Audit of VA's ADVANCE and the Corporate Senior Executive Management Office Human Capital Programs

The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs requested OIG to assess how effectively VA manages its ADVANCE human capital program. We found VA achieved many of its human capital program goals with ADVANCE and its Corporate Senior Executive Management Office (CSEMO). Since FY 2010, VA met its annual goal by training over 135,000 employees. However, VA needs to strengthen its OPM interagency agreement managements and better assess program impact. With the rapid deployment of ADVANCE, VA did not establish adequate controls over interagency agreement costs and terms. We estimated, although data was limited, the standardized service fee applied during FY 2011 cost VA an additional $2.5 million. We recommended VA assess whether its relationship with OPM is in VA’s best interest and improve the ADVANCE program by developing processes to collect and monitor contractor costs as well as timely and complete information on interagency agreement terms and improve program impact measures. The Assistant Secretary concurred with the recommendations and provided plans to implement the recommendations.