GAO's Discrimination Complaint Process and Mediation Program: A Report of the Pesonnel Appeals Board

Pursuant to the authority granted to it under the General Accounting Office (GAO) Personnel Act of 1980, the Personnel Appeals Board has statutory responsibility to oversee equal employment opportunity (EEO) at GAO. As part of this responsibility, the Board undertook an oversight study of the discrimination complaint process and the mediation program at GAO. The Board initially decided to conduct a study for the purpose of determining whether GAO's use of mediation, a form of alternative dispute resolution, in the discrimination complaint process serves as an adequate means of addressing complaints of discrimination. Midway through the Board's study, the GAO internal order under which the discrimination complaint process and the mediation program are administered underwent expensive revision. In light of major changes in the discrimination complaint process implemented by GAO, the Board decided to expand its study of the mediation program to include the operation of the discrimination complaint process from the initial contact with a pre-complaint counselor through the issuance of the agency's final decision. The mediation program at GAO has established itself as an integral and institutional pert of the EEO complaint process. It functions efficiently and boasts a high degree of success. However, the continued success of the program may be dependent, in part, upon the provision of an effective method for the parties to enforce resulting settlement agreements. Without such a mechanism, the program will eventually lose credibility and its success will decline.