Consumer Product Safety Commission: Actions Needed to Improve Processes for Addressing Product Defect Cases
Fast Facts
The Consumer Product Safety Commission is responsible for ensuring the safety of consumer products ranging from children's toys to off-road vehicles.
We found ways the Commission could improve its response to product hazards. This includes:
Developing policies for prioritizing new cases based on potential risk to consumers and other factors
Exploring measures that can provide a more comprehensive assessment of recall effectiveness
Establishing policies to better manage the timeliness of its response to product hazards
We made 5 recommendations to address these and other issues.
Highlights
What GAO Found
The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has recently taken steps intended to strengthen its processes for addressing consumer product defect cases, such as by developing a web portal to facilitate firms' participation in its Fast Track program for expedited recalls. However, GAO found several areas in which CPSC could improve how it responds to consumer product hazards:
Prioritizing resources. CPSC does not follow steps described in its procedures for prioritizing resources for newly opened cases based on the potential risk to consumer safety associated with a product. Establishing and following specific procedures for prioritizing new cases based on relevant case-specific factors, such as the potential risk to consumer safety, could help ensure CPSC staff consistently allocate staff resources to cases based on these factors. CPSC staff conduct “recall effectiveness checks,” such as by confirming that recalled products were removed from shelves and that appropriate signage was placed in stores for consumers to see. However, GAO found that CPSC does not consistently assign more checks to higher-risk recalls. By developing more formal written procedures on how to determine how many checks to assign, CPSC could provide staff with tools to more effectively prioritize resources to higher-risk cases.
Ensuring compliance with reporting requirements. CPSC does not centrally track whether firms undertaking recalls have submitted required monthly progress reports. GAO found that only 61 percent of firms had submitted their progress reports more than 75 percent of the time for recalls closed between February 2016 and May 2020. Taking steps to ensure firms' compliance with the monthly reporting requirement could improve CPSC's ability to monitor the status of product recalls.
Measuring recall effectiveness. CPSC uses one performance metric to assess the effectiveness of recalls—the correction rate. This metric represents the proportion of product units recalled that have been refunded, replaced, or repaired. However, using a single measure may not allow CPSC to accurately gauge the effectiveness of all its recalls—for example, for cheap products consumers may simply throw away (rather than seek a refund or replacement) in response to the recall. Using additional performance measures could help CPSC more accurately assess the effectiveness of product recalls.
Managing timeliness. CPSC uses the same timeliness goals for all of its product defect cases, although complex cases take significantly longer. These timeliness goals do not account for the significant variability in how long it takes staff to conduct key stages of a product defect investigation. As a result, CPSC's timeliness goals for certain stages of product defect cases may not be an effective tool for managing more complex cases.
Why GAO Did This Study
CPSC is responsible for ensuring the safety of thousands of consumer products ranging from children's toys to off-road recreational vehicles.
GAO was asked to review CPSC's processes for addressing product safety hazards. Among other objectives, this report examines the extent to which CPSC has (1) taken steps to prioritize and address product safety hazards in a timely and efficient manner; (2) overseen firms' compliance with corrective action plans and taken steps to address noncompliance; and (3) taken steps to assess the effectiveness of different types of corrective actions.
GAO reviewed CPSC policies and procedures, prior GAO reports, and other published studies. GAO also interviewed CPSC commissioners and staff, legal experts, and representatives from consumer and industry organizations.
Recommendations
GAO is making five recommendations to CPSC to improve its processes for prioritizing resources, overseeing firms' compliance, measuring recall effectiveness, and managing the timeliness of product defect cases. CPSC generally agreed with GAO's findings and said it supported the recommendations.
Recommendations for Executive Action
| Agency Affected | Recommendation | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Consumer Product Safety Commission | CPSC's Assistant Executive Director of the Office of Compliance and Field Operations should establish a policy or procedure that sets forth specific steps CPSC staff should take to manage timeliness for product defect cases with varying characteristics. As CPSC develops this policy or procedure, CPSC should consider whether updates or revisions are needed to existing timeliness goals to make them more useful for the purpose of managing the timeliness of cases with varying characteristics. (Recommendation 1) |
in August 2022, CPSC issued a standard operating procedure (SOP) that provides guidance to staff on criteria for assigning the priority designations and directed staff to enter the designations into a tracking tool. The SOP also provided general guidance on how staff resources should be assigned to product defect cases based on the priority designation. In June 2023, CPSC added additional steps to the SOP for CPSC staff to take to manage timeliness for product safety cases of varying timeframes. Specifically, CPSC added steps for staff to take to regularly conduct a "Priority Matter Timeliness Assessment." Conducting this assessment includes CPSC staff generating a monthly report to CPSC managers of all matters open for 180 days or more with the two highest priority designations. The CPSC managers then review this report and for cases on the report can recommend changes that can promote more timely resolution, such as recommending new deadlines and timeframes be incorporated into the case's investigatory plan or providing additional staff resources to the case. By implementing a procedure that sets forth specific steps CPSC staff and managers should take to manage timeliness for product defect cases, CPSC will be better positioned to identify opportunities to promote timely resolution of product defect cases with different characteristics.
