WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The Department of Defense has been failing to implement recommended programs fully to improve professionalism and ethics within the US armed forces, a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report said.
"[The Defense Department] has not fully addressed a 2008 internal recommendation to develop a department-wide values-based ethics program, which would emphasize ethical principles and decision-making to foster an ethical culture and achieve high standards of conduct," the report, issued on Thursday, stated.
The Defense Department has a management framework to help oversee its existing ethics program and has initiated steps to establish such a framework to oversee its professionalism-related programs and initiatives, but its efforts could be strengthened in both areas, the GAO warned.
The GAO noted the Defense Department has decided to take "no further actions to establish a values-based ethics program," not it has demonstrated that "additional actions are unwarranted or assessed the feasibility of expanding training to additional personnel."
The Office for the Senior Advisor for Military Professionalism (SAMP) "has not developed timelines or information to assess its progress in completing its major tasks," the GAO pointed out.
Thus, the Defense Department does not have information to track the office's progress or assess whether the SAMP position should be retained after March 2016."
Additionally, the Defense Department has not fully implemented two key tools for identifying and assessing ethics and professionalism issues, and it has not developed performance metrics to measure its progress in addressing ethics-related issues, the report added.
Guidance issued by the military services for command climate assessments does not meet all statutory requirements as well as Defense Department guidance, according to the GAO.
"As a result, the services do not have the required level of accountability during the performance evaluation process over the occurrence of these assessments," the report observed.
US federal internal control standards emphasize the assessment of performance over time, but the Defense Department is unable to determine whether its ethics and professionalism initiatives are achieving their intended effect because it has not developed metrics to measure their progress, the report concluded.
The US Government Accountability Office is an independent, nonpartisan agency that works for Congress and investigates how the US federal government spends taxpayer money.
