The Department of Defense is not positioned to assess
the effectiveness of its ethics program, according to a
report from the Government Accountability Office.
It said DoD delegates responsibility for ethics training,
employee conflict-of-interest-counseling and procurement
integrity rules to more than 2,000 counselors and that
while requirements vary, Defense “lacks the knowledge
needed to determine whether local efforts are meeting
the objectives of its ethics program,” because “it does
not systematically capture information” on those efforts.
Defense spent over $200 billion on goods and services
in fiscal 2004. Regulations require the department to
enforce ethics standards to ensure contracts are awarded
fairly and that personnel to not use acquisition knowledge
to personally profit — but according to GAO-05-341 “ethics
counselors were unable to say if those subject to
procurement integrity rules were trained.”
It said the metrics the DoD uses to assess its ethics
program – process indicators such as the number of people
filing financial disclosure forms or the number of
officials providing counseling, are insufficient.
The report also said ethics officials were unaware of 53
allegations of misconduct reported to inspector general
offices, and that while DoD has taken actions since
October 2004 to enhance its ethics program, without
knowledge of training, counseling and reported
allegations, it is unable to assess the effectiveness
of those efforts.
The report also said Defense has limited knowledge of
contractors’ efforts to promote ethics standards, and
that it has not evaluated contractor hiring practices
regarding current and former government employees,
noting that an independent review of a major contractor
found it relied excessively on employee self-monitoring.
