonable accommodation.

The Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 (CSRA),10 in overhauling federal 

personnel laws, strengthened protections against discrimination and 

retaliation in the federal workplace and underscored the government’s 

commitment to ensuring EEO and to addressing underrepresentation. The 

CSRA stated that in order to provide a federal workforce that reflects the 

nation's diversity and to improve the quality of federal service, federal 

personnel management should be implemented consistent with merit 

system principles and free from prohibited personnel practices. The CSRA 

listed nine merit system principles,11 the first two of which directly apply to 

EEO in promoting a fair, equitable, and inclusive workplace: 

• Recruitment should be of qualified individuals from appropriate sources 

in an endeavor to achieve a workforce from all segments of society, and 

selection and advancement should be determined solely on the basis of 

relative ability, knowledge, and skills after fair and open competition 

that ensures that all receive equal opportunity.

• All employees and applicants for employment should receive fair and 

equitable treatment in all aspects of personnel management without 

regard to political affiliation, race, color, religion, national origin, sex, 

marital status, age, or handicapping condition, and with proper regard 

for their privacy and constitutional rights.

9

Exec. Order No. 13164, 65 Fed. Reg. 46,565 (July 26, 2000).

10Pub. L. No. 95-454, 92 Stat. 1111 (Oct. 13, 1978).

115 U.S.C.§ 2301(b).
Appendix II

The Framework for EEO in the Federal 

Workplace

Page 43 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

The CSRA also required that personnel actions should be free from 

prohibited personnel practices, including discrimination for or against any 

employee or applicant for employment based on race, color, religion, 

gender, national origin, age, handicapping condition, marital status, or 

political affiliation.12

The CSRA further emphasized the government’s resolve to ensure EEO and 

to address underrepresentation. The act required that executive agencies 

conduct a continuing program for recruiting minorities to address 

underrepresentation13 of minorities in the federal workplace.14 This 

program is referred to as the Federal Equal Opportunity Recruitment 

Program. 

Executive Order No. 13171, Hispanic Employment in the Federal 

Government, issued in 2000, affirmed ongoing policies for equality of 

opportunity in federal employment and recommended additional policies 

to eliminate the underrepresentation of Hispanics in the federal 

workforce.15 The order requires agencies, among other things, to

(1) develop recruiting plans for Hispanics that create a fully diverse 

workforce and (2) assess and eliminate any systemic barriers to the 

effective recruitment and consideration of Hispanics. The order 

established the Interagency Task Force to review best practices, provide 

advice, assess overall executive branch progress, and recommend further 

actions in eliminating the underrepresentation of Hispanics. 

Government policy for dealing with underrepresentation and workforce 

diversity is also articulated in the implementation of the President’s 

Management Agenda (PMA). The PMA, implemented in fiscal year 2002, is 

a strategy for improving the management and performance of the federal 

government. The PMA contains five governmentwide goals to improve 

125 U.S.C. §2302(b).

13Underrepresentation is a situation in which the number of members of a minority group 

designation (determined by EEOC in consultation with OPM) within a category of civil 

service employment constitutes a lower percentage of the total number of employees within 

the employment category than the percentage that the minority group constituted within the 

labor force of the United States, as determined under the most recent decennial or middecade census, or current population survey. 5 U.S.C. §7201(a)(1).

145 U.S.C. §7201.

15Exec. Order No. 13171, 65 Fed. Reg. 61,251 (Oct. 12, 2000).
Appendix II

The Framework for EEO in the Federal 

Workplace

Page 44 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

federal management and deliver results, including the strategic 

management of human capital. For each goal, agency performance in 

implementing the PMA is assessed using a scorecard. Among the standards 

on the scorecard within the strategic management of human capital goal is 

how well agencies address underrepresentation and implement programs 

to sustain diversity. The human capital standards were developed by OPM 

and the Office of Management and Budget, in consultation with the 

President’s Management Council. 

In 2002, acting to address continuing concerns about discrimination and 

retaliation in the federal workplace, Congress passed the Notification and 

Federal Employee Antidiscrimination and Retaliation (No FEAR) Act.16

The provisions of the act attempt, among other things, to enhance the 

accountability of EEO management and address the causes of and 

remedies for workplace conflict that can give rise to discrimination and 

retaliation complaints. The No FEAR Act holds agencies financially 

accountable for the costs of judgments and settlements in discrimination 

cases and also focuses on the policies that agencies have implemented to 

hold individuals who unlawfully discriminate against others accountable 

for their conduct. Agencies are also to notify and provide training for their 

employees on their rights and protections in cases of discrimination and 

reprisal. In addition, the No FEAR Act stipulates that agencies are to 

submit annual reports that contain discrimination complaint data, an 

evaluation of the data to identify underlying causes, and actions planned or 

taken to improve their civil rights and complaint programs.17 Furthermore, 

in enacting this law, Congress expressed its intent that federal managers 

should receive adequate training in managing a diverse workforce, dispute 

resolution, and other essential communication skills. 

Other statutes that protect workers in the private sector also protect 

federal workers. The Equal Pay Act of 196318 protects men and women who 

perform substantially equal work in the same establishment from sexbased wage discrimination. The Age Discrimination in Employment Act, 19

16Pub. L. No. 107-174, 116 Stat. 566 (May 15, 2002).

17The requirements of the No FEAR Act went into effect October 1, 2003. 

18Pub. L. No. 88-38, 77 Stat. 56 (June 10, 1963). See 29 U.S.C. § 206 (d).

19Pub. L. No. 90-202, 81 Stat. 602 (Dec. 15, 1967), amended by Pub. L. No. 93-259, § 28, 88 Stat. 

55, 74-75 (Apr. 8, 1974). See 29 U.S.C. §§ 621-634.
Appendix II

The Framework for EEO in the Federal 

Workplace

Page 45 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

as amended, protects individuals who are 40 years of age or older from agebased employment discrimination.
Page 46 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

Appendix III

Excerpts from EEO Leadership Survey 

Questionnaire and Summary Results ApendxiI

.com United States Government Accountability Office 

Survey of EEO Leadership and Coordination

Introduction

The policy of the U.S. government is to provide federal employees a workplace that is

fair, equitable, and free from discrimination and retaliation. To further equal 

employment opportunity (EEO), the government has created, over time, a statutory, 

regulatory, and policy framework. This framework requires federal agencies to carry out

affirmative employment programs to help bring about a diverse workforce reflective of

all segments of society. Enforcement of statutes and regulations is in the hands of five 

central leadership agencies: the Office of Personnel Management (OPM); the Equal 

Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC); the Office of the Special Counsel (OSC);

the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB); and the Federal Labor Relations Authority

(FLRA).

GAO, an independent agency of Congress, is collecting information governmentwide

from department and agency representatives serving in human resources and EEO/civil

rights offices regarding EEO, affirmative employment, and diversity in the federal 

workplace. GAO is conducting this survey on the initiative of the Comptroller General, 

after having received a request from Senator Joseph Lieberman, Ranking Minority 

Member of the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs. This survey contains 

questions about how your department/agency is organized to carry out statutes, 

regulations, and policies; your perceptions of the various requirements in achieving a 

diverse and nondiscriminatory workplace; and your perceptions on the guidance central 

leadership agencies provide. The survey does not address managing and adjudicating

individual discrimination complaints, prohibited personnel practices, grievances, and

appeals.

You can make an important contribution to this study by responding to this 

questionnaire, so that GAO may provide the most complete information to Congress.

