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Executive Order 13197-- Governmentwide Accountability for Merit System Principles; Workforce Information

This order makes formal OPM's responsibility to hold Executive departments and agencies more accountable to the President for effective human resources management (HRM). By amending Civil Service Rules V and VII and adding two new Civil Service rules, it:

(a) clarifies OPM's authority to require agencies to establish their own systems for ensuring that their HRM practices are consistent with merit system principles;

(b) clarifies OPM's authority to collect workforce information from agencies and strengthens OPM's authority to establish basic standards of quality for the agency information; and

(c) clarifies OPM's authority to review and report on agencies' HRM programs and practices that are outside Title 5, enabling OPM to share with other agencies information on the most effective programs while ensuring that any inconsistencies with merit system principles do not go unnoticed.

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Historical Background

The U.S. Office of Personnel Management's authority to evaluate Federal personnel management dates from the Civil Service Act of 1883, when Congress authorized the new Civil Service Commission to “make investigations and reports on the practical effects of Commission action as well as department and agency action in accomplishing the purposes of this act.” Over the years, laws such as the Veterans Preference Act of 1944, the Classification Act of 1949, and the Performance Rating Act of 1950 have extended and defined OPM's oversight authority.

Over the years, the executive branch also has augmented OPM's evaluation authority. Some important presidential documents include:

Executive Order 9830(1947), which established the role of the personnel function in the management of Federal agencies and required the Commission “to maintain an adequate system of inspection to determine that equitable and sound application of statutes, Executive orders, regulations and standards relating to personnel management is being carried out by the agencies.”

Presidential Memorandum of October 9, 1969, which required agencies to establish internal personnel management evaluation systems and charged the Commission with:

1. Establishing standards for adequate evaluation systems,

2. Conducting research in and developing methods for evaluating personnel management,

3. Insuring that persons who engage in personnel management evaluation are properly qualified and receive the necessary training,

4. Assessing the adequacy of agency evaluation systems and requiring necessary improvement,

5. Maintaining its own capability to make independent evaluation of agency personnel management effectiveness sufficient to evaluate the adequacy of agency efforts and to supplement and complement such efforts, and

6. Collaborating and coordinating with the Bureau of the Budget in its overall responsibility for evaluating organization and management in the executive branch.

More recently, the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 abolished the Civil Service Commission and replaced it with several oversight agencies, including the Office of Personnel Management. That act also expressly stated the merit system principles in their present form. Other pertinent sections of title 5, United States Code, stemming from the reform act are:

Section 1103, which authorizes OPM to execute, administer, and enforce the civil service rules and regulations as well as to conduct studies and research into methods of improving personnel management. Section 1104, which requires OPM to establish and maintain an oversight program to insure that activities under delegated authorities are in accordance with the merit system principles and OPM standards. This section also authorizes OPM to require corrective action of agencies violating any law, rule, regulation, or OPM standard.

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