Agency Ethics Program Administration

At its heart, the purpose of the "ethics in Government" program is to ensure that executive branch decisions are neither tainted by nor appear to be tainted by any question of conflicts of interest on the part of the employees involved in the decisions. Because the integrity of decisionmaking is fundamental to every Government program, the head of each agency has primary responsibility for the day-to-day administration of the "ethics in Government" program.

Each agency head selects an individual employee of that agency to serve as the agency's Designated Agency Ethics Official (DAEO). It is these individuals and the additional staff of each agency tasked with supporting an agency's ethics program (collectively known as the executive branch "ethics community") with whom OGE primarily deals and to whom we communicate policy and regulatory changes. Further information about agency specific ethics programs can be obtained through contact with the DAEOs (PDF) of the agencies.