The GAO report to Congress will discuss the usefulness of (1) the various requirements

in helping to ensure EEO in your department/agency’s workplace and achieving 

affirmative employment and workforce diversity objectives and (2) guidance and 

feedback central leadership agencies provide in helping your department/agency carry 

out the requirements for EEO, affirmative employment, and workforce diversity.

The GAO report will present information from this questionnaire in summary form. The

final report will not identify the responses of individuals by name or department/agency. 
Appendix III

Excerpts from EEO Leadership Survey 

Questionnaire and Summary Results

Page 47 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

When answering the questionnaire, please feel free to consult with other appropriate 

officials within your office for information or comments. However, we ask that you 

consolidate your office’s responses so that you only return one copy to GAO. The 

questionnaire should take about 45 minutes to complete. 

If possible, please return this questionnaire within 2 weeks of receiving this e-mail. After 

that time, if you have not been heard from, GAO will attempt to contact you in order to 

confirm that you have received this questionnaire. If necessary, GAO may also contact 

you once we receive your response to clarify information. 

Instructions

Please complete this questionnaire in MS-Word, save it, and return it as an attachment 

via e-mail to Leadership_Survey@gao.gov. If you wish to complete the questionnaire by 

phone, please call one of the numbers listed below. If you prefer to print the survey out 

and fax it back, you can fax the survey to (202) 512-2502. 

If you have any questions about the contents of this questionnaire, please contact 

Anthony Lofaro 

Phone: (202) 512-8383 

e-mail: lofaroa@gao.gov

If you encounter any technical difficulties, please contact

Monica Wolford 

Phone: (202) 512-2625 

e-mail: wolfordm@gao.gov

Thomas Beall 

Phone: (202) 512-3278 

e-mail: beallt@gao.gov

x Please use your mouse to navigate by clicking on the field, button { or check box 

you wish to answer. 

x To select a check box or button, simply click or double click on the center of the box. 

x To change or deselect a check box response, simply click on the check box and the ‘X’ 

will disappear. 

x To change a button response, simply click on the button next to your preferred answer. 

x To answer a question that requires that you write a comment, click on the answer box 

[____] and begin typing. Please do not use double quotation marks in your answer. 
Appendix III

Excerpts from EEO Leadership Survey 

Questionnaire and Summary Results

Page 48 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

x Do not “unlock” this document because this will erase your answers. If you wish to 

include comments about a particular question, include it, with the question number, in 

the final question at the end of each section. 

Thank you in advance for your cooperation. 
Appendix III

Excerpts from EEO Leadership Survey 

Questionnaire and Summary Results

Page 49 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

Glossary of Policies, Programs, and Activities 

DVAAP - Disabled Veterans Affirmative Action Program (requires each 

department/agency to have a program for the recruitment, advancement, and 

employment of disabled veterans, and to submit an annual report on the program to 

OPM).

Employing Individuals with Disabilities, EO 13163 - Executive Order 13163: 

Increasing the Opportunity for Individuals with Disabilities to be Employed in the 

Federal Government. 

Providing Reasonable Accommodation, EO 13164 - Executive Order 13164: 

Requiring Federal Agencies to Establish Procedures to Facilitate the Provision of 

Reasonable Accommodation. 

Hispanic Employment Initiative, EO 13171 - Executive Order 13171: Hispanic 

Employment in the Federal Government (requires departments/agencies to have an 

ongoing program for recruitment and career development of Hispanics in Federal 

employment, and requires OPM to monitor department/agency programs and provide 

guidance).

FEORP - Federal Equal Opportunity Recruitment Program (requires 

departments/agencies to have a continuing program for the recruitment of minorities and 

women to eliminate underrepresentation and to file annual reports with OPM regarding 

their efforts). 

HCAAF - Human Capital Accountability and Assessment Framework (standards used by 

OPM to evaluate department/agency human capital performance). 

MD 713 - EEOC Management Directive 713: Affirmative Action for Hiring, Placement, 

and Advancement of Individuals with Handicaps (prepared pursuant to EEOC’s authority 

under Section 501 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973; mandated adoption of affirmative 

employment plans for persons with disabilities, and annual reporting of progress to 

EEOC; replaced by MD 715). 

MD 714 - EEOC Management Directive 714: Hiring, Placement, and Advancement of 

Minorities and Women (prepared pursuant to EEOC’s authority under Section 717 of 

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964; mandated adoption of affirmative employment 

plans for African Americans, Hispanics, Asian/Pacific Islanders, Native Americans, and 

women, and annual reporting of progress to EEOC; replaced by MD 715). 

MD 715 - EEOC Management Directive 715 (supercedes Management Directives 713 and 

714 and provides policy guidance and standards for establishing and maintaining 

effective affirmative programs of EEO under Section 717 of Title VII of the Civil Rights 

Act and effective affirmative action programs under Section 501 of the Rehabilitation 

Act; issued in October 2003). 
Appendix III

Excerpts from EEO Leadership Survey 

Questionnaire and Summary Results

Page 50 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

No FEAR - Notification and Federal Employee Antidiscrimination and Retaliation Act 

(requires agencies to report and analyze discrimination complaint data, be accountable 

for costs of judgments and settlements in discrimination cases, and train managers in 

skills necessary to manage a diverse workforce). 

OSC 2302(c) certification program - Office of Special Counsel’s 2302(c) Certification 

Program (empowers OSC to certify that agencies have taken the actions necessary to 

ensure that their employees are informed of their rights and available remedies 

pertaining to prohibited personnel practices under Title V of the U.S. Code, especially for 

retaliation for whistleblowing). 

PMA - President’s Management Agenda (a strategy for improving the management and 

performance of the federal government); contains five governmentwide goals, including 

strategic management of human capital; the human capital goal contains among its 

standards for success one relating to agencies’ addressing under-representation and 

implementing programs to sustain diversity. 
Appendix III

Excerpts from EEO Leadership Survey 

Questionnaire and Summary Results

Page 51 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

Q1. Whom should we contact if we have follow-up questions? 

1a. Name:

1b. Department/Agency:

1c. Phone:

1d. E-mail:

1e. Office: [Check only one answer] 

48.1 Human Resources 

51.9 EEO or Civil Rights 

 0.0 Other, please specify: 
Appendix III

Excerpts from EEO Leadership Survey 

Questionnaire and Summary Results

Page 52 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

Organization of EEO, Affirmative Employment, and Workforce 

Diversity Responsibilities 

For the purpose of this questionnaire please use the following definitions:

Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) is the policy embodied in law that requires 

employment actions be free from prohibited discrimination, including discrimination on 

the basis of race, religion, gender, national origin, age, disability, and retaliation for filing 

discrimination claims or other protected activity. 

Affirmative Employment is a program designed to identify and eliminate 

discriminatory practices and policies and to ensure EEO. In the federal sector, 

affirmative employment includes actions by federal departments/agencies to identify and 

eliminate barriers to EEO in accordance with the policies of the EEOC and the OPM. 

Workforce Diversity indicates the extent to which people in a workforce are similar 

and different from each other, including race, ethnicity, disability, and gender. 

Workforce diversity may also take into account other factors, such as background, 

education, work roles, and personality.

