OSC’s primary role is to safeguard the merit system in federal employment by protecting federal employees, former federal employees, and applicants for federal employment from prohibited personnel practices as shown: OSC receives and independently investigates allegations of prohibited personnel practices. Before completing its investigation and making its determination about whether there are reasonable grounds for believing a violation has occurred, OSC may refer the case to its alternative dispute resolution (ADR) program. If OSC cannot process a case within the 240- day limit, the agency must get permission from the complainant to keep the case open. If OSC finds reasonable grounds for believing that a violation occurred, OSC can seek corrective action, disciplinary action, or both through negotiation with the agency involved. If an agreement cannot be reached, OSC can file a petition (for corrective action) or a complaint (seeking disciplinary action) with the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB). OSC functions as a case prosecutor before the MSPB. OSC also receives whistleblower disclosure claims. As described by law, these consist of violation of law, rule, or regulation; gross mismanagement, gross waste of funds, abuse of authority, or a substantial and specific danger to public health or safety. Unless disclosure of a whistleblower’s identity is necessary because of imminent danger to public health or safety or imminent violation of criminal law, OSC maintains the whistleblower’s anonymity. (See app. I for more information on OSC’s privacy policies.) Unlike its actions with respect to prohibited personnel practices, OSC does not independently investigate whistleblower disclosure cases. Instead, OSC is required to determine within 15 days whether there is a substantial likelihood the allegations constitute wrongdoing. If so, OSC sends the information to the head of the agency where the individual making the allegations works. The agency head must conduct an investigation and submit a written report to OSC. OSC is responsible for reviewing the agency’s report to determine whether the findings appear to be reasonable and whether the report contains all of the information required by statute. Unless the agency has found evidence of a criminal violation, OSC provides the whistleblower with a copy of the agency report for comment. OSC also investigates and prosecutes complaints about possible violations of the Hatch Act, which regulates the political activities of federal employees, District of Columbia employees, and certain state and local government employees employed in connection with programs financed by federal funds. OSC may seek corrective or disciplinary action in Hatch Act cases before the MSPB. OSC also issues advisory opinions to persons seeking advice about how certain kinds of political activity are treated under the Hatch Act. In addition, OSC investigates and prosecutes complaints under the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA) of 1994, which covers the employment rights of individuals serving in the uniformed military services. During each fiscal year, OSC receives new cases that are added to open cases from previous years, which equal the “total caseload inventory”. During the year, as OSC processes cases, the total caseload inventory decreases. At the end of the fiscal year, the agency has an “ending inventory”, which consists of pending cases (those that have not reached the applicable statutory limit for case processing) plus backlogged cases (those for which the applicable statutory limit for case processing has passed without the applicable determination being made). The ending inventory for one fiscal year becomes the beginning inventory for the following year. OSC’s authority comes from five federal statutes: the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, the Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989, the Hatch Act,Office of Special Counsel Reauthorization Act of 1994, and the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994,as described in table 1. OSC maintains its headquarters in Washington, D.C., and has field offices in Dallas, Texas, and Oakland, California. A Special Counsel appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate for a five-year term heads the agency. OSC is organized into five operating divisions and two administrative support branches. Appendix III discusses OSC’s organizational structure for its operating divisions and explains how those divisions process cases. Seventy-five percent of OSC’s new cases from fiscal year 1997 through 2003 consisted of prohibited personnel practices cases. Whistleblower disclosure cases represented approximately 18 percent of total new cases. The remaining approximately 6 percent were Hatch Act and USERRA cases. As shown in figure 2, the number of new prohibited personnel practices cases ranged from a low of 1,301 in fiscal year 2001 to a high of 1,969 in fiscal year 2000—a fluctuation of 51 percent. In fiscal year 2001, the number of new cases decreased sharply from the previous year. Excluding fiscal year 2001, however, the number of new prohibited personnel practices cases ranged from a low of 1,558 in fiscal year 2002 to a high of 1,969 in fiscal year 2000 – a fluctuation of 26 percent. Whistleblower disclosure cases steadily increased from fiscal year 1997 through 2000 (by about 37 percent, from 311 to 427) then dropped somewhat (about 11 percent) in fiscal year 2001, only to increase dramatically in fiscal year 2002 (about 46 percent) and decrease slightly in fiscal year 2003 (about 4 percent). OSC officials could not tell us with any certainty the reasons for the year-to- year fluctuations in prohibited personnel practices cases. They said increases may have resulted from outreach efforts by OSC to educate federal employees and others about their rights and the agency’s roles. As for the steep decline in prohibited personnel practices cases in fiscal year 2001, officials said it may have resulted from increased awareness by federal managers about OSC’s role and responsibilities, which may have led managers to consult more with personnel specialists to avoid actions that could have lead to a prohibited personnel practice. OSC officials expressed more certainty about the reasons for the fluctuation in whistleblower disclosure cases. Officials said the steady increase in such cases from fiscal year 1997 through 2000 may have been due to media coverage of several cases that brought attention to the agency and its role in handling these cases. OSC officials stated that the big jump in whistleblower disclosure cases in fiscal year 2002 was prompted, in part, by the terrorist events of September 11, 2001, after which the agency received more cases involving allegations of substantial and specific dangers to public health and safety and national security. OSC met the 240-day case processing statutory limit for about 77 percent of prohibited personnel practices cases from fiscal years 1997 through 2003 and met the 15-day statutory limit for whistleblower disclosure cases about 26 percent of the time. For prohibited personnel practices cases, the inability to process all new cases received each year in a timely manner meant that the annual number of backlogged cases was never below 29 percent and was as high as 44 percent. The percentage of whistleblower cases in backlog was always extremely high—95 to 97 percent. From fiscal year 1997 through 2003, OSC processed about 77 percent of prohibited personnel practices cases within the 240-day statutory limit. As shown in table 2, the number of cases processed within the limit decreased steadily from fiscal year 1998 through 2001 before increasing substantially in fiscal years 2002 and 2003. The total number of cases processed declined from fiscal year 1997 through 2000, and increased slightly each ensuing year. Nevertheless, in fiscal years 2002 and 2003, OSC’s improvement in both areas was still not as good as it had been in its best years—fiscal years 1998 and 1997, respectively. OSC did dramatically reduce the average processing time of a case in fiscal year 2002 (to 187 days) and fiscal year 2003 (to 135 days)—the best of the seven years. OSC’s efforts to process whistleblower disclosures cases were not as timely. From fiscal year 1997 through 2003, OSC met the 15-day statutory time limit for processing whistleblower disclosure cases 26 percent of the time. OSC’s average time to process a whistleblower disclosure case was more than six months for each of the seven years we examined. Of the 2,433 whistleblower disclosure cases that OSC processed during fiscal years 1997 through 2003, OSC found a “substantial likelihood” of wrongdoing for 86, or approximately 4 percent, and referred these cases to the head of the agency involved for investigation. In the remaining 96 percent of cases which were not referred to the agency head, OSC took no further action for reasons such as (1) lack of jurisdiction,(2) lack of sufficient information to make a substantial likelihood determination, (3) the complainant’s agency inspector general had already investigated the disclosure, or (4) the disclosure was minor, withdrawn, or duplicative. In addition, in cases where OSC concludes there is not a substantial likelihood of wrongdoing, with the consent of the whistleblower, OSC may transmit the information to the head of the agency where the complainant works. Congress has not established statutory limits for processing Hatch Act enforcement or USERRA cases. In fiscal year 2003, average processing time was 469 days for Hatch Act enforcement cases and 193 days for USERRA cases. OSC has established a standard of 30 days for processing Hatch Act advisory opinions. In fiscal year 2003, average time spent processing opinions was 106 days. As shown in table 4, the percentage of prohibited personnel practices cases in backlog fluctuated between 29 and 44 percent during the seven-year period. In fiscal year 1999, the number of cases processed declined by nearly 13 percent from the previous year. This decline, coupled with a nearly identical increase (nearly 14 percent) in cases received in fiscal year 2000, resulted in the large backlog of cases by the end of that year. The number of cases received in fiscal year 2001 dropped substantially from the previous year. While the number of cases processed in fiscal year 2001 was slightly higher than the previous year, the number of cases in backlog by the end of fiscal year 2001 increased from the previous year.