Performance Audit of Strategic Partnership Program
Occupational Safety and Health Administration For the Period January 1, 1995 through
February 28, 2002
05-02-007-10-001
This document is a summary of a printed document. The printed document
may contain charts and photographs which are not reproduced in this
electronic version. If you require the printed version of this document,
contact the Freedom of Information Act Officer, Office of Inspector
General, U.S. Department of Labor, Washington, DC 20210, or call
(202) 693-5116.
This report reflects the findings of the Office of Inspector General at
the time that the audit report was issued. More current information may
be available as a result of the resolution of this audit by the Department
of Labor program agency and the auditee. For further information concerning
the resolution of this report's findings, please contact the program agency.
OIG has started using Acrobat 4.0 to prepare it's latest Audit reports. If
you are experiencing problems downloading some of the larger PDF files, you
may want to download the latest version of the Adobe Acrobat Reader by
clicking the link provided below.
The objectives of our audit were to determine how effective the Occupational Safety and Heath
Administration (OSHA) was in establishing OSHA Strategic Partnerships (OSPs) through its
outreach efforts, and if OSPs were making an impact in improving safety and health conditions
in the workplace.
In the mid 1990�s, OSHA refocused its way of conducting business from traditional enforcement
interventions, to more cooperative voluntary efforts between employers, workers, and OSHA.
The OSP program was part of this shift in strategy to more cooperative assistance. Although
OSPs have been encouraged, and have grown to a total of 159 in February 2002, they continue to
represent a small portion of OSHA�s total cooperative assistance program. Although we
identified examples of partnership successes, we found that:
- Despite OSHA�s outreach efforts, the OSP program is having a limited national impact
because of the relatively few partnerships and participating employers.
- OSHA has been inconsistent in the application of OSP policies and procedures, data
collection, and enforcement of the program requirements.
- OHSA has not obtained corroborating information that would help ensure the integrity of
reported Lost Work Day Injury (LWDI) data.
In order to more fully realize the potential benefits of the OSP program, we recommend that the
Assistant Secretary for OSHA:
- Refocus existing outreach efforts and develop specific strategies to enlist more employers
so that OSPs can become a more prominent part of OSHA�s cooperative program;
- Ensure partnership policies and procedures are effectively communicated to all area and
field offices, and consistently applied in negotiating partnerships;
- Enforce requirement that program evaluation reports be completed yearly for all
partnerships;
- Ensure verification inspections are performed as required;
- Share encouraging preliminary results of the OSP program with potential OSP
participating employers;
- Explore procedures for obtaining information to corroborate LWDI information supplied
by all partnerships as part of the program evaluation reports; and
- Correct and update the OSP log information, and transfer information to a database
system.
OSHA generally concurred with our recommendations and agreed to implement them.
However, OSHA did express concern about forcing the expansion of the OSP to gain a
critical mass. Excerpts from OSHA�s response have been incorporated into appropriate
sections of the report, along with our comments. The response is also included in its entirety
as Appendix I of the report.
Get Complete Report