 
Appendix III

Excerpts from EEO Leadership Survey 

Questionnaire and Summary Results

Page 53 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

Leadership Agency Assistance 

Office of Personnel Management

Q11. For which of the following, if any, is your office the primary point of contact with 

OPM? [Check all that apply] 

46.9 Employing Individuals with Disabilities, EO 13163 

49.4 FEORP 

51.9 DVAAP 

48.1 Hispanic Employment Initiative, EO 13171 

37.0 PMA standards on under-representation and workforce diversity 

34.6 HCAAF 

Q12. What has been the extent, if any, of your office’s interaction (i.e., receiving or 

seeking guidance or feedback) with OPM over the last 2 years on EEO, affirmative 

employment, or workforce diversity? [Check only one answer]

 1.2 Very extensive interaction 

 7.4 Extensive interaction 

18.5 Moderate interaction 

28.4 Some interaction 

42.0 Little or no interaction [Go to question 21]

 2.5 Don’t know [Go to question 21]
Appendix III

Excerpts from EEO Leadership Survey 

Questionnaire and Summary Results

Page 54 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

Q13. Overall, during the last 2 years, how useful has guidance concerning EEO, 

affirmative employment, or workforce diversity from each of the following OPM 

sources been for your office? [Check one box for each row]

 Guidance Sources None

received 

Very 

useful Useful

Somewhat 

useful 

Not at 

all

useful 

Don’t 

know

13a OPM personnel 8.9 17.8 24.4 42.2 6.7 0.0

13b Written materials 8.9 11.1 31.1 37.8 4.4 6.7

13c Training 22.7 6.8 11.4 29.6 18.2 11.4

13d Other, please 

specify: 42.9 14.3 0.0 14.3 0.0 28.6

13e. Overall during the last 2 years, how useful has guidance on EEO, affirmative 

employment, or workforce diversity from OPM Web resources been?

[Check only one answer] 

 6.8 Not used 

15.9 Very useful

31.8 Useful

29.6 Somewhat useful 

11.4 Not at all useful

 4.6 Don’t know 

Q14. How useful was OPM’s guidance for the following? [Check one box for each row]

Guidance from OPM on None

received 

Very 

useful Useful

Somewhat 

useful 

Not at 

all

useful 

Not

applicable 

14a Employing Individuals 

with Disabilities, EO 

13163

20.5 9.1 38.6 22.7 4.6 4.6

14b FEORP 15.9 6.8 31.8 27.3 4.6 13.6

14c DVAAP 18.2 11.4 31.8 27.3 4.6 6.8

14d Hispanic Employment 

Initiative, EO 13171 20.5 15.9 36.4 22.7 0.0 4.6

14e PMA standards on 

under-representation 

and workforce 

diversity

14.0 11.6 23.3 32.6 2.3 16.3

14f HCAAF 16.7 9.5 31.0 16.7 0.0 26.2
Appendix III

Excerpts from EEO Leadership Survey 

Questionnaire and Summary Results

Page 55 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

Q15. How useful was OPM’s feedback on your department/agency’s performance or 

feedback on the contents of reports or documents submitted to OPM for the 

following? [Check one box for each row]

Feedback from OPM 

on

None

received 

Very 

useful Useful

Somewhat 

useful 

Not at 

all

useful 

Not

applicable 

15a FEORP 42.2 4.4 13.3 8.9 8.9 22.2

15b DVAAP 42.2 4.4 17.8 6.7 8.9 20.0

15c Hispanic Employment 

Initiative, EO 13171 43.2 6.8 11.4 13.6 9.1 15.6

15d PMA standards on 

under-representation 

and workforce 

diversity

24.4 13.3 20.0 11.1 2.2 28.9

15e HCAAF 24.4 13.3 17.8 6.7 0.0 37.8

Q16. During the past 2 years, has OPM given technical assistance to staff in your office 

on aligning your department/agency’s affirmative employment, diversity, or human 

capital goals and measures with OPM’s governmentwide cross-cutting affirmative 

employment, diversity, and human capital goals and measures (such as those in 

OPM’s strategic plan)? 

42.2 Yes 

44.4 No

11.1 Don’t know 

 2.2 Not familiar with OPM’s governmentwide cross-cutting goals and measures 

Q17. Over the last 2 years, to what extent, if any, has OPM helped your office ensure EEO 

in the workplace and achieve affirmative employment or workforce diversity 

objectives? [Check only one answer] 

 0.0 Very great extent 

 2.2 Great extent 

13.3 Moderate extent 

33.3 Some extent 

46.7 Little or no extent 

 4.4 Don’t know 
Appendix III

Excerpts from EEO Leadership Survey 

Questionnaire and Summary Results

Page 56 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

Q18. Do you believe OPM should be doing more to help your department/agency 

ensure EEO in the workplace and achieve affirmative employment or workforce 

diversity objectives? [Check only one answer]

64.4 Yes 

26.7 No [Go to question 19]

 8.9 Don’t know [Go to question 19]

Q18a. Please briefly describe what types of additional assistance from OPM would 

be most helpful to ensure EEO in the workplace and achieve affirmative 

employment or workforce diversity objectives. 

Q20. If you have any additional comments on the questions in this section or on OPM’s 

assistance to ensure EEO in the workplace and achieve affirmative employment or 

workforce diversity objectives, please write them below. 
Appendix III

Excerpts from EEO Leadership Survey 

Questionnaire and Summary Results

Page 57 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission 

Q21. For which of the following, if any, is (or was) your office the primary point of 

contact with EEOC? [Check all that apply] 

55.6 Previous requirements under MD 713 for employment of 

persons with disabilities 

54.3 Previous requirements under MD 714 for minorities and women 

58.0 Current requirements under MD 715 

63.0 Providing Reasonable Accommodation, EO 13164 

25.9 None of the above

Q22. Excluding complaint processing, what has been the extent of your office’s 

interaction (i.e., receiving or seeking guidance or feedback) with EEOC over the 

last 2 years on EEO, affirmative employment, or workforce diversity? [Check only 

one answer]

17.5 Very extensive interaction 

15.0 Extensive interaction 

17.5 Moderate interaction 

10.0 Some interaction 

33.8 Little or no interaction [Go to question 30]

 6.3 Don’t know [Go to question 30]
Appendix III

Excerpts from EEO Leadership Survey 

Questionnaire and Summary Results

Page 58 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

Q23. Excluding complaint processing, overall, during the last 2 years, how useful has 

guidance on EEO, affirmative employment, or workforce diversity from each of the 

following EEOC sources been for your office? [Check one box for each row]

Guidance Sources None

received 

Very 

useful Useful

Somewhat 

useful 

Not at 

all useful 

Don’t 

know

23a EEOC personnel 0.0 31.9 46.8 19.1 0.0 2.1

23b Written materials 0.0 37.5 41.7 18.8 0.0 2.1

23c Training 4.2 31.3 33.3 29.2 0.0 2.1

23d Other, please 

specify: 0.0 100.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

Q23e. Excluding complaint processing, overall, during the last 2 years, how useful 

has guidance on EEO, affirmative employment, or workforce diversity from 

EEOC Web resources been? [Check only one answer] 

 2.1 Not used 

39.6 Very useful

29.2 Useful

25.0 Somewhat useful 

 2.1 Not at all useful

 2.1 Don’t know 

Q24. How useful was EEOC’s guidance for the following? [Check one box for each row]

Guidance from EEOC 

on

None

received 

Very 

useful Useful

Somewhat 

useful 

Not at 

all

useful 

Not

applicable 

24a Previous

requirements under 

MD 713

10.9 19.6 37.0 23.9 6.5 2.2

24b Previous

requirements under 

MD 714

8.7 19.6 41.3 23.9 4.3 2.2

24c Requirements under 

MD 715 2.1 38.3 25.5 29.8 4.3 0.0

24d Providing Reasonable 

Accommodation, EO 

13164

6.4 42.6 29.8 12.8 0.0 8.5
Appendix III

Excerpts from EEO Leadership Survey 

Questionnaire and Summary Results

Page 59 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

Q25. How useful was EEOC’s feedback on your department/agency’s performance or 

feedback on the contents of reports or documents submitted to EEOC for the 

following? [Check one box for each row]

Feedback from EEOC 

on

None

received 

Very 

useful Useful

Somewhat 

useful 

Not at 

all

useful 

Not

applicable 

25a Previous requirements 

under MD 713 8.5 19.1 25.5 27.7 12.8 6.4

25b Previous requirements 

under MD 714 10.6 19.1 29.8 23.4 10.6 6.4

25c Requirements under MD 

715 17.0 17.0 8.5 12.8 2.1 42.6

25d Provision of Reasonable 

Accommodation, EO 

13164

8.5 34.0 25.5 25.5 0.0 6.4

Q26. During the past 2 years, has EEOC given technical assistance to staff in your office 

on aligning your department/agency’s affirmative employment or workforce diversity 

goals and measures with EEOC’s governmentwide cross-cutting affirmative employment 

or workforce diversity goals and measures (such as those in EEOC’s strategic plan)?

