Ongoing Concerns with Realignment Planning for the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement

The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) has been attempting to realign its organization using the National Program Manager Initiative concept. The concept follows a national program model, which will coordinate headquarters policy development with field execution. BSEE has been discussing using this model for over a year, but it has yet to provide OIG with timelines associated with milestones for this initiative.

 

BSEE’s director and deputy director presented the initiative to us, requesting that we suspend our evaluation of BSEE’s Incident Investigation Program until BSEE completes its realignment. We agreed to suspend that evaluation to allow BSEE’s management more time to finish its realignment; however, we issued a report with findings and recommendations developed during the survey phase of the evaluation.

 

When we asked for timelines for the realignment implementation, we were told that BSEE did not have them but was developing its priorities. Without an action plan identifying timelines for implementing milestones, BSEE’s realignment initiative may not be effectively or successfully implemented. We made, therefore, the recommendation to develop an action plan promptly for implementing the National Program Manager Initiative and to include timelines and responsible officials for major milestones, such as policy and procedure development as well as staffing and training plans associated with the realignment implementation.