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Open Recommendations (1 total)

Whistleblowers: Office of Special Counsel Should Require Information on the Probationary Status of Whistleblowers

GAO-20-436
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Office of Special Counsel The Office of Special Counsel should require federal employees who are filing whistleblower disclosures or retaliation complaints to identify on their complaint forms their status as a permanent or probationary employee.
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Including a mandatory data field on its complaint and disclosure form (Form 14) that asks whether the complainant is currently a probationary employee would provide OSC or other entities the ability to analyze termination rates or other issues related to a whistleblower's probationary status. According to OSC , it has not changed its position and continues to believe, among other reasons cited in the subject report, that making employment status fields mandatory on its Form 14 is onerous and unnecessary and that singling out probationary status from the list seems arbitrary and incomplete. The agency has not altered its Form 14 intake form to capture the probationary status of the filer, and it does not foresee making any changes in the near future. We recommended that OSC collect more complete data so that OSC could, if it chose, do detailed analysis that it says could help determine the effect of probationary status on filers. Accordingly, we continue to believe that our recommendation for OSC to collect complete and accurate data on probationary status is warranted as such analysis is not possible without it. Further, we do not believe that changing a field from optional to mandatory would place an undue burden on filers or OSC. We will continue to monitor any efforts by OSC to implement the recommendation.
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