New MSPB Report! "Blowing the Whistle: Barriers to Federal Employees Making Disclosures"
MSPB Reports Progress for Whistleblowers, but More Can be Done
There are laws in place to protect Federal whistleblowers from retaliatory personnel actions. However, according to a recent report issued by the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), titled Blowing the Whistle: Barriers to Federal Employees Making Disclosures, a fear of retaliation may not be the biggest barrier to employees blowing the whistle. The report contains the results of a recent survey of Federal employees conducted by MSPB.
The survey data indicate that the most important factor for employees when deciding whether to report wrongdoing is not the personal consequences for the employee. Saving lives was more important to survey respondents than whether they would experience punishment or a reward, and whether the agency would act on a report of wrongdoing mattered more than any fear of an unpleasant consequence for the employee making the report.
“This is an important finding,” explains Chairman Susan Tsui Grundmann, “because it means that agencies have the power to make a difference. If an agency creates a culture where its employees believe that management wants to be told about wrongdoing and will address issues raised by the employees, then the employees are more likely to report it.” The MSPB report notes that it is better for both the agency and the public if wrongdoing is addressed early, and the agency’s culture is a critical factor in achieving this.
The MSPB based its survey questions, in part, on a survey that it conducted in 1992, and the report offers a look at the environment for Federal whistleblowers now and then. The MSPB’s data indicates that since 1992, the percentage of employees who perceive any wrongdoing has decreased; and for those who perceive wrongdoing, the frequency with which they observe the wrongdoing has also decreased. However, among those individuals who indicated that they reported wrongdoing and were identified as the source of the report, perceptions of retaliation remained a serious problem with approximately one-third of such respondents in both 1992 and 2010 perceiving either threats or acts of reprisal, or both.
According to Chairman Grundmann, “This report shows that there has been progress in reducing fraud, waste, and abuse in the Government, but it also shows that more needs to be done to create a safe environment for employees to report wrongdoing. This includes making certain that employees receive training about how they can disclose wrongdoing and how they can exercise their rights if they perceive that they have experienced or been threatened with retaliation for making a protected disclosure."
This report is one in a series that MSPB is undertaking under its studies authority to draw attention to prohibited personnel practices (PPPs) and merit system principles. In addition to this new report, MSPB recently released reports on whistleblower rights and PPPs. The MSPB is currently working on a study of employee perceptions related to the merit system principles. The MSPB studies are available at no cost on our website at www.mspb.gov/studies.
Tags: MSPB, report, whistleblower
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Mark Hammer on
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What you want is the "double feature": the report released today, and the report in early December last year, entitled "Whistleblower Protections for Federal Employees".
One of the things the earlier report makes rather clear is that the laws surrounding disclosure of wrongdoing are frequently not well understood by federal employees. Enough such that a great many things brought forward by employees are deemed to not be disclosures of wrongdoing. In some instances they do not fit the criteria for a "disclosure". In other instances they do not fit the criteria for a "wrongdoing". As such, the individuals are not protected by law against reprisals, because there has to be a disclosure of wrongdoing for there to be protection.
Many presumed disclosures fall under the general category of what are termed "debatable managerial decisions". That is, the employee may believe that a manager has done something that they consider unethical, or a reckless expenditure, but it falls under the legal authorities of the manager, and is not illegal, strictly speaking, or an endangerment to the agency being able to accomplish its mandate, so it can not be considered a "wrongdoing".
I fully understand the need for whistleblower legislation to balance off the needs well-meaning employees to bring the unethical and irresponsible to light, with the needs of management to be able to take decisions without having to constantly fear disruptive actions by staff who may not understand the reasoning behind the decision. But, insomuch as there exist a great many scenarios where federal employees may mistakenly believe they have the force of law behind them but they actually fall through the cracks in the law, small wonder then that many employees might perceive the prospect of "it will all be for nothing" as a deterrent.
This perceived deterrent, however, is - to my way of thinking at least - not so much a result of the laws, or of the intransigence of their management or the mechanisms of recourse (though I am not discounting that), but rather of the widespread misunderstanding of what the law does and does not cover. I am not blaming the victim, since it may easily be the case that employers have not done enough to articulate what the law does and does not cover in a comprehensible manner, and on a regular basis for all those new employees. But ultimately, if you're going to continue to have faith in the system, you're going to need to have reasonable and realistic expectations about the system, and that takes effective communication in addition to eager learners.
In any event, if you are tempted to read the recent report, do yourself a favour and read the other one first. Good stuff and a shining example of money well spent on MSPB.
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