The Military Whistleblower Protection Act of 1988, as amended, and its implementing directive, Department of Defense Directive 7050.06, establish the basic concepts and framework for the investigative process and establish the roles and responsibilities of the various affected organizations. DODIG is the central organization for DOD’s military whistleblower reprisal program and has a directorate responsible for investigations into military whistleblower reprisal allegations. This directorate also conducts or oversees investigations into allegations of improper referrals of servicemembers for mental health evaluations and conducts investigations into reprisal allegations involving civilians, contractors, and nonappropriated fund employees, although historically military whistleblower reprisal cases make up approximately 80 percent of its caseload. Under the law, the service IGs and other DOD component IGs can also investigate military whistleblower reprisal allegations and make recommendations regarding the disposition of cases. However, DODIG is responsible for reviewing and approving the results of all investigations of military whistleblower reprisal allegations. DODIG publicly reports on its military whistleblower protection program activities in its required semiannual report to Congress, including consolidated data on all of the cases the reprisal directorate received and closed—numbers that include military whistleblower reprisal cases.description of some of the key organizations and individuals and their roles in the military whistleblower reprisal process can be found in table 1. DODIG has taken multiple steps, in collaboration with the service IGs in some instances, to improve DOD’s ability to process military whistleblower reprisal cases in a timely manner. However, DOD has generally not met statutory requirements to provide reports on completed investigations within 180 days of the date the allegation was made or alternatively, to provide notice to the complainant and the Secretary of Defense. The July 2009 Department of Justice IG report found that lingering investigations leave complainants without resolution to their concern and could hold up a potential promotion for a subject. In addition, DODIG’s May 2011 review of its military whistleblower reprisal process raised concerns that some complainants withdrew their cases because of the length of time it takes to complete investigations. Further, DOD’s efforts to improve processing time have been hindered by unreliable and incomplete data. Moreover, DODIG does not report data on timeliness in its semiannual reports, thereby limiting the information Congress could use to provide oversight of the military whistleblower reprisal program. DODIG and the service IGs have faced challenges to processing military whistleblower reprisal cases in a timely manner which they attribute to staffing shortages and process inefficiencies. Although DODIG has taken multiple steps, in collaboration with the service IGs in some instances, to improve processing time, these efforts have not yet resulted in meeting the statutory requirement to provide reports on completed investigations within 180 days of the date the allegation was made.challenge and an important factor in completing quality investigations because, without timely resolutions, the reliability of evidence could suffer, and the careers of both the complainants and subjects could be negatively impacted. Timeliness is a key DOD Directive 7050.06 addresses the need to conduct investigations expeditiously. Officials at DODIG and the service IGs stated that staffing levels are a key factor in determining the timely processing of reprisal cases. According to DODIG, the military whistleblower reprisal caseload has grown significantly since the enactment of the Military Whistleblower Protection Act, and staffing has not kept up with the increased caseload. Further, service IG officials told us that DODIG’s review of service investigations can be slow because of understaffing. DODIG has taken action on this issue, increasing the staffing of its whistleblower reprisal directorate from 17 staff in fiscal year 2006 to 30 staff in fiscal year 2011 to accommodate the increased caseload. In January 2012, DOD’s Acting Inspector General authorized a further increase of staff for its whistleblower reprisal directorate from 30 to 42 (see fig. 3 for staffing at DODIG from fiscal years 2006 through 2011). Some service IG officials also indicated that staffing shortages are a factor in their ability to process cases in a timely manner. In a December 2011 letter, the DOD Inspector General asked the secretaries of the military departments to consider favorably any requests from the service IGs to increase their staffing in order to deal with the increased number of whistleblower reprisal cases. DODIG has also undertaken multiple efforts to reform its investigative process to improve timeliness. For example, in late 2010, DODIG eliminated an investigative phase which required formal reports that recommended whether or not a case should be fully investigated. Earlier that year, DODIG eliminated the committee charged with reviewing and approving whether cases should be fully