Chemical Safety Board:

Recent Organizational Changes and Status of Operations

T-RCED-00-101: Published: Mar 2, 2000. Publicly Released: Mar 2, 2000.

Additional Materials:

Contact:

Peter F. Guerrero
(202) 512-4907
contact@gao.gov

 

Office of Public Affairs
(202) 512-4800
youngc1@gao.gov

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board's organizational changes, determining the status of the Board's: (1) organization; (2) operations; and (3) efforts to update and develop plans, policies, and procedures for accomplishing the Board's mission.

GAO noted that: (1) the Board is operating under a significantly different organizational structure than was in effect during most of its first 2 years of operation; (2) this new structure requires a majority vote of the Board members for substantive management decisions and delegates some specific responsibilities, such as personnel matters, to individual Board members; (3) in contrast, during the first 2 years of operation, the Chairman had individually made substantive management decisions; (4) the current structure represents an interim solution to address two governance issues: (a) the lack of an appointed chairperson since January 2000; and (b) disagreements concerning the roles of the chairperson and Board members; (5) in addition, the Board has implemented an organizational realignment that dedicates an increased proportion of the Board's staffing resources to its investigations and safety programs, rather than supporting activities; (6) however, only 7 of the 17 investigative and safety positions are filled because of, among other things, difficulties in recruiting qualified staff; (7) in terms of operations, the Board has made minimal progress in addressing the backlog of incomplete investigations that existed as of April 1999, when GAO last reported on the Board; (8) specifically, since then, only one of nine outstanding investigations has been completed, and no new investigations were initiated; (9) the Board has made progress in developing needed plans, policies, and procedures, such as those for awarding and managing contracts and selecting incidents to investigate; and (10) however, the agency's strategic plan, required by the Government Performance and Results Act, will not be completed until September 2000.

Jan 19, 2021

Jan 15, 2021

Jan 13, 2021

Jan 7, 2021

Dec 18, 2020

Dec 9, 2020

Dec 7, 2020

Nov 20, 2020

Looking for more? Browse all our products here