[Check only one answer]

31.3 Yes 

58.3 No

 2.1 Don’t know 

8.3 Not familiar with EEOC’s governmentwide cross-cutting goals and measures 

Q27. Excluding complaint processing, over the last 2 years, to what extent, if any, has 

EEOC helped your office ensure EEO in the workplace and achieve affirmative 

employment or workforce diversity objectives? [Check only one answer]

10.4 Very great extent 

 6.3 Great extent 

25.0 Moderate extent 

25.0 Some extent 

31.3 Little or no extent 

 2.1 Don’t know
Appendix III

Excerpts from EEO Leadership Survey 

Questionnaire and Summary Results

Page 60 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

Q28. Do you believe EEOC should be doing more to help your department/agency ensure 

EEO in the workplace and achieve affirmative employment or workforce diversity 

objectives? [Check only one answer] 

77.1 Yes 

20.8 No [Go to question 29]

2.1 Don’t know [Go to question 29]

Q28a. Please briefly describe what types of additional assistance from EEOC would 

be most helpful to ensure EEO in the workplace and achieve affirmative 

employment or workforce diversity objectives. 

Q29. If you have any additional comments on the questions in this section or on EEOC’s 

assistance to ensure EEO in the workplace and achieve affirmative employment or 

workforce diversity objectives, please write them below. 
Appendix III

Excerpts from EEO Leadership Survey 

Questionnaire and Summary Results

Page 61 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

The Impact of Policies and Requirements on EEO, Affirmative Employment, and 

Workforce Diversity 

Q47. To what extent does each of the following contribute to ensuring EEO in your 

department/agency’s workplace and achieving affirmative employment or 

workforce diversity objectives at your department/agency? [Check one box for each 

row]

Requirements/Activities

Very 

great 

extent 

Great

extent 

Moderate 

extent 

Some 

extent 

Little 

or no 

extent 

Don’t 

know

47a FEORP 3.8 11.3 25.0 30.0 27.5 2.5

47b DVAAP 3.8 10.0 25.0 33.8 20.0 7.5

47c Hispanic Employment 

Initiative, EO 13171 2.5 15.2 26.6 43.0 6.3 6.3

47d HCAAF performance 

standards 5.1 10.1 24.1 21.5 10.1 29.1

47e PMA standards on 

under-representation 

and workforce 

diversity

3.8 20.0 22.5 22.5 7.5 23.8

47f OSC 2302(c) 

certification program 2.6 5.2 11.7 22.1 23.4 35.1

47g No FEAR Act 3.8 6.3 31.6 22.8 24.1 11.4

47h Employing Individuals 

with Disabilities, EO 

13163

5.0 13.8 33.8 32.5 10.0 5.0

47i Providing Reasonable 

Accommodation, EO 

13164

8.8 31.3 33.8 22.5 1.3 2.5

47j Requirements under 

MD 715 12.7 12.7 26.6 19.0 8.9 20.3

Q47. To what extent did each of the following contribute to ensuring EEO in your 

department/agency’s workplace and achieving affirmative employment or 

workforce diversity objectives at your department/agency? [Check one box for each 

row]

Requirements/Activities

Very 

great 

extent 

Great

extent 

Moderate 

extent 

Some 

extent 

Little or 

no

extent 

Don’t 

know

47k Previous requirements 

under MD 713 3.9 7.9 30.3 34.2 10.5 13.2

47l Previous requirements 

under MD 714 3.9 7.9 31.6 32.9 10.5 13.2
Appendix III

Excerpts from EEO Leadership Survey 

Questionnaire and Summary Results

Page 62 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

Q48a. Based on your experience or knowledge, which two, if any, of the following that 

deal with employment of persons with disabilities seem to have very similar or 

redundant requirements (e.g. developing plans, assessing progress and preparing 

reports)? [Check only two boxes] 

(Whole numbers presented instead of percentages.) 

10 None have very similar or redundant requirements 

22 DVAAP

39 Requirements under MD 715 regarding persons with disabilities 

36 Employing Individuals with Disabilities, EO 13163 

 5 Providing Reasonable Accommodation, EO 13164 

 0 Other program or policy (please specify) 

17 Don’t know 

Q48b. Based on your experience or knowledge, which two, if any, of the following seem 

to have very similar or redundant requirements (e.g., developing plans, assessing 

progress, and preparing reports)? [Check only two boxes] 

 (Whole numbers presented instead of percentages.) 

 9 None have very similar or redundant requirements 

41 FEORP 

19 Hispanic Employment Initiative, EO 13171 

 5 HCAAF performance standards 

 8 PMA standards on under-representation and workforce diversity 

30 Requirements under MD 715 

 6 No FEAR Act 

 0 OSC 2302(c) certification program 

 0 Other program or policy (please specify) 

15 Don’t know 
Appendix III

Excerpts from EEO Leadership Survey 

Questionnaire and Summary Results

Page 63 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

Q49. If you believe that increased coordination between any two central leadership 

agencies and the requirements and guidance they provide would benefit your 

department/agency, which two agencies would you pick? [Check only two boxes] 

(Whole numbers presented instead of percentages.) 

3 Don’t believe there would be benefit from increased coordination [Go to 

question 50] 

71 OPM 

74 EEOC 

 0 OSC 

 3 MSPB 

 1 FLRA 

 2 Don’t know [Go to question 50]

Q49a. Why did you choose these two agencies? 
Appendix III

Excerpts from EEO Leadership Survey 

Questionnaire and Summary Results

Page 64 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

Impact of Requirements on Department/Agency Human Capital Policies 

Q51. To what extent, if at all, do the following currently influence the formulation of 

your department/agency’s human capital policies, practices, and human capital 

strategic planning? [Check one box for each row]

Requirements/Activities

Very 

great 

extent 

Great

extent 

Moderate 

extent 

Some 

extent 

Little 

or no 

extent 

Don’t 

know

51a FEORP 3.7 3.7 23.5 34.6 25.9 8.6

51b DVAAP 2.5 6.3 17.5 36.3 26.3 11.3

51c Hispanic

Employment

Initiative, EO 13171 

4.9 11.1 29.6 37.0 9.9 7.4

51d HCAAF performance 

standards 7.6 10.1 32.9 13.9 6.3 29.1

51e PMA standards on 

under-representation 

and workforce 

diversity

8.6 24.7 21.0 17.3 9.9 18.5

51f Requirements under 

MD 715 6.3 21.3 25.0 23.8 6.3 17.5

51g No FEAR Act 7.5 10.0 25.0 21.3 22.5 13.8

51h Employing

Individuals with 

Disabilities, EO 

13163

6.2 12.3 29.6 33.3 11.1 7.4

51i Providing

Reasonable

Accommodation, EO 

13164

7.4 16.0 32.1 24.7 9.9 9.9

51j OSC 2302(c) 

certification program 3.8 3.8 11.5 17.9 21.8 41.0
Appendix III

Excerpts from EEO Leadership Survey 

Questionnaire and Summary Results

Page 65 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

Q52. If you have any additional comments on the impacts of these federal requirements 

on

x helping to ensure EEO in the workplace and achieving affirmative employment 

or workforce diversity objectives and 

x influencing your department/agency’s formulation of human capital policy and 

its human capital strategic plan, 

Please write them below. 
Appendix III

Excerpts from EEO Leadership Survey 

Questionnaire and Summary Results

Page 66 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

SUMMARY

Q53. If you have any additional comments on any previous question or any other 

comments about EEO in the workplace and achieving affirmative employment or 

workforce diversity objectives, please make them below. 

