Summary

In response to a congressional request, GAO examined the Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) Enforcement Program to determine whether the securities market's continued growth and the decline of SEC staff have reduced assurance of market integrity.

GAO found that, to demonstrate its continued ability to manage growing securities markets with fewer staff, SEC maintained that it increased the productivity of its enforcement program; however, the numbers it used were not statistically valid since they did not conform to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' (BLS) productivity measurement criteria of homogeneity, which required that output measures consist of relatively equal units with respect to labor requirements. Because of variations in subjects, investigative techniques, and the amount of time and resources spent on each enforcement action, GAO believes that the productivity figures are limited in their ability to show that SEC maintained an effective enforcement activity level.