Federal Workforce: Selected Sites Cannot Show Fair and Open Competition for Temporary Jobs

Abstract

Of 130 randomly selected appointments that the General Accounting Of fice reviewed at the 11 installations, 121 lacked documentation, precluding a determination that fair and competitive practices were followed in making temporary appointments. The results from reviewing the 130 appointments are projectable to the 8,800 temporary appointments made by the 11 installations. It is estimated that about 8,300 to 8,800 appointments lacked the documentation required to demonstrate fair and competitive practices. Agency personnel officials gave several reasons for not maintaining required documentation. For example, several of these officials said OPM's documentation requirements are not always clearly stated. Despite these officials' concerns about the clarity of documentation requirements, the 11 installations either had no written procedures or, if they had them, they lacked certain elements specified or inferred in OPM's guidance - such as the need to demonstrate that job announcements were sent to state employment offices and OPM. Personnel officials at two installations told us that they believed a system to ensure compliance wtih merit selection requirements would serve little purpose because often more temporary positions were available than applicants. However, because these officials do not document their merit selection process, they cannot demonstrate that all applicants were hired and that all those who were hired were qualified.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Sep 05, 1990
Accession Number
ADA227670

Entities

People

  • Joseph J. Buschy
  • Steven J. Wozny

Organizations

  • United States Government Accountability Office

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  • Biomedical
  • Human Systems

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  • Business Administration
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  • Deficiencies
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  • Employment
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  • United States

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  • Government Contracting/Procurement.
  • Government and Public Administration Law.
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  • AI & ML
  • AI & ML - DoD AI Strategy