Thank you for completing this survey.

Please save this file now and send GAO a return e-mail, with your file as an attachment.
Page 67 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

Appendix IV

Agencies from Which Respondents Returned 

the EEO Leadership Survey Questionnaire ApendxiIV

Agency for International Development

Broadcasting Board of Governors

Commodity Futures Trading Commission

Corporation for National Service

Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency

Defense Contract Audit Agency

Defense Education Activity

Defense Finance and Accounting Service

Defense Information Service Agency

Defense Inspector General

Defense Logistics Agency

Defense Threat Reduction Agency

Department of Agriculture

Department of the Air Force

Department of the Army 

Department of Commerce

Department of Education

Department of Energy 

Department of Health and Human Services

Department of Homeland Security

Department of Housing and Urban Development

Department of the Interior

Department of Justice

Department of Labor

Department of the Navy

Department of State

Department of Transportation

Department of the Treasury

Department of Veterans Affairs

Environmental Protection Agency

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

Federal Communications Commission

Federal Trade Commission

General Services Administration

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

National Archives and Records Administration

National Credit Union Administration

National Labor Relations Board

National Science Foundation

Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Office of the Secretary of Defense

Office of Personnel Management
Appendix IV

Agencies from Which Respondents Returned 

the EEO Leadership Survey Questionnaire

Page 68 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

Securities and Exchange Commission

Small Business Administration

Social Security Administration
Page 69 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

Appendix V

Comments from the Equal Employment 

Opportunity Commission ApendxiV

U.S. EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY COMMISSION 

Washington, D.C. 20507 

 May 16, 2006 

The Honorable David M. Walker 

Comptroller General of the United States 

United States Government Accountability Office 

Washington, D.C. 20548 

Dear Mr. Walker: 

 Thank you for the opportunity to review the report entitled EQUAL EMPLOYMENT 

OPPORTUNITY, Improved Coordination Needed between EEOC and OPM in Leading Federal 

Workplace EEO. GAO-06-214. 

 First, we wish to make clear that it is EEOC’s view that the multiple areas of information 

collection which GAO has described as redundant in the GAO report are not in fact unnecessary. 

Several federal agencies have information collection requirements which overlap but serve 

different purposes.

By analogy, EEOC and the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs serve 

different legislative mandates but often collect similar information. Also, the Wage and Hour 

Division of the United States Department of Labor collects payroll information that EEOC seeks 

in Equal Pay Act cases.

Likewise, OPM’s FEORP looks only at recruiting activities and outcomes as well as 

human capital practices used to recruit and develop the federal workforce. In contrast, reports 

submitted pursuant to EEOC’s Management Directive 715 look at wide-ranging employment 

activities to ensure that equal employment opportunity is being embraced and implemented by 

all federal agencies.

 In conclusion, let me assure you that the Commission will continue to work closely with 

the Office of Personnel Management to eliminate reporting inefficiencies while adhering to our 

respective statutory constraints. Attached to this letter are several more detailed observations we 

have regarding this report.

 Again, thank you for the opportunity to review this report. 

 Sincerely, 

 Cari M. Dominguez 

 Chair 

Attachment

Note: GAO comments 

supplementing those in 

the report text appear 

at the end of this 

appendix.

See comment 1.

See comment 2.
Appendix V

Comments from the Equal Employment 

Opportunity Commission

Page 70 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

OFO Comments on the Draft GAO Leadership Report 

Use of Survey Results and Overall Thrust of Report is Misleading

 The GAO draft report at several points suggests that various agency officials perceive the 

requirements of OPM’s FEORP program and EEOC’s MD-715 as ‘very similar” or “redundant.” 

The use of the word redundancy in both the survey responses and in the draft implies or creates 

the impression that certain EEOC and OPM programs coverage and/or reporting requirements 

are congruent, or similar in most or all respects. However, the FEORP and MD-715 programs 

are dissimilar in a great number of respects, and the scope of the information analyzed by MD715 is much broader than FEORP. A short discussion of each program demonstrates this point: 

 FEORP is limited to recruitment, in the broader sense of hiring, training and career 

development, by federal agencies. However, OPM by its own admission does not collect 

applicant flow information about the race, national origin and sex of recruits for federal jobs. 

Instead agencies comply with FEORP by submitting snapshot workforce information annually to 

OPM on the workforce by race, national origin and gender of their employees. Agencies also 

provide anecdotal information on Workforce Planning, Recruitment and Outreach, Mentoring 

and Career Development Opportunities. Moreover, the 2005 OPM Annual Report to Congress 

on FEORP actually gives no information on the race, national origin or sex of applicants for 

federal jobs, or of the impact of agencies’ efforts to enhance the diversity of federal recruits.

Instead, the Annual FEORP report only provides a snapshot of the race, national origin and sex 

of individuals already employed in the federal workforce, whether recently hired or with 30 

years service. The report implies that if the federal workforce is diverse, then federal agency 

recruitment efforts must be working properly. The FEORP annual report also analyzes 

employment participation for underrepresentation. Some anecdotal information about agency 

initiatives in the area of Workforce Planning, Recruitment and Outreach, Mentoring and Career 

Development Opportunities is reported by individual agencies, but no statistical analysis of those 

individual agency recruitment efforts, or of agency recruitment efforts government-wide, is 

provided by OPM in the Annual Report. Finally, OPM, according to survey respondents, does 

not provide feedback to agencies on their FEORP reports. (Figure 8, page 29) 

 Contrast that with the much broader scope of EEOC’s MD-715 which requires that 

agencies report by race, national origin, sex and disability of employees and applicants affected 

by numerous federal agency employment practices from outreach and recruitment (requiring that 

agencies collect and report applicant flow information) to hiring, participation rates across the 

general schedule, and in major occupations, training, non-competitive promotions, merit 

promotions for major occupations, participation in career development and training, awards and 

separations. Moreover, and unlike OPM’s FEORP program, EEOC’s practice is to require 

agencies to do in-depth barrier analysis to identify and eliminate barriers to the employment 

opportunities, using snapshot information from the agency workforce, underrepresentation 

analyses and several other sources of information. After agencies submit their MD-715 reports, 

EEOC provides them feedback, in the form of extensive technical assistance, both in person and 

in writing. 

Now on p. 25.
Appendix V

Comments from the Equal Employment 

Opportunity Commission

Page 71 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

GAO “did not evaluate the degree of similarity and redundancy among these

requirements” (p.15). Because GAO did not conduct a careful comparison of the degree of 

redundancy of any of the programs mentioned in the draft report, the analysis is insufficient.

