The federal EEO complaint process consists of two stages, informal, or precomplaint counseling, and formal. Appendix II contains information on EEO laws applicable to federal employees. Under existing regulations, before filing a complaint, an employee must consult an EEO counselor at the agency in order to try to informally resolve the matter. The employee must contact an EEO counselor within 45 days of the matter alleged to be discriminatory or, in the case of a personnel action, within 45 days of the effective date of the action. Counselors are to advise individuals that when the agency agrees to offer alternative dispute resolution (ADR) in the particular case, they may choose to participate in either counseling or in ADR. Counseling is to be completed within 30 days from the date the employee contacted the EEO office unless the employee and agency agree to an extension of up to an additional 60 days. If ADR is chosen, the parties have 90 days in which to attempt resolution. If the matter is not resolved within these time frames, the counselor is required to inform the employee in writing of his or her right to file a formal discrimination complaint with the agency. After a complainant files a formal discrimination complaint, the agency must decide whether to accept or dismiss the complaint and notify the complainant. If the agency dismisses the complaint, the complainant has 30 days to appeal the dismissal to EEOC. If the agency accepts the complaint, it has 180 days to investigate the accepted complaint from the date the complaint was filed and provide the complainant with a copy of the investigative file. Within 30 days of receipt of the copy of the investigative file, the complainant must choose between requesting (1) a hearing and decision from an AJ or (2) a final decision from the agency. When a hearing is not requested, the agency must issue a final agency decision (FAD) within 60 days on the merits of a complaint. A complainant may appeal an agency’s final decision to EEOC within 30 days of receiving the final decision. In cases where a hearing is requested, the complaint is assigned to an EEOC AJ, and the AJ has 180 days to issue a decision and send the decision to the complainant and the agency. If the AJ issues a finding of discrimination, he or she is to order appropriate relief. After the AJ decision is issued, the agency has 40 days to issue a final order notifying the complainant whether the agency will fully implement the decision of the AJ, after which the employee has 30 days to file an appeal with EEOC of the agency’s final order. If the agency issues an order notifying the complainant that the agency will not fully implement the decision of the AJ, the agency also must file an appeal with EEOC at the same time. Following an appeal decision, both the complainant and the agency have 30 days in which to request reconsideration of EEOC’s appeal decision. Decisions on appeals are issued by EEOC’s Office of Federal Operations (OFO), on behalf of the commission. A complainant may file a civil action in federal district court at various points during and after the administrative process. The filing of a civil action will terminate the ongoing administrative processing of the complaint. A complainant may file a civil action within 90 days of receiving the agency’s final decision or order or EEOC’s final decision. A complainant may also file a civil action after 180 days from filing a complaint with his or her agency or after filing an appeal with EEOC, if no final action or decision has been made. Figure 1 shows the EEO complaint process. In addition to regulations governing the EEO complaint process, EEOC has issued guidance in the form of management directives (MD) to help agencies process complaints and create a model EEO program. MD-110, revised in November 1999, provides federal agencies with policies, procedures, and guidance relating to processing EEO complaints, including, among other things, the authority of the EEO director and the director’s reporting relationship to the agency head, mandatory training requirements for EEO counselors and investigators, procedures for counseling and ADR, and the role of the AJ. In 2003, EEOC issued MD-715 which, among other things, establishes requirements for federal a gencies to create model EEO programs, including guidance for proactive prevention of unlawful discrimination. Under MD-715, each agency is to have an efficient and fair dispute resolution process and effective systems for evaluating the impact and effectiveness of its EEO program and us e a complaint tracking and monitoring system that permits the agency to identify the location, status, and length of time elapsed at each stage of the process and othe r information necessary to analyze complaint activity and identify trends. Among other requirements, EEOC regulations generally provide that agencies are to complete investigations of formal complaints within 180 days of their receipt and issue FADs within 60 days for those cases where a hearing is not requested. When a hearing is requested, AJs are to issue decisions within 180 days of receiving the complaint files from an agency. EEOC regulations do not set time frames for resolving appeals, but in its most recent strategic plan, EEOC has set an annual performance measure thin that by 2012 70 percent of federal sector appeals are to be resolved wi180 days. From fiscal years 