investigated. DODIG also changed its process for taking in complaints. The Defense Hotlineto document the original complaint, gather additional information from complainants, and send it to the directorate at DODIG responsible for used military whistleblower reprisal investigations. The Defense Hotline also was responsible for communicating with complainants if their cases were determined not to be whistleblower reprisal cases. Now the Defense Hotline passes the reprisal allegation to the directorate at DODIG responsible for military whistleblower reprisal investigations and investigators from that directorate establish direct contact with the complainant to assess the validity of the reprisal allegation(s). DODIG officials stated this new intake process is faster and increases the quality of the investigations because experienced reprisal investigators are in charge of information gathering. DODIG also started testing a new approach in evidence gathering to determine whether it can close cases more quickly. The 2009 Department of Justice IG report recommended that DODIG consider whether it should take responsibility for conducting the initial review for the incoming complaints from all of the services, not just those from the Army. In its October 2011 action plan, DODIG stated it would assess how well the service IGs are performing intake of reprisal complaints in late fiscal year 2012 and that DODIG would evaluate the Department of Justice IG recommendation that DODIG consider conducting initial reviews of all service reprisal complaints after it has implemented some of its other reforms. investigations would suffer.affirmed its decision to end the agreement with the Army. However, in December 2011, DODIG Although DODIG has undertaken these and other efforts to improve its timeliness, it has generally not been completing investigations within the 180-day time frame provided by law. From our analysis of a random sample of 91 cases closed between January 1, 2009 through March 31, 2011, we estimate that 70 percent of the cases were not completed within 180 days; moreover, we estimated that it took DOD a mean of 451 days (+/- 94 days) to process the cases. Our random sample included a subset of 61 inquiries closed before full investigation, which took a mean of 469 days to close, and a subset of 28 full investigations, which took a mean of 395 days to close. investigative phase. Although case processing time for the full sample is generalizable, it is not generalizable for any subset. Additionally, the case processing time data reported for the two investigative phase subsets are based on 89 of the 91 cases we analyzed. For the investigative phase subsets, we excluded 2 additional cases because we could not identify the investigative phase in which they were closed based on the evidence in the case file. For the subset of inquiries closed before full investigation, the median days to close a case was 249, with a range from 14 to 2,215 days. For full investigations, the median days to close a case was 349, with a range from 51 to 1,181 days. Our random sample of 91 cases (out of a total of 871 cases closed during this time period) included 61 inquiries closed before full investigation and 28 cases closed after a full investigation. We were unable to determine the investigative phase in which 2 cases were closed. Although data from the full sample are representative within the given parameters, any subset of these data cannot be assumed to be representative. That is, data specific to the cases closed before full investigation and the data specific to full investigation are not generalizable and apply only to the actual cases reviewed. In addition to not completing investigations in 180 days in most cases, DOD has not complied with the statutory reporting requirement to provide notification in those instances where the investigations go beyond 180 days, although it is taking steps to do so. The Military Whistleblower Protection Act requires the IG investigating an allegation of reprisal to submit to the Secretary of Defense and the complainant a notice if it cannot provide a report on the completed investigation within 180 days of the date the allegation was made to an IG in DOD. The notice should include the reason for the delay and an expected completion date for the investigation. DODIG officials acknowledged that they and the services had not been making the required notifications. The officials stated they used to submit these reports to the Secretary of Defense, but stopped doing so at some point because they were told by officials at the office receiving the notifications that they did not know what to do with the information. Because this notification is not being provided, as required by statute, the Secretary of Defense has had reduced visibility of cases that exceed the investigative time limit, and complainants have not been receiving information regarding their cases to which the law entitles them. During the course of our review, DODIG changed its practice and started reporting this information in October 2011. According to its October 2011 action plan, DODIG is taking steps to ensure that it and the service IGs follow the statutory reporting requirements.