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4. Program Overview: Cooperation and Communication Are Fundamental

Program Overview: Cooperation and Communication Are Fundamental

The Department of the Navy's (Navy) General Counsel is the Designated Agency Ethics Official (DAEO); the Judge Advocate General is Alternate DAEO. This high-level support is crucial to the functioning of the Navy's ethics program. The Assistant General Counsel for Ethics (AGC) is primarily responsible for managing and coordinating Navy's ethics program. Ethics counselors throughout Navy administer the ethics program at their respective organization, activity, or geographic area.

The Navy's ethics program relies heavily upon coordination between the primary ethics office within Navy's Office of General Counsel and ethics counselors and officials in component organizations. Cooperation and communication are fundamental to the consistent and cohesive management which is the essence of the Navy's program.

The public financial disclosure system is managed Navy-wide through the cooperative efforts of component ethics counselors and officials from civilian and military personnel offices. Civilian public reports are filed initially with component ethics counselors and are finally reviewed and certified by the AGC. Public reports filed by military personnel are also initially filed with component ethics counselors, but are finally reviewed and certified at Navy's Office of the Judge Advocate General (OJAG).

The confidential financial disclosure system is vast and decentralized due to the Navy's large number of widely dispersed confidential filers. The confidential system is administered discretely at each component by the component's ethics counselor. Typically, reports are filed with and initially reviewed by filers' immediate supervisors. Intermediate reviews by administrative officers, paralegals, or personnel officials are followed by final review and certification by component ethics counselors.

To meet OGE's annual training requirement, the AGC and officials from the Department of the Army's Standards of Conduct Office have in the past provided joint training at the Pentagon. Annual ethics training is also provided to Navy employees by Navy component ethics counselors. In addition, Navy ethics officials continually provide ethics training beyond that required by OGE and Department of Defense regulations. For example, the AGC and other ethics counselors routinely lead panel discussions and provide ethics training during the Navy Office of General Counsel conferences. Ethics counselors from OJAG also routinely provide post-employment briefings at pre-retirement and transition seminars.

Counseling is provided by component ethics counselors. The AGC provides overall guidance to the ethics counselors and often assists them in providing accurate advice. In addition to advising personnel within their own component organization, OJAG ethics counselors provide a significant amount of ethics advice to over 200 ethics counselors and staff judge advocates throughout the Navy. The AGC also conducts a monthly ethics round table with ethics counselors from throughout the Navy to discuss current issues and to share information.