2005 through 2007, appeals closures have averaged from 194 to 230 days. Table 1 shows that although federal agencies have made improvements in the time it takes to process formal EEO complaints, they are still not meeting the deadlines in regulation. The table includes data from EEOC’s annual reports on the federal workfo on average processing days for investigations and FADs on merits of complaints, both including the U.S. Postal Service—which has the larges number of EEO complaints—and without it, because the Postal Service complaint volume affects average processing times. These data show in fiscal year 2007, the Postal Service completed investigations in an average of 106 days and FADs in 28 days. Table 1 also shows average that processing days for EEOC hearings decisions, which on average have exceeded requirements. When asked to identify factors that impeded the prompt, fair, and impartial processing of EEO complaints at their agencies and describe how those factors impeded the process, selected EEO practitioners provided hundreds of responses. Because these practitioners represent different parts of the complaint process and some of the practitioners may only be familiar with their part of the process, we could not tally the number of responses under each factor. While recognizing that the factors the practitioners identified are not necessarily discrete, we analyzed and grouped them into eight broad categories of factors and then asked those same EEO practitioners to rank them in terms of their importance for improving the federal EEO complaint process. These factors and their rankings are (1) lack of accountability on the part of some agency management officials and EEO practitioners in carrying out their responsibilities; (2) insufficient resources for some agency EEO offices and EEOC to fulfill their responsibilities; (3) lack of independence concerning the potential conflict of having agencies conduct their own EEO complaint investigations and the undue influence of some agency legal counsel and human resources officials on the EEO process; (4) insufficient knowledge and skills by some agency officials, complainants, and EEO practitioners to fulfill their responsibilities; (5) lack of authority by some EEO officials to dismiss cases that have no merit and lack of subpoena power by EEOC AJs; (6) lack of clarity in regulation and some guidance and consistent decisions from EEOC; (7) lack of effective communication by some EEO practitioners of relevant oral and written information to participants in the process and that ADR (e.g., conciliation, facilitation, or mediation) is available; and (8) lack of a firm commitment by some agency management and EEO officials to the EEO process. In our discussions with stakeholders, they generally concurred with these eight factors. In addition, a few stakeholders identified the perception of unfairness as an overarching theme. These stakeholders commented that without the perception that the complaint process is fair, people may be frustrated and choose to not participate in it. We discussed with these stakeholders that fairness is indeed one of the goals of the EEO complaints process, along with promptness and impartiality. The perception that the system is not fair, among other issues, has led to calls for reform and is directly related to our effort in this review to identify factors that need to be addressed. We agree that this concern is important and believe it has been accounted for within the context of the discussion on factors related to accountability; independence; and clarity in regulation, guidance, and consistent EEOC decisions. The eight factors are consistent with concerns raised previously about problems with the federal sector EEO complaint process. For example, in November 2002, EEOC held an open meeting to address issues with the EEO complaint process amid concerns from stakeholders representing both complainants and federal agencies that the process is “much too slow, far too expensive, unnecessarily cumbersome, and given to potential conflicts of interest.” In March 2003, a coalition of civil rights employee advocates and other stakeholder groups submitted a seven-step proposal to EEOC commissioners to improve the federal sector EEO complaint process. This proposal included steps to make ADR mandatory for managers in the informal and formal stages of the administrative process and have EEO directors report directly to the agency head, and a recommendation that EEOC adopt a uniform standard for what states a claim of employment discrimination. Additionally, in September 2006, the commission held a meeting where stakeholders discussed the practices that work in obtaining a timely, thorough, and complete investigation as well as the barriers that prevent such investigations. One issue raised in that meeting was the lack of consequences (related to accountability) for agencies that do not comply with the 180-day requirement to complete investigations. A commissioner noted that a double standard exists, because a complaint would be dismissed if a complainant missed any of the deadlines. The quality of investigations was another issue—for both in- house and contract investigations. One participant stated that clear benchmarks need to exist with respect to the quality of the report of investigation, noting that in the end a poor investigation hurts the agency as well as the employee.