The Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute (Statute) includes a congressional finding that labor organizations and collective bargaining in the civil service are in the public interest because they contribute to effectively conducting public business, among other things. The Statute allows for the use of official time, and while federal employees are not required to join a union, the union must represent all employees in a bargaining unit, regardless of whether they are dues- paying members of the union. Employees on official time are treated as if they are in a duty status when they are engaging in union representational activities, and they are paid accordingly. The Statute provides a legal basis for the current federal labor and management relations program and establishes two sources of official time. Official time for negotiation of a collective bargaining agreement, attendance at impasse proceedings, and authorized participation in proceedings before the Federal Labor Relations Authority, is provided as a statutory right. Official time for other purposes allowed under the Statute must be negotiated between the agency and the union in an agreed-upon amount deemed reasonable, necessary, and in the public interest. Accordingly, collective bargaining agreements often include provisions concerning the conditions for granting official time. Agencies and unions can negotiate at the department, component, operating administration, or facility level, for example, and there can be variation in how official time is managed within an agency. Activities that relate to internal union business, such as the solicitation of members or the election of union officials, must be performed when in a non-duty status; that is, not on official time. VA has negotiated master CBAs with five national unions. These agreements negotiated between VA and the unions contain provisions by which VA manages official time. As we previously reported, one approach used by VA to manage official time is to specify the percentage or number of hours authorized for a designated union position, such as the President, Vice-President, Secretary, or Treasurer. Time specified for designated positions in CBAs is typically characterized as a percentage of an employee’s total time, such as 50 or 100. Certain CBAs negotiated between VA and unions provide for at least one union official to charge up to 100 percent of their duty hours to official time. In addition to official time, unions may negotiate to receive other support from agencies, such as office space, supplies, and equipment. CBAs negotiated between VA and unions typically include information on accessibility, privacy, and size of unions’ designated space at VA facilities. Since fiscal year 2002, OPM has annually produced reports on the government-wide use of official time, with its most recent report covering fiscal year 2012. OPM officials stated that it is not required to report official time, and has no statutory or regulatory role for monitoring or enforcing agencies’ use of official time. However, there have been various legislative proposals over the years to require OPM to report official time. In its reporting of official time, OPM relies on federal agencies to verify the accuracy of the data provided. According to OPM, there is no uniform requirement concerning the degree and specificity of records kept for tracking and recording official time. However, OPM encourages labor and management to record official time data in the following categories for union representational activities and includes this information in its annual reports: (1) term negotiations; (2) mid-term negotiations; (3) general labor-management relations; and (4) dispute resolution. See figure 1 for examples of union representational activities as they relate to these categories. In reporting on the use of official time within federal agencies, OPM has noted that agency management and labor share a responsibility to ensure official time is authorized and used appropriately, and that the amount of official time used by agencies can depend on a number of factors, such as the timing of term negotiations, number of grievances, number of bargaining unit employees, and involvement of unions in labor management decisions. There is no standardized way for VA facilities to record the amount of official time employees use for representational activities because there are currently two time and attendance systems being used across the agency that capture this information differently. VA began implementing its new time and attendance system, the Veterans Affairs Time and Attendance System (VATAS), at some facilities in 2013 to replace its older system, the Enhanced Time and Attendance (ETA) System. VA expects to complete its rollout of VATAS in July 2018. According to a VA official, approximately 50 percent of VA facilities and about one-third of VA employees (120,000) had transitioned to using VATAS as of September 2016. For the five selected facilities we visited, three had transitioned to VATAS and two were still using ETA at the time of our visits. VATAS provides specific codes for timekeepers to record the various uses of official time for union representational activities, but according to VA officials, ETA lacks such codes. Under ETA, VA officials explained that timekeepers can record the amount of official time used by employees for representational activities in the remarks section of employees’ time and attendance records, which according to VA officials, does not always make clear the purpose for which official time is being used. While VATAS and ETA provide a means to record official time, we found that three of the selected facilities did not record official time in either of these systems. Two selected facilities under VATAS recorded information on the use of official time outside of the time and attendance system, and one facility under ETA did not record the information anywhere. Although the remaining two facilities recorded information in their time and attendance system, they recorded different information in different ways. The inconsistent recording of information raises questions about VA’s ability to monitor the use of official time and ensure that public resources are being used effectively. However, VATAS could help standardize the way individual facilities record information on official time and improve VA’s ability to monitor its use. VATAS could help standardize the way individual facilities record information on official time and provide better information on the different purposes for which official time is used; however, we found that VA has not provided consistent training to employees on how to record official time in the new system. The lack of consistent training on how to record official time in VATAS is due in part to the fact that VATAS is being implemented in phases and training is being updated throughout the course of implementation. For example, a VA official told us that information on how to record official time was incorporated into the VATAS training curriculum in June 2016. However, VATAS implementation began in 2013, and employees trained on VATAS prior to June 2016 may not have been instructed on how to record official time in the system. For instance, timekeepers and other officials from the three selected facilities that had implemented VATAS prior to June 2016 said that recording official time was not covered during their VATAS training and these facilities were not using the codes in VATAS to record official time because they were not aware of them. As a result, these facilities continued to use different approaches to record official time and documented different information. According to federal internal control standards, management should internally communicate quality information that enables personnel to perform key roles, and it should provide appropriate training to personnel so they may carry out their responsibilities. Without effectively providing guidance on how to record official time in VATAS, personnel responsible for recording and overseeing its use may not know how to perform certain duties, and VA is missing an opportunity to more accurately track the amount of official time used by employees across the agency to better monitor its use and manage its resources effectively. VA took several steps in 2016 to provide better guidance to facilities on how to record official time in VATAS, including: updating VATAS training curriculum for timekeepers and supervisors to include face-to-face training on official time at facilities where VATAS is being implemented; making information on how to record official time available on the VA discussing how to record official time during a monthly “VATAS Connections” call with payroll offices. Despite VA’s recent efforts, however, as of October 2016 two of the three selected facilities using VATAS at the time of our visits were still not using the different official time codes in VATAS for recording official time. An official from VA’s Financial Services Center (FSC) said that FSC is producing a timekeeper refresher training video to help ensure timekeepers are aware of the most recent changes in VATAS, including instructions on recording official time, and hopes to complete the video by the end of November 2016. To provide agency-wide official time data to OPM, which reports on the use of official time for representational activities government-wide, VA’s Office of Labor-Management Relations (LMR) annually collects and compiles data from individual facilities and shares the aggregated data with OPM. VA’s Office of LMR uses its LMR Official Time Tracking System to obtain information from individual facilities on the amount of official time used by employees. The LMR system is separate and distinct from VA’s time and attendance systems and provides the Office of LMR with a centralized way of collecting official time data from individual facilities. The Office of LMR sends an email each year to facilities with a link to access the LMR system, and a management representative at each facility manually enters information on the use of official time into the LMR system. The actual amount of official time used by employees across VA cannot be easily determined because VA offers facilities various options for calculating and reporting official time data in the LMR system. Federal internal control standards prescribe that management design control activities so that events are completely and accurately recorded and that it communicate reliable information to external entities, such as OPM, to help the agency achieve its objectives. VA allows facilities to use written records, estimates, samples, or surveys of official time hours used, or any combination of these methods to determine the amount of official time used by employees at their facility.