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| Consumer Product Safety Commission | CPSC's Assistant Executive Director of the Office of Compliance and Field Operations should develop and follow a documented policy or procedure for prioritizing resources based on case-specific factors, such as the potential risk to consumer safety associated with a product. This policy or procedure should include specific steps staff should take to prioritize resources to cases based on factors such as likelihood and severity of harm or number of injuries related to the product hazard. (Recommendation 2) |
As of May 2022, CPSC had created a new tracking tool that (1) incorporates four levels of prioritization designations assigned to each open product defect case and (2) maintains those matters on a list to be regularly reviewed by CPSC managers. In addition, in August 2022, CPSC issued a new standard operating procedure (SOP) that provides guidance to staff on criteria for assigning the priority designations and directed staff to enter the designations into the tracking tool. The SOP also provides general guidance on how staff resources should be assigned to product defect cases based on the priority designation. For example, for cases with the highest priority designation, it directs responsible CPSC compliance staff to provide the highest investigation priority. Additionally, the SOP notes that CPSC managers are to regularly monitor the tracking tool to ensure that higher prioritization matters receive priority resources and proceed in a timely manner. These procedures will help to ensure that the agency assigns matters for substantial product hazard investigations in a manner that timely allocates resources based on prioritization designation criteria.
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| Consumer Product Safety Commission | CPSC's Assistant Executive Director of the Office of Compliance and Field Operations should develop procedures for how compliance officers should determine how many recall effectiveness checks to assign to recalls based on risk factors, such as product volume and injuries. (Recommendation 3) |
In January 2021, CPSC issued guidance for recall verification activities that included descriptions of the verification assignment guidelines, processes, and review procedures. The guidance directed compliance officers on how to determine how many recall effectiveness checks to assign based on the number of units and sellers and hazard risk level. The guidance provides CPSC compliance officers with a tool to more effectively prioritize resources and to more closely monitor cases that are higher risk.
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| Consumer Product Safety Commission | CPSC's Assistant Executive Director of the Office of Compliance and Field Operations should systematically track the global submission of recalling firms' monthly progress reports to better identify and address firms' noncompliance with the submission requirements and to improve CPSC's ability to monitor the status of product recalls. (Recommendation 4) |
In April 2022, using its Dynamic Case Management (DCM) system CPSC began running a monthly report to track firms' submissions of the monthly progress reports. CPSC noted that this monthly report helps track overdue or missing monthly progress reports. In addition, in April 2022, on a trial basis, CPSC began implementing a new process for handling overdue monthly progress reports. In fiscal year 2023, CPSC issued standard operating procedures that memorialize this process. These procedures define specific steps and timeframes for CPSC staff to identify and follow up on overdue reports by contacting firms to bring them into compliance. By helping to ensure better compliance with the monthly reporting requirement, these procedures will help CPSC to better track the status and effectiveness of recalls.
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| Consumer Product Safety Commission | CPSC's Assistant Executive Director of the Office of Compliance and Field Operations should explore measures of recall effectiveness to use in addition to correction rate, which could provide for a more comprehensive assessment of the effectiveness of recalls. (Recommendation 5) |
CPSC has explored additional measures of recall effectiveness related to post-recall incidents and consumer awareness of the recall. First, in May 2022, CPSC described its efforts to assess the utility of using post-recall incident data as a measure. Specifically, using data submitted by firms as part of their required reports on recalls, CPSC compiled data on post-recall injuries and deaths. Because these data don't necessarily indicate whether a hazard pattern was associated with a particular recall, CPSC staff determined that they could not support new measures of recall effectiveness. However, CPSC plans to continue to monitor these data as part of assessing the need for post-recall action. In March 2023, CPSC shared plans to track measures related to consumer awareness of a recall. Also using data firms submit in their recall progress reports, CPSC said it plans to measure the number of visits to the firm's recall webpage as an indicator of how many consumers are aware of the recall. In addition, CPSC has begun to develop a measure of rate of visitation by dividing the webpage visits by the number of recalled products. This will produce a measure that is more comparable across recalls of varying sizes. By tracking additional measures of recall effectiveness beyond the correction rate, CPSC will have a more complete picture of recall effectiveness, particularly for product recalls where consumers may be more likely to dispose of the product rather than pursue a remedy that would show up in the correction rate.
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