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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