The second was to assess executive branch ethical culture. The survey was distributed to a random sample of 7,291 civilian employees from 22 executive branch departments and agencies. A total of 2,704 responses were received, for a 37 percent response rate. Employees are generally aware of the ethics program and familiar with ethics resources, but there are gaps. Overall, more than 75 percent of respondents said they were aware that there are officials in their agency whose job responsibilities include providing advice to employees on ethics issues.
Awareness is also significantly higher among supervisors than non-supervisors.
While these results are encouraging, the study also indicates that there are needs that the ethics program has not met. In the last five years some employees, for example, sought ethics advice from persons other than their agency ethics officials because they did not know there was an ethics staff or because they believed there was no ethics staff. Other employees reported that they would have sought ethics-related advice in the last five years but did not know whom to ask. The final report recommends that the Government explore ways to improve communication to employees, so that fewer will have needs that are unaddressed. The program is working, but there is room for improvement.