Statutory Requirements Limit Options to Streamline Reporting Requirements

Although the survey conducted by GAO reports that several agencies officials expressed 

views that there is redundancy in some programs (FEORP, CSRA and MD-715, Title VII), 

(Rehabilitation Act and Executive Order 13163), neither OPM nor EEOC is free to eliminate any 

redundancy by ignoring the requirements of statutes enacted by Congress or Executive Orders 

promulgated by the President which assign responsibility over a given program to an individual 

agency. In other words EEOC clearly cannot simply “fold” OPM’s FEORP requirements into its 

MD-715 program without going against the plain meaning of the Civil Service Reform Act 

which assigns responsibility of reporting under the FEORP to OPM. See 5 U.S.C. 7201(e)

(requiring OPM to prepare and transmit a report to each House of Congress on FEORP not later 

that January 31 of each year).

Likewise, EEOC cannot simply absorb OPM’s responsibilities under E.O. 13163 into the 

MD-715 Rehabilitation Act reporting requirements without ignoring the plain requirements of 

the Executive Order. See 3 C.F.R. 13163 (d) (requiring that each Federal agency shall prepare a 

plan to increase the opportunities for individuals with disabilities to be employed in the agency).

If GAO is suggesting that EEOC and OPM should consolidate allegedly redundant 

reporting requirements of EEO programs into a single agency, the Commission believes that 

these solutions should be initiated by Congress and/or the President. This being said, EEOC 

does not disagree with GAO that the Commission and OPM can further strengthen their 

collaborative efforts. There is always room for improvement.

General Comments

GAO’s draft fails to note (p. 6) that its survey was conducted between October 2004 and 

December 2004 prior to agency submission of annual reports under MD-715 in January 2005 or 

EEOC’s issuance of feedback letters. Thus, GAO’s comments regarding feedback were likely 

based on feedback under the now obsolete Management Directives 713 and 714.

The GAO draft mischaracterizes EEOC’s positions or responses on some issues. For 

example, GAO reports that EEOC changed the nine occupational categories because the 

PATCOB categories were outdated and too imprecise to allow the level of analysis desired.

However, EEOC expanded to the nine categories not only because this change provided a better 

refinement and alignment of the data to be evaluated, but also because the nine categories are 

based on the occupational categories EEOC uses for conducting similar analyses in the private 

sector. The Commission strives for consistency and uniformity in the enforcement of its EEO 

responsibilities across sectors.

2

Now on p. 12.

See comment 3.

See comment 4.

Now on p. 4.

See comment 5.

See comment 6.
Appendix V

Comments from the Equal Employment 

Opportunity Commission

Page 72 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

Also GAO mistakenly notes that EEOC officials said that it had “not offered official 

guidance to agencies concerning applicant-flow data collection.” In fact, MD-715 requires the 

collection of applicant flow data. EEOC formed an interagency working group in 2004 to assist 

in the development of an applicant flow collection form. EEOC sought to accomplish two 

objectives: to assist in framing the questions on the form that ask for applicant information using 

the revised race categories and methods approved by OMB, and to ensure that other proper 

language and guidance was used in creating the forms.

In 2004, several agencies informed EEOC that they would not collect applicant flow data 

unless and until OPM developed new race reporting codes that could be used by the agencies to 

report the data in agency personnel and OPM databases. OPM revised the race categories in the 

CPDF database in August 2005, with required use by January 1, 2006. 

Several of GAO’s concerns require further information and/or discussion: 

x The draft report noted “policy inconsistencies and disagreements’ that EEOC and OPM 

should address and resolve, but failed to specifically identify them;

x An explanation as to how EEOC’s more narrowly defined nine occupational categories 

could be “too broad for meaningful analysis because they combine too many occupations 

within one category,” but the six broader categories they replaced are not; 

x Specific identification of the inaccuracies and omissions in the “crosswalk“ developed to 

classify federal occupations into one of the nine categories; 

x The basis for the statement that the collection of applicant flow data would be “costly,

ineffective and a reporting burden” (p. 23); and

x Support for the statement that collecting applicant data could involve significant legal 

risks and that such collection could be construed as “pressuring agencies to engage in 

preferential treatment in order to achieve ‘results’ in terms of workforce composition, as 

suggested by recent discrimination cases.” It should be noted that federal agencies are 

bound by the Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures (UGESP), which 

require employers to request race and ethnic data from applicants and analyze applicant

flow data. UGESP is a joint federal rule issued by EEOC, DOL, DOJ, and OPM.

A large part of EEOC’s mission involves proactive prevention of discrimination. In 

addition to the work that the report describes on page 9, we have an extensive outreach and 

technical assistance program within the federal sector. We provide this service to all federal

agencies, including many who were not participants in the survey that forms the foundation for

this report.

3

See comment 7.

See comment 8.

Now on p. 18.

See comment 9.

Now on p. 7. 
Appendix V

Comments from the Equal Employment 

Opportunity Commission

Page 73 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

Please note that we: 

x Conduct quarterly EEO Director’s meetings which cover a variety of topics, as well as 

feedback sessions where EEO Directors can share with EEOC issues and suggestions for 

other training sessions.

x Provide regular opportunities for discussions on topics such as Model EEO Programs. 

x Completed 109 Technical Assistance visits to agencies in FY 05; to date, we have 

completed 75 in-person Technical Assistance visits this fiscal year. 

x Conducted 486 in-person training sessions in FY 04 and 05, reaching more than 21,000

federal employees.

x Received and reviewed 120 reasonable accommodation procedures from agencies and

provided individualized written feedback on each set of procedures,1

 as well as additional

written feedback on 84 procedures that were subsequently resubmitted.

x Recently published Practical Advice for Drafting and Implementing Reasonable 

Accommodation Procedures which summarizes best practices and common problems

identified through our review of reasonable accommodation procedures. 

x Updated our website to provide direct links to relevant OPM reports. It now links to 

information on OPM’s annual Federal Equal Opportunity Recruitment Program (FEORP) 

report, as well as OPM’s Executive Order 13171 report (Hispanic Employment Program 

Statistical Reports) at: http://www.eeoc.gov/abouteeoc/coordination/whatothersdo.html.

Lastly, GAO uses workforce data on FY 2004 when FY 2005 data are now available.

(p. 3). 

1 As of March 31, 2006, we have provided written feedback in response to 119 of the 120 submissions. Work on the

remaining feedback letter is currently in progress.

4

See comment 10.

See comment 11.

Now on p. 3.
Appendix V

Comments from the Equal Employment 

Opportunity Commission

Page 74 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

The following are GAO’s comments on EEOC’s letter dated May 16, 2006.

GAO Comments 1. EEOC expresses the view that the multiple areas of information 

collection, which we have described as redundant, are in fact 

necessary, and points out that several federal agencies have 

information collection requirements that overlap but serve different 

purposes. EEOC offers as an example that it and the Department of 

Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) 

serve different legislative mandates but often collect similar 

information. Our research shows that EEOC and OFCCP jointly 

developed a form (EEO-1) to meet the needs of both agencies. Further, 

parties make a single submission to the joint committee, made up of 

EEOC and Department of Labor staff. We believe that EEOC’s 

collaboration with OFCCP is a positive example of collaboration that 

EEOC and OPM could emulate in seeking opportunities for 

streamlining and consolidating information gathering from federal 

agencies.

2. We recognize the differences in EEOC’s and OPM’s authorized 

responsibilities. However, this does not obviate our point that similar 

information to meet both requirements could be collected through a 

single common instrument, from which EEOC and OPM could extract 

the information needed for their separate reports. EEOC and OPM 

should look for ways to minimize the impact of these differences on 

agencies. 

