The Defense Department has created a new program executive
office to design and implement the new “national security
personnel system” for DoD, a further sign of shifting
responsibility for the system, which already is
controversial even though it is many months from
implementation.
Heading the new office on an interim basis is Pete Brown,
executive director of the Naval Sea Systems Command, who
led one of the teams formed to conduct an internal review
of how the planning was progressing. That review led,
among other things, to a decision to issue the revised
policies as formal regulations co-signed by the Office of
Personnel Management–rather than as internal DoD policy
guidance–and to slow down the transition to the new
system by specifying that rules on the labor-management
aspects won’t come out until at least November and rules
on other aspects until two months later.
Until the realignment, much of the preparation work had
been done in the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
However, after draft policies on labor-management
relations and employee appeal rights were released and
set off a firestorm of criticism from federal unions and
from some on Capitol Hill, DoD appointed Navy Secretary
Gordon England to head up the project–a shift in
responsibility from OSD to the military services. Under
the program executive office are two main divisions, one
focusing on labor relations and the appeals process and
the other on human resources and pay-for-performance,
with the head of the former coming from OSD and the head
of the latter coming from the Army.
The office, which is expected to eventually have more
than 60 employees, has as one of its initial tasks to
formalize the processes and the collaboration with unions,
OPM and other parties.
