Report Contents
What OIG Inspected
OIG inspected the executive direction, policy implementation and knowledge management, statutory and regulatory reporting responsibilities, resource management, and information management operations at the Bureau of Legislative Affairs.
What OIG Recommends
OIG made 14 recommendations to the Bureau of Legislative Affairs.
In its comments on the draft report, the Department concurred with all 14 recommendations. OIG considers all 14 recommendations resolved. The Bureau of Legislative Affairs’ response to each recommendation, and OIG’s reply, can be found in the Recommendations section of this report. The bureau’s formal written response is reprinted in its entirety in Appendix B.
What OIG Found
- The Bureau of Legislative Affairs delivered results on high priority foreign policy objectives but struggled to accomplish more routine tasks.
- The bureau’s organizational structure was not well aligned with operational needs and impeded its mission.
- Bureau leadership and supervisors did not effectively address inappropriate workplace behavior or consistently hold employees accountable.
- The Bureau of Legislative Affairs lacked effective processes to identify and mitigate internal control risks and failed to conduct annual strategic reviews.
- The bureau lacked a comprehensive knowledge management system, which contributed to problems in efficiently tracking communications and meeting congressionally mandated reporting deadlines.
- The Executive Office did not record and track service requests or administrative support and lacked standards for response times to service requests.
- The bureau did not follow Department of State procedures for software application development.
- Spotlights on Success: The Bureau of Legislative Affairs effectively coordinated with Congress to repatriate more than 101,000 American citizens and legal permanent residents during the first 6 months of the COVID-19 pandemic. It also successfully worked with the Department and other U.S. Government agencies to advance support for human rights and democracy in Hong Kong. Finally, the bureau effectively coordinated more than 600 congressional trips in FY 2019, a 50 percent increase since FY 2012.
Report Terms
Report Recommendations
The Bureau of Legislative Affairs, in coordination with the Bureau of Global Talent Management, should conduct an organizational assessment to clarify staff roles and responsibilities and bureau organizational structure, and align them with bureau operational needs.
The Bureau of Legislative Affairs should implement a system to identify and mitigate on a continuous basis the internal control risks to its programs and processes, in accordance with Department guidance.
The Bureau of Legislative Affairs should develop and implement an action plan to fully comply with Department policies related to threatening behavior.
The Bureau of Legislative Affairs should develop and implement a plan for all employees to comply with Department mandatory training requirements for harassment prevention, supervision, and retaliation-related courses.
The Bureau of Legislative Affairs should involve its employees in developing the Functional Bureau Strategy and brief them on the final product to establish organizational understanding of its mission, goals, objectives, resource requirements, and milestones, in accordance with Department guidance.
The Bureau of Legislative Affairs should submit an updated evaluation plan for its major processes to the Bureau of Budget and Planning and implement a performance management plan to measure organizational progress toward its strategic goals and objectives, in accordance with Department standards.
The Bureau of Legislative Affairs, in coordination with the Executive Secretariat, should reassume management of congressionally mandated reports and implement process improvements to prevent a backlog of the reports in the future, in accordance with Department guidance.
The Bureau of Legislative Affairs should address gaps in the correspondence tracking system’s functionality, and develop and implement a standard operating procedure, including well-defined process timelines, in order to meet Department requirements for correspondence response times.
The Bureau of Legislative Affairs should implement a bureau-wide records management program and issue guidance for creating, maintaining, and retiring official bureau files and records, in accordance with Department guidance.
The Bureau of Legislative Affairs should establish and implement written service standards for the management services and administrative support provided by the Office of the Executive Director, including a system to record and monitor its services.
The Bureau of Legislative Affairs should perform periodic assessments of its management services and administrative support and regularly communicate the results to bureau staff.
The Bureau of Legislative Affairs should develop and implement a formal bureau-wide training policy and plan, in accordance with Department standards.
The Bureau of Legislative Affairs should implement standard operating procedures for disseminating Executive Office policies and notices, including a periodic review of policies and the use of a central repository for all such communications.
The Bureau of Legislative Affairs should implement the Managing State Projects methodology when developing MyData applications, in accordance with Department standards.