Federal Manager's Daily Report Friday, October 1, 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. GAO Sees Opportunities to Use Contractors in Classification Appeals 2. OMB Cracks Down on P2P File Sharing 3. NTEU, IRS Agree to Mitigate RIF Impact ***********************************************************
1. GAO Sees Opportunities to Use Contractors in Classification Appeals Federal agencies have opportunities to use private contractors "to conduct at least some of the activities involved in functions such as classification appeals and administrative investigations," the Government Accountability Office has said, in response to questions following a Senate hearing on progress in human capital management. It said contractors might conduct research or interviews in support of investigations, but that federal employees should conduct other functions such as final appeals determinations. The Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, the Federal Workforce, and the District of Columbia Committee on Governmental Affairs, asked GAO where the line should "be drawn between what are and what aren't inherent government functions in human capital work." GAO brought up an April 2002 report from the commercial activities panel noting the difficulty in nailing down a definition of "inherently governmental," even though it cited a general consensus that certain functions that should be performed by federal workers. However, the panel, chaired by GAO, determined that federal employees should always conduct activities such as "establishing policy or regulations, enforcing these regulations, and adjudicating disputes, among other things." Asked whether the term "alternative service delivery" was a euphemism for "contracting out," GAO replied that ASD can also refer to one federal agency using another, for functions such as employee assistance programs, training and advisory services. It used as an example the Census Bureau's partnership and data services program that, "established partnerships with national, state, and local organizations to recruit census takers during Census 2000." GAO cited the National Academy of Public Administration's position on who should perform which human capital functions: "The final determination on selecting, hiring, promoting, rewarding, punishing, and removing employees must be done by federal employees. A line manager may exercise final determinations with human resources, in house or outsourced, serving as a consultant to the responsible official; overall human capital policy must be made by agency staff and reflect federal law and regulation as well as agency values and priorities; setting performance standards - agency managers must enact standards and make final judgment as to compliance; and, contract management and oversight - qualified and knowledgeable human capital professionals must be used to ensure that outsourced providers deliver high-quality service at a reasonable cost." GAO-04-1072R. 2. OMB Cracks Down on P2P File Sharing The Office of Management and Budget has issued a memo calling on agencies to update or put in place employee guidelines on peer-to-peer file sharing -- based on guidance developed by the CIO Council in 1999 -- by December 1, as well as train employees on personal use policies of government IT and begin reporting on P2P training in their annual Federal Information Security Management Act reports. It said IT security or ethics training must encompass personal use policies and improper file sharing, and be consistent with OMB circular A-130, appendix III, paragraph 3-a-b, which states that employees must be "trained in how to fulfill their security responsibilities." The memo directs agencies to "implement security controls to prevent and detect improper file sharing," and said, "operational controls detailing procedures for handling and distributing information and management controls outlining rules of behavior for the user must ensure the proper controls are in place to prevent and detect improper file sharing." http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/memoranda/fy04/m04-26.html 3. NTEU, IRS Agree to Mitigate RIF Impact The National Treasury Employees Union has reached an agreement with the Internal Revenue Service to mitigate the impact of the IRS's planned reductions of its modernization and IT services campus operations, end user equipment services, and enterprise operations. The agreement calls for "indirect buyouts to create vacancies in MITS that RIF-impacted employees may move into," as well as "the use of direct buyouts, early outs, and priority reassignment within MITS, along with priority reassignment of EUES and EOS employees back into the IRS's large and mid-size business and small business-self-employed divisions," said the union. NTEU said it would continue to negotiate the procedures to be used for the buyouts, priority assignments, and outplacement services. 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]
