Federal Manager's Daily Report Wednesday, September 8, 2004 Published by FEDweek, the federal government's largest information resource with now over one million weekly readers to its electronic newsletters.
*********************************************************** Federal Manager's Daily Report is a brand new FREE daily electronic report for all federal managers and supervisors featuring the day's top stories on management and workforce issues. Please pass this information on to your fellow colleagues. You can sign up for this free daily report at http://www.fedweek.com/subscribepopup.htm. *********************************************************** In Today's Issue: 1. Pipeline Safety Enforcement Program Needs Stronger Management, Says GAO 2. Jump in FOIA Requests 3. OPM To Offer Project Management Training Courses On-Location http://www.leadership.opm.gov/courselist.cfm. *********************************************************** 1. Pipeline Safety Enforcement Program Needs Stronger Management, Says GAO The Department of Transportation's Office of Pipeline Safety which regulates the flow of hazardous liquids such as natural gas, cannot determine if recent changes to its strategy are successful because the agency has not set goals, fully defined its strategy or established performance measures linked to goals that would allow an assessment of results, the Government Accountability Office has said. It said a natural gas pipeline ruptured near Carlsbad, New Mexico, in 2000, killed 12 people, and resulted in $1 million in damages and losses. OPS believes efforts such as its new risk-based regulatory approach will change the safety culture of the industry and that it intends to devote more attention to strengthening the management of its enforcement program, said GAO. It said that although OPS is developing an enforcement policy to help define its enforcement strategy and has started identifying performance measures, the policy will not be ready until sometime during 2005. Further, OPS lacks a systematic approach for incorporating key practices identified for achieving successful performance measurement systems, said GAO. OPS has increased the number and the size of penalties against pipeline operators over the last four years after deciding to be "tough but fair," assessing an average of 22 per year compared to 14 in previous years and hiking the fine from $18,000 to $29,000 on average -- but it is unclear if the increases will deter noncompliance, according to GAO-04-801. It said some stakeholders believe the increases have a deterrent effect by keeping pipeline operators in the public eye while others said the penalties were too small as sanctions. Still, fewer than half of the 216 penalties levied from 1994 to 2003 have been collected, which GAO says is partly because OPS lacks effective management controls and because it does not routinely inform its collection agent of penalties it has assessed. 2. Jump in FOIA Requests The total number requests under the freedom of information act for fiscal 2003 rose 36 percent over 2002, to an all-time high of 3,266,394, according to a summary of FOIA reports for fiscal 2003 from federal departments and agencies released by the Department of Justice. It said more than half of the increase was due to an unusually large number of requests to the Social Security Administration -- it more than doubled over the past year and increased 12-fold over the past five years -- with the remainder being mostly requests to the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of the Treasury, the Department of Agriculture, and the Department of Veterans Affairs. VA reported the highest number of requests, 1,854,166, a 23 percent increase over 2002, followed by DHS with 161,117 and HHS with 146,257, according to the summary. 3. OPM To Offer Project Management Training Courses On-Location The Office of Personnel Management has responded to demand for project management courses by restructuring and beefing up those it currently offers and will travel to employees around the country to offer on-premises training. It said the curriculum includes recommendations from the government's chief financial and information officers as well as current thinking and project management practices that recognize it as a discipline for which professional certification is appropriate. The courses will provide one-on-one consultation with experts, and participants will prepare for the project management institute's certification exam, leading to "the most widely-recognized and coveted credential in the industry," according to OPM. For more information visit: http://www.leadership.opm.gov/courselist.cfm. Published by FEDweek LLC 11551 Nuckols Rd. Suite L Glen Allen, VA 23059 (804) 288-5321 Website: http://www.fedweek.com A 100% Veteran-Owned Business [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- You are subscribed to federalmanagersdailyreport as [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe, send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Make a clean sweep of pop-up ads. Yahoo! Companion Toolbar. Now with Pop-Up Blocker. Get it for free! http://us.click.yahoo.com/L5YrjA/eSIIAA/yQLSAA/BCfwlB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> <a href=http://English-12948197573.SpamPoison.com>Fight Spam! Click Here!</a> Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/kumpulan/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! 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