Summary

A survey of federal workers who have sought whistleblower reprisal protection from the Office of Special Counsel (OSC) found that the vast majority were frustrated with the complaint process and did not believe that investigators gathered all of the information needed to examine their claims. Believing that OSC failed to act on their behalf, most survey respondents said that they needed to hire a lawyer to protect their interests. Also, most of the respondents did not seem to fully understand the process. GAO concludes that OSC needs to look into the reasons for this level of dissatisfaction and work with Congress to address the problems. Education about the whistleblower protection process clearly needs attention. Federal workers need to know about their right to protection from whistleblower reprisals, the four elements needed to prove that reprisal has occurred, and the challenges that complainants may encounter in pursuing their cases.

GAO found that: (1) most of the federal employees surveyed rated OSC performance as poor and were not satisfied with its handling of their cases; (2) most respondents did not understand the whistleblower complaint process and were not fully informed of the procedures involved and the probability of success before they filed their complaints; (3) most respondents believed that OSC did not act on their behalf and they needed their own counsel to protect their interests; and (4) the respondents that received corrective action on their complaints were generally satisfied with OSC performance, but more than one-third of them believed OSC performed poorly.