3. This draft report and an earlier report on the EEO framework present 

similarities and differences in responsibilities of EEOC and OPM and in 

the requirements they place on agencies. In this report, we present the 

informed views of EEO and human capital officials surveyed for the 

report who deal with various requirements daily. In presenting these 

views, it was beyond the scope of our review to independently analyze 

the validity of the responses. We believe that it is more appropriate for 

EEOC and OPM to explore opportunities to streamline and consolidate 

similar and redundant requirements and, in doing so, to seek the views 

of agency EEO and human capital managers who are responsible for 

carrying out the requirements. 

4. The statutes and executive orders place responsibility for EEO-related 

programs on EEOC and OPM, as noted. However, the responsibility 

relates to administering the programs and reporting results, not in 
Appendix V

Comments from the Equal Employment 

Opportunity Commission

Page 75 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

collecting data. We believe that there is no statutory impediment in title 

VII or in the CSRA that would prevent EEOC and OPM from devising 

and distributing a common data collection instrument, the information 

from which would be subsequently used by the two agencies in 

separately analyzing the data and reporting under FEORP and 

Management Directive (MD) 715. Should EEOC and OPM conclude that 

certain coordination or streamlining efforts might not be authorized 

under current statutes, executive orders, or regulations, they could 

modify regulations, request that the President revise relevant executive 

orders, or request that Congress amend relevant statutes to bring about 

greater efficiency in how EEOC, OPM, and federal agencies meet the 

requirements of the EEO framework. We clarified this in the report.

5. Figure 7, which shows survey respondents’ perceptions of the 

usefulness of feedback from EEOC on agency performance or contents 

of reports or documents submitted under MD-713 and MD-714, contains 

a note that these requirements were operational during the early part of 

the survey period. Together, the requirements under MD-713 and MD714, including submitting annual reports, had much in common with 

the requirements under MD-715. In addition, EEOC issued feedback 

letters to agencies on reports submitted under MD-713 and MD-714. 

Because the first reports under MD-715 were not due until after the 

survey period, it was not possible to ask survey recipients for their 

views on feedback from EEOC on these reports. Though MD-713 and 

MD-714 have been superseded, respondents’ views on the usefulness of 

EEOC feedback are not invalid.

6. EEOC’s statement about the professional, administrative, clerical, other 

white-collar and blue-collar (PATCOB) categories was taken from its 

guidance “Frequently Asked Questions About Management Directive715,” wherein EEOC said “The EEOC determined that the PATCOB 

categories are outdated, overly broad and too imprecise to allow the 

level of analysis desired.” In that same guidance, EEOC also said it 

adopted the same nine occupational categories for use in analyzing the 

federal workforce to conform with occupational categories on the 

EEO-1 report used by private employees in reporting information to 

EEOC in order to provide more useful information and facilitate 

comparisons between the federal and private sectors. We have 

modified the report to reflect this.

7. We agree that MD-715 requires that agencies gather and analyze data on 

applicants’ race, national origin, gender, and disabilities and provides a 
Appendix V

Comments from the Equal Employment 

Opportunity Commission

Page 76 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

form for reporting the data gathered. However, in its instructions, 

EEOC did not provide guidance to agencies on how they should collect 

such data from applicants, which can only be collected voluntarily, or 

provide a form that agencies could use to request information from 

applicants. At the time of our review, no written guidance had been 

issued in this regard. As we state in our report, EEOC provided verbal 

guidance when requested by individual agencies. 

8. This phrase “policy inconsistencies and disagreements” appears in the 

summary of the recommendations in the Results in Brief section of the 

report. The inconsistencies and disagreements are discussed in the 

report. These include inconsistencies between EEOC and OPM in how 

federal occupations are categorized for analytical purposes and 

disagreement on the need and authority to collect race and national 

origin data from applicants for employment. 

9. EEOC commented that further information is needed with regard to 

our discussion about the occupational categories and applicant flow 

data. This discussion is intended to illustrate the existence of policy 

disagreements and differences between EEOC and OPM. The 

comments to which EEOC refer were made to us by OPM, and were 

explicitly attributed to OPM in our report. That these differences exist 

further illustrates the lack of coordination and collaboration between 

EEOC and OPM, and they are among the issues we recommend that the 

two agencies resolve. 

We clarified the report to include a reference to the Uniform 

Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures.

10. EEOC’s discussion of the technical assistance it provides does not 

directly address the findings in our report that, as of the time of our 

survey in the fall of 2004, some EEO and human capital managers did 

not consider EEO guidance to be useful, and a substantial number did 

not consider EEOC feedback to be useful. 

EEOC’s Strategic Plan for Fiscal Year 2004-2009 states that as a 

means of assessing its performance, the agency will survey federal 

agency leadership to assess how EEOC's evaluations enable agencies 

to improve their EEO programs. This survey, when it is done, will be 

one means of providing EEOC with more current and comprehensive 

information on agency views concerning the effectiveness of its 

guidance and feedback.
Appendix V

Comments from the Equal Employment 

Opportunity Commission

Page 77 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

11. The fiscal year 2004 data were used to describe the proportion of the 

federal workforce employed at the agencies at the time of our survey.
Page 78 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

Appendix VI

Comments from the Office of Personnel 

Management ApendxiVI

Note: GAO comments 

supplementing those in 

the report text appear 

at the end of this 

appendix.
Appendix VI

Comments from the Office of Personnel 

Management

Page 79 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

See comment 1.

See comment 2.

Now on pp. 6 and 5.

See comment 3.
Appendix VI

Comments from the Office of Personnel 

Management

Page 80 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

See comment 4.

See comment 5.

Now on pp. 1 and 9.

Now on p. 1.

See comment 7.

See comment 8.

See comment 6.

Now on p. 3.

Now on p. 3.

See comment 9.

Now on p.16.
Appendix VI

Comments from the Office of Personnel 

Management

Page 81 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

See comment 10.

See comment 11.

Now on p. 7.

See comment 12.

Now on p. 8. 

Now on p. 4.

Now on p. 5.

See comment 13.

Now on p. 8.

See comment 14.
Appendix VI

Comments from the Office of Personnel 

Management

Page 82 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

See comment 17.

See comment 15.

Now on p. 8.

Now on p. 10.

Now on p. 11.

See comment 16.

Now on p. 12.

See comment 9.

Now on p. 12.

Now on p. 13.

See comment 18.

Now on p. 16.

See comment 9.

Now on p. 18.

See comment 19.
Appendix VI

Comments from the Office of Personnel 

Management

Page 83 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

Now on p. 20.

See comment 21.

Now on p. 20.

See comment 22.

See comment 20.

Now on p. 20.

Now on p. 22.

See comment 9.

Now on p. 25.

See comment 9.

Now on p. 28. 

See comment 23.

Now on p. 28.

See comment 24.
Appendix VI

Comments from the Office of Personnel 

Management

Page 84 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

Now on p. 29.

See comment 25.

Now on p. 30.

Now on p. 31.

See comment 26.

Now on p. 31.

See comment 27.

Now on p. 54.

See comment 28.

Now on p. 62.

See comment 29.
Appendix VI

Comments from the Office of Personnel 

Management

Page 85 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO
Appendix VI

Comments from the Office of Personnel 

Management

Page 86 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

The following are GAO’s comments on OPM’s letter dated April 21, 2006.

GAO Comments 1. We are not recommending that OPM go beyond its statutory authority 

and do not assume areas of overlap to be dysfunctional and unintended. 

