GAO told the House Armed Services Committee recently that DoD should improve safeguards tied to the National Security Personnel System ratings process to help with employee acceptance.
It said DoD does not require a third party to analyze rating results for anomalies prior to finalizing ratings and recommended that DoD require pre-decisional demographic and other analysis. DoD disagreed, saying a post-decisional analysis is more useful.
NSPS guidance may discourage rating officials from making meaningful distinctions in employee ratings because it indicated that the majority of employees should be rated at the "3" level, on a scale of 1 to 5, resulting in a hesitancy to award ratings in other categories, according to GAO-09-464T.
GAO called on DoD to encourage pay pools and supervisors to use all categories of ratings as appropriate, something DoD concurred with though it has yet to take action to implement it.
A DoD survey found that employees who had the most experience under NSPS showed a negative movement in their perceptions of the system. The percent of NSPS employees who believe that NSPS will have a positive effect on DoD’s personnel practices declined from an estimated 40 percent in 2006 to 23 percent in 2007, GAO noted.
DoD recently halted further expansion of NSPS pending a review. The American Federation of Government Employees however told the committee that DoD continues to place new employees in the system, partly as a result of base realignment and closures.
AFGE further called for scrapping the system completely, saying that despite changes enacted last year, it believes that NSPS "will continue to restrict civilian employee protections and promote favoritism."
