FEMA needs to improve its implementation of a "remedial action management program" to identify lessons learned and best practices, the DHS inspector general has said in a program audit.
The program is intended to identify operational and programmatic issues, lessons learned, and best practices encountered during federal disaster response and recovery operations and exercises, manage the subsequent remediation of issues, and distribute lessons learned and best practices.
The IG called on FEMA to conduct an after-action review for every disaster to identify lessons learned and best practices, and develop guidance on how to do so effectively.
According to the audit, officials distributed lessons learned and best practices to more personnel than what was required by program policy, but distribution was still limited to the program’s database users, averaging 70 users.
While program officials said those users served as organizational points of contact and disseminated the information to others, FEMA lost access to program data last May due to a server failure. While they were able to recover the data, they have not restored software needed to read it, the audit said.
The IG called on FEMA to enforce the plan’s policy of conducting after-action reviews; Require division directors to appoint review facilitators; develop guidance on how to produce concise lessons-learned and best practices documents; develop archiving policies; and, distribute program status reports to senior management.