Our recommendations are intended to help EEOC and OPM develop 

means to cooperate and collaborate in gathering information from 

agencies to identify opportunities to reduce the administrative 

requirements on agencies while satisfying existing EEO framework 

requirements. 

2. We neither recommend that EEOC and OPM merge into a collective 

approach nor recommend that Congress require EEOC and OPM to 

adopt the recommendations we make in this report. We recommended 

that Congress require EEOC and OPM to report annually on actions 

taken or planned to increase coordination and communications with 

each other, streamline like requirements and resolve inconsistencies 

where appropriate, and improve guidance and feedback to agencies.

3. We acknowledge in our report that there are differences in EEOC’s and 

OPM’s responsibilities. In the draft provided to OPM for its comment, 

we state that OPM’s mission is to build a high-quality and diverse 

federal workforce and that under title 5 of the U.S. Code, OPM is 

responsible for executing, administering, and enforcing civil service 

laws and regulations in the executive branch, including the merit 

system principles that require fair and equitable treatment and equal 

opportunity and prohibit discrimination in all aspects of federal 

employment. The differences in EEOC’s and OPM’s responsibilities, 

however, should not preclude the two agencies from exploring, and 

taking advantage of, opportunities for coordination and cooperation in 

areas of common interest in the oversight of EEO in federal agencies.

4. In our discussion of duplication of efforts, we were mindful of the legal 

distinctions between the various components of the EEO framework. 

See comment 3.

5. OPM expressed concern over use of the phrase “affirmative 

employment,” stating that the phrase may be misunderstood as relating 

to past EEO programs that have come under criticism and are the 

subject of ongoing litigation involving allegations of improper 

preferential treatment. We are aware of case law that has addressed 

federal EEO policies or practices and the issue of improper preferential 
Appendix VI

Comments from the Office of Personnel 

Management

Page 87 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

treatment, as well as the ongoing litigation involving allegations of 

preferential treatment related to affirmative employment plans which 

date back to superseded management directives issued by EEOC. 

However, under the federal antidiscrimination statutes, the federal 

sector remains obligated to go beyond merely addressing complaints of 

alleged discrimination—to take positive (affirmative) steps to ensure 

EEO. It is this federal sector obligation to which we refer when we use 

the phrase “affirmative employment.” Further, OPM expresses concern 

about our reference to “workforce diversity.” We do not believe our use 

of the term “workforce diversity” is unique or inconsistent with OPM’s 

broad policies in the area. Rather, as our definition clearly provides, 

workforce diversity is a very broad concept and is not limited to 

recognizing the differences protected from discrimination by statute. 

6. We have added a footnote to page 1 referring readers to the definition 

later in the report.

7. We have modified the report in line with OPM’s comment.

8. Please see comment 5 above regarding our use of the term “affirmative 

employment.” While OPM specifically objects to our characterization of 

MD-715 as an affirmative employment program, EEOC, in its 

comments, raised no objections to our use of this phrase as it relates to 

MD-715, or otherwise.

9. The statements referred to by OPM are the comments of agency EEO 

and human capital officials who filled out our survey. They are intended 

to illustrate the survey results. We did not independently evaluate the 

validity of the statements made in the comments, and they are not 

presented as facts or as findings.

10. We have made a change in accordance with OPM’s comment.

11. We understand that OPM and EEOC do not carry out identical reviews; 

however, workforce diversity issues share a common foundation with 

EEO issues, which in our view creates the opportunity for cooperation 

and coordination in oversight. It is important that staff performing 

work in these areas have an awareness of efforts of the other agency so 

that their individual and collective efforts could be more efficient.

12. We have changed the wording in accordance with OPM’s comment. 
Appendix VI

Comments from the Office of Personnel 

Management

Page 88 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

13. We have changed table 1 in accordance with OPM’s comment.

14. Executive Order No. 13171 mandates that “the head of each executive 

department and agency shall establish and maintain a program for the 

recruitment and career development of Hispanics in Federal 

employment.” In the Fifth Annual Report to the President on Hispanic 

Employment in the Federal Government, dated February 16, 2006, OPM 

said it asked federal agencies to identify human capital practices they 

found effective in recruiting Hispanics. 

15. We have modified the discussion of the PMA in the report to clarify our 

source, in accordance with OPM’s comments. (We are referring to the 

scorecard the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) uses to assess 

agencies’ implementation of the PMA, commonly referred to as the 

“PMA scorecard” that contains the standard of reducing 

underrepresentation and sustaining workforce diversity.)

16. We have changed the title of table 2 in accordance with OPM’s 

comments. With regard to OPM’s point that the combination of “some, 

little, or no extent” seems broad, our methodology specialists have 

advised that collapsing “some extent” with “little or no extent” is a 

common practice. We have clarified this in appendix I.

17. The reference to “common features” was part of the two survey 

questions on whether any two of the specific requirements listed were 

in fact similar or redundant, and refers to those requirements. 

While it is true that OPM now supplies agencies with Central Personnel 

Data File (CPDF) workforce data for their FEORP reports, agencies are 

still obligated to analyze these data to assess their workforces under 

FEORP requirements and respond to OPM’s requests for information. 

18. As stated in our report, we were informed by agency EEO and human 

capital managers that they have to make separate efforts for each 

reporting requirement and consider this a significant burden. OPM and 

EEOC, in their roles as leadership agencies, should work together to 

understand how their collective requirements affect agencies and 

explore how administrative burdens on agencies could be reduced.

19. We have modified the report to more fully explain EEOC’s requirements 

as they relate to OMB’s revised standards for race and ethnicity 

classification.
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Comments from the Office of Personnel 

Management

Page 89 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

20. We have removed the comment which cited the categories which have 

since been revised.

21. We have modified the report in accordance with OPM’s comment.

22. We have modified the report in accordance with OPM’s comment.

23. We have added more specific information concerning the NPR’s 

recommendations to the report. 

24. We have modified the report to attribute the comment directly to the 

NPR.

25. We have modified our discussion of the handbook to reflect OPM’s 

comment. 

26. We understood OPM’s comments about changing URLs, but believe that 

it is more convenient for Web users to be able to go directly to the 

relevant EEOC page than to go to a home page and search for needed 

information. We believe that necessary changes in the links can be done 

by coordination between OPM and EEOC Web managers.

27. We do not believe that EEOC’s and OPM’s responsibilities are so 

different that these agencies could not explore the opportunity to 

conduct joint oversight reviews, which may not necessarily entail doing 

all audit work jointly. We also do not believe that such joint efforts 

would, in and of themselves, compromise the confidentiality of OPM’s 

oversight work. Moreover, joint efforts would involve both EEO and 

human capital staff at agencies and, in this way, could help foster 

collaboration between agency EEO and human capital staff.

28. In our report, we counted as responding positively to EEOC or OPM 

guidance and feedback only those respondents who answered “useful” 

or “very useful” to the relevant questions. We regarded “somewhat 

useful” as a response that did not indicate satisfaction with EEOC or 

OPM guidance and feedback.

29. We have modified our presentation of the results of the question to use 

whole numbers rather than percentages.
Page 90 GAO-06-214 Improved Coordination Needed in Federal EEO

Appendix VII

GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments ApendxiVI

GAO Contact George H. Stalcup (202) 512-9490 or stalcupg@gao.gov

Acknowledgments In addition to the contact named above, Belva M. Martin, Assistant 

Director; Steven J. Berke; Karin K. Fangman; Anthony P. Lofaro; Anthony 

Patterson; Amy Rosewarne; Samuel H. Scrutchins; Gregory H. Wilmoth; 

and Monica L. Wolford made major contributions to this report